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Obama's Stump Speech Myths
Townhall.com ^ | July 11, 2012 | Brent Bozell

Posted on 07/11/2012 5:11:44 AM PDT by Kaslin

Barack Obama has trouble telling the truth.

This is the man who admitted his memoir "Dreams from My Father" was semifictional. "For the sake of compression, some of the characters that appear are composites of people I've known, and some events appear out of precise chronology." Translation: On some pages, I'm taking poetic license with the facts to burnish my image.

The problem is, Obama's still using poetic license. So where are the reporters to point out when he doesn't tell the truth? Let's take just one typical Obama stump speech, on July 5 in Sandusky, Ohio, and look for the fibs and stretches. They're not hard to find.

1. There are the biographical tall tales. "My grandfather fought in Patton's army." In 2009, AP's Nancy Benac noted that the president's grandfather, Stanley Dunham, was in a supply and maintenance company, not in combat. That's noble work, but "fought in Patton's army" implies something else. Moreover, Benac reported Dunham's company was assigned to Patton's army for two months in 1945, and then quoted Obama's own self-boosting memoir: "Gramps returned from the war never having seen real combat." Why has Benac been alone in exploring this blatant exaggeration?

2. There are the policy myths. "So when folks said let's go ahead and let the auto industry go bankrupt, we said no let's bet on American workers. Let's bet on American industries, and now, GM is back on top, and Chrysler is moving, and Ford is going strong."

Put aside for a moment that GM being "on top" is a stretch. GM still owes the public $30 billion for the bailout. But the real screamer in that passage is Ford never succumbed to bankruptcy and bailouts and therefore shouldn't be included in any boast of any sort of Obama achievements.

Some lines in the speech just sound ridiculous based on the last three and a half years, such as: "I want to balance our budget. I want to reduce our deficit, deal with our debt, but I want to do it in a balanced and responsible way." This might not be strictly "false" -- it's opinion -- but it's certainly disingenuous. He said the same thing in 2008 and then delivered the biggest trillion-dollar deficit in history.

Obama also refuses to admit the failure of the "stimulus," claiming in one passage, "I do want to rebuild our roads and our bridges" because it would "put a lot of people back to work -- and that's good for the entire economy." Except, it's demonstrably not true.

3. Then there are the religious myths. "When I first got my job as an organizer for the Catholic churches in Chicago ... they taught me that no government program can replace good neighbors and people who care deeply about their communities (and) who are fighting on their behalf."

In how many ways is this deeply insincere? Obama was hired by a Jewish Alinsky-ite leftist named Jerry Kellman for something called the Developing Communities Project, which did have Catholic support, but Obama's own memoir described the community organizing work as a chance to "start to build power" -- with a "hard-headedness" based on "politics, not religion."

In his stump speech, Obama's trying to create two false impressions: 1) That he's not waging war on the Catholic Church with his Department of Health and Human Services mandate to force Catholics to fund contraceptives and sterilization against their conscience. 2) That he's some sort of moderate about how government programs couldn't possibly replace person-to-person private charity. If he were Catholic, he might be excommunicated.

4. Finally, there are the campaign myths. Obama bizarrely told the crowd in Sandusky "back in 2008, everybody said we couldn't do it because we were outspent, we weren't favored." Did Obama mean in the primary race? By a slim margin, he outraised Hillary Clinton, who was the early favorite. But this spin is comical if it refers to the general election, where Obama outraised McCain $779 million to $347 million.

Then Obama added: "That first race that I ran as a state senator, Michelle and I, we were going around knocking on doors, passing out leaflets. Nobody gave us a shot. Everybody said, 'Nobody can pronounce your name, how are you going to win?'" But Obama ran unopposed in 1996, both in the primary and the general election. In a burst of Chicago-style politics, Obama removed his primary opponents, including the incumbent state senator, Alice Palmer, from the ballot by challenging their signatures.

When will the alleged fact-checkers in the news media vet Obama's stump speech and demand he start telling the truth?


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; Politics/Elections; US: Ohio
KEYWORDS: barackobama; factcheck; speech

1 posted on 07/11/2012 5:11:52 AM PDT by Kaslin
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To: Kaslin
LIES
2 posted on 07/11/2012 5:17:06 AM PDT by Doogle ((USAF.68-73..8th TFW Ubon Thailand..never store a threat you should have eliminated))
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To: Doogle

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVdYgU5bsDc


3 posted on 07/11/2012 5:22:32 AM PDT by Road Warrior ‘04 (I miss President Bush! 2012 - The End Of An Error! (Oathkeeper))
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To: Kaslin
The answer my friend is blowing in the wind. The answer is blowing in the wind.
4 posted on 07/11/2012 5:58:29 AM PDT by Tupelo (TeaPartier ..... but no longer a Republican)
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To: Kaslin

I think Obama’s whole lie has been built on an edifice of lies. When you’ve told so many falsehoods as Obama has done about his past, it’s easy to lie to huge live audiences with a straight face. I’m sure Obama probably believes a lot of the fiction really happened he’s so wrapped up in himself.


5 posted on 07/11/2012 6:25:13 AM PDT by driftless2
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To: driftless2

I meant to say “Obama’s whole life has been built on an edifice of lies.”


6 posted on 07/11/2012 6:26:37 AM PDT by driftless2
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To: driftless2

Actuay, I think you got it right the first time


7 posted on 07/11/2012 6:37:18 AM PDT by muir_redwoods (Legalize Freedom!!)
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To: Kaslin

Joe Wilson was correct. And then some.


8 posted on 07/11/2012 6:46:48 AM PDT by upchuck (FACEBOOK... Share pointless stuff with friends you don't know. Beg for intrusion into your life.)
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To: Kaslin

Glenn Beck pointed out an observation that is a little scary. Obama cannot talk about his mother and grandparents, unless it’s off the teleprompter. He was fabricated so completely, he has no idea himself who the public thinks he is without the scripted teleprompter.


9 posted on 07/11/2012 6:48:44 AM PDT by BerryDingle (I know how to deal with communists, I still wear their scars on my back from Hollywood-Ronald Reagan)
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To: BerryDingle

Obama’s grandmother died shortly before the election in 2008. She was his only surviving close relative other than the half-sister and relatives in Africa he barely knows. But the media was never allowed to interview the grandmother during the 2008 campaign. Why? Afraid she might reveal something about Obama they wanted kept out of public view?


10 posted on 07/11/2012 11:09:53 AM PDT by Verginius Rufus
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To: driftless2

Whole life, whole lie, with him they are one and the same.


11 posted on 07/11/2012 12:19:35 PM PDT by RipSawyer (Free healthcare is worth FAR LESS than it costs.)
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To: Verginius Rufus
But the media was never allowed to interview the grandmother during the 2008 campaign. Why? Afraid she might reveal something about Obama they wanted kept out of public view?

That flight to Hawaii became an enigma when the media hushed up the entire whereabouts of Ozippy while he was there. Even Jimmy Carter's mother (Lilian) wasn't completely off limits to the media. This is a first and reminiscent of a foreign dictator. Two possible reasons, she didn't exist there, or she would reveal his true identity because she was never informed of his false identity.

12 posted on 07/11/2012 2:13:47 PM PDT by BerryDingle (I know how to deal with communists, I still wear their scars on my back from Hollywood-Ronald Reagan)
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