Bill Maher, in relaying his last "New Rule" on the Jan. 27 episode of "Real Time," returned to an argument about the GOP presidential race that he has advanced regularly:
"You know, Republicans have created this completely fictional president. His name is Barack X. And he's an Islamo-socialist revolutionary who is coming for your guns, raising your taxes, slashing the military, apologizing to other countries, and taking his cues from Europe, or worse yet, Saul Alinsky! And this is how politics has changed. You used to have to run against an actual candidate. But, now, you just recreate him inside the bubble and run against your new fictional candidate."
(You can watch the clip of the whole "New Rule" here or read the transcript here.)
Maher isn't really exaggerating. Contrary to the fictional stories told by Republicans, the president has cut taxes (taxes are lower under Obama than they were under Ronald Reagan, and the tax burden on Americans is the lowest it's been since 1950), raised the military budget, been more aggressive in fighting Islamist militants than his predecessor (bin Laden and numerous dead Taliban and al-Qaida leaders would attest to this fact if they could, as well as all those hit by increased drone attacks, not to mention--although they're not Islamists--Qadafi and all the Somali pirates who have met their demise on the business end of American military hardware), and has not proposed or supported any anti-gun legislation (instead, signing a bill that included a Republican amendment allowing guns in national parks).
Andrew Sullivan did a great job in January of laying out the Obama created by the GOP and then showing how the facts spoil the Republican fiction.
And, to be clear, we're not just talking about fringe right-wing attention-seekers making stuff up about Obama. The GOP presidential frontrunner (is he still?), Mitt Romney, accused Obama of "putting free enterprise on trial" and delusionally claimed:
"President Obama believes that government should create equal outcomes. In an entitlement society, everyone receives the same or similar rewards, regardless of education, effort, and willingness to take risk. That which is earned by some is redistributed to the others."
Apparently, extending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy makes you an opponent of free enterprise, and continuing the bailout of the banks makes you a proponent of wealth redistribution.
(And if Rick Santorum is now the front-runner, which I don't buy, well, he makes Romney look clear-eyed regarding the president. According to Santorum, Obama wants Iran to have nuclear weapons, has "overt hostility to faith," has failed to fight "militant socialism," defunded abstinence-only programs because he wants "people to be in poverty," etc.)
But even as commentators start to note the GOP effort to create a fictional Barack Obama, it looks like Republicans have decided to double down on the stupid. That is, they have strayed from plausible lies (lies that, to the uninformed, could feel true) to absurd ones.
For example, on Tuesday, Sean Hannity made the ridiculous comment that Osama bin Laden's death "wouldn't have happened if he [Obama] had his way."
Really think about what he said for a second. When SEAL Team Six went into Pakistan to take out bin Laden, who gave the order? Here's a hint: He has an oval-shaped office in the White House. If Obama didn't want bin Laden killed, bin Laden would still be alive.
(Oh, and you'll notice the president didn't ask for Pakistan's permission to breach its borders, nor did he offer any apologies for doing so.)
By now, the story of the bin Laden mission is well known. Success was not assured. The president weighed all of the information at his disposal, which had been accumulated from years of bin Laden surveillance since his inauguration, and he took a calculated risk to approve the mission. According to Vice President Biden, when the president's senior advisers made their final recommendations, nobody (with the exception of CIA Director Leon Panetta) gave an unqualified yes. Most waffled. Biden offered a solid no. But the president opted to go forward.
If the mission had failed, Hannity would have surely placed the blame on Obama for making a reckless decision. But it worked. And now he's saying the president didn't want it to happen?
To throw a little more absurd syrup on top of the bat-s%#t-crazy sundae, remember that Obama didn't just succeed in getting bin Laden; he made it a priority, unlike his predecessor, who said,
"I really just don't spend that much time on him, to be honest with you."
In short, Hannity says the president who prioritized finding bin Laden and made the difficult and risky decision to take out the al-Qaida leader (something the previous president couldn't be bothered with) didn't really want to kill him.
This is the level of absurdity to which the right has sunk in creating a fake Barack Obama.
Maybe this is all a good sign. Maybe, despite gains in the 2010 midterms (when the Republicans successfully created a fake health care law: Death panels! Care for illegal immigrants! They're taking your Medicare!), the GOP doesn't think it can beat the real Obama in November. Or maybe Republicans are worried by the numerous instances of buyer's remorse since November 2010, with successful candidate and statute recalls in Wisconsin, Ohio and Maine, as well as recent polls showing the GOP in trouble in Ohio and Obama doing relatively well in the battleground states.
Whatever the reason, the American people may be easily fooled at times, but nobody outside of the right-wing echo chamber will believe that Barack Obama didn't want to kill bin Laden. (That's even less believable than the idea that the guy who opted to fight in Vietnam and was awarded three purple hearts was a coward, while the guy who pulled strings to get into the National Guard to avoid going to Vietnam was a courageous leader, right?)
