We Built It on Lies

Certainly there are lies and distortions enough in political campaigns, and neither party has claim to particularly high ground.  The Democrat's fondness for the "I like to fire people" quote is entirely dishonest.  Romney's statement, as made, had nothing to do with firing employees.  According to PolitiFact, here is the full quote.

"I want individuals to have their own insurance," Romney said. "That means the insurance company will have an incentive to keep you healthy. It also means if you don’t like what they do, you can fire them. I like being able to fire people who provide services to me. You know, if someone doesn’t give me a good service that I need, I want to say I’m going to go get someone else to provide that service to me."

Similarly, the Republican's claim that Obama insulted small business people by asserting that they didn't build their businesses is equally dishonest.  Here, as reported on both Slate.com and the White House website is the full quote in context.

Look, if you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own. You didn’t get there on your own. I’m always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart. There are a lot of smart people out there. It must be because I worked harder than everybody else. Let me tell you something — there are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there. If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business — you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen. The Internet didn’t get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet.

While these sorts of distortions and untruths may be common, it does seem that the Republicans went to a new low to build (pardon the pun) the entire theme of their national convention on an untruth, which they know to be an untruth. While thank Gawd I never watched a minute of the convention coverage and hope to watch exactly that same amount when the Democrats meet, it is my understanding from reading the convention coverage that they were pretty relentless at hammering on that theme that Obama hates successful businesses.

As Gail Collins pointed out in her column today:

“We built it” is one of the themes here, at the government-underwritten convention in a government-subsidized convention center in a city that rose on the sturdy foundation of government-subsidized flood insurance. 

And Bill Keller pointed out yesterday in his column "Lies, Damn Lies and G.O.P. Video", that each of three videos shown at the convention began with the same audio clip of Obama carefully edited so that he appears to be telling small business owners that they didn't build their own businesses.

Each of the videos, by the way, continues with the lament of a hard-working businessman – a Colorado farmer, the owner of a Nevada candy company, and the president of an Ohio electric company – each profoundly insulted by what Obama … um, never actually said. Or maybe the Republicans found the only three businessmen in America who have never made use of the interstate highway system or the Internet, never benefited from farm price supports or a government-backed student loan, never enjoyed a business-related tax break.