The Republican construction of a fake Barack Obama has gone off the rails. I hope the GOP keeps it up, as it only helps Obama's chances in November.
Follow Mitchell Bard on Twitter: www.twitter.com/MitchellBard
If you are a young person or college student, you REALLY need to pay attention, because you are inheriting the deficit that Republicans created by giving tax breaks to billionaires. Ask yourself, why are republicans trying to keep you from voting? It's because sooner or later they know you are going to figure out which party has really done all the damage to this country.
It is really sad commentary that a once proud political party has sunk to the depths of today's GOP. They cannot win an election on their own merits and have to destroy the opposition to tilt the playing field toward themselves. Sad. Very sad.
So with Obama, after he helped bail the 1% butts out of hot water, they want the GOP back to give them more goodies. They have to paint the president as some other world person using race, socialism, etc to riled the grass root goons up to fever pitches let what was exemplified during hay day of tea party (2009 - 2010).
I am fortunate being retired to hear all of prez news conferences, etc to hear the words coming out of his mouth and not rely on the 1% sponsored media. Most of the things the media report on what prez said never came out of his mouth. They lie, distort and misinform, no wonder the american people are so confused.
The 1% using the GOP are deploying psych operations on the people.
Yes Mitt. EXACTLY right! That which is "EARNED" by those who do real "WORK" is redistributed by the current system to those with power and influence to pillage and siphon it away by Wall Streeters running hedge funds and the like. Then they further use their power and influence to buy distorted tax statutes that prevent any of it from being recovered by the government through taxation. I'm glad you've FINALLY come 50% of the way and recognized the problem. Now we just need to get you to look in the mirror and it will be a new day in America.
Am I the only one sick of seeing millionaire and billionaire right-wingers claiming their 60 or 70 hour work weeks (by CHOICE) to feed the sickening, gluttonous, avaricious need to overcompensate for the subconcious realization that they are the dregs of humanity is in ANY way equivalent to working two or three part-time minimum wage jobs to try and feed and clothe your family and continuing to fall further and further behind? Are human beings capable of rising to such priveliged positions, whether deservedly or not, so stupid as to actually believe the stress from scenario one is even in the same universe as scenario two?
I feel thankful that when I was in such a position I had no family of my own to support. You get a job, they promise you minimum of 12 hrs a week (Walmart). They praise you like you are the second coming of Sam Walton for your reliability, efficiency, hard work, and then REFUSE to give you a set shift so you can work another shit job. I agree that government is broken. I agree that the free market private sector is IN THEORY almost always a better choice as solution. IN PRACTICE even the most corrupt, the most ineptly run government effort ALWAYS outperforms the private sector. You are quite right to attack corruption first and foremost where it is most rampant. You are WAY off on identifying where that corruption is most prevalent. Whether that is out of ignorance, or wilful misrepresentation, only you know.
I've dragged myself out of that mire. Unlike a sickening right-winger, I don't think it was because Jesus considers me superior, or that I'm some Randian Social Darwinist ideal.
And, somewhere deep inside, I suspect a lot of them don't feel that great about having allowed Bush to be forced on them in 2000, and having naively re-elected him in 2004, and can't really deal with that, either.
Your assertion that anyone who disagree's with you is ignorant and hateful, actually makes you appear that way. All things considered, I am an American with a political philosophy that differs from yours...I love my brothers and sisters regardless of their political preference (my wife is a Lib). So rather than speculating on motives you are obviously oblivious to, why don't you debate facts and philosophy.
Admit it, man. Your party has imploded. It's all about social issues now. It's been widely discussed that your R presidential candidates haven't got a clue how to solve any of the country's problems. Hell's bells, they can't stop talking about abortion and gays long enough to even think about it. You sound like a reasonable guy who probably does have good ideas about stuff, but your party has been hijacked completely by the tea party and their radical religious agenda, so don't blame that on us Dems/Libs. If your party actually cared about the economy and fixing problems, they'd have shown it in Congress, instead of railing constantly about social issues and wasting time issuing "proclamations" about "In God We Trust". They'd have shown it by actually doing something productive, instead of making their #1 goal the destruction of President Obama.
17) Under which party over the last 100 years has the economy done better. DEMs , not even close.
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2008/10/14/opinion/20081014_OPCHART.html
18) Cap and trade is a Repub Plan, that McCain and Palin ran under?
19) Health insurance mandates is a repub idea, that every repub since 1994 ran under?
20) Reagan trippled our national debt, bailed out car companies and S&Ls, raised taxes 11 times, said it was unfair for a bus driver to pay at a higher tax rate than a millionare, raised cap gains to 28%? All true.
21) The USA is ranked one of the top 5 easiest countries to do business in? True.
22) U.S. ranks 14th in wages, 11th in GDP per person, exports less than Germany. True.
23) The EU is the largest economy in the world. True.
24) U.S. spends the second most on healthcare in the world per person, to cover the the smallest percent, twice as much as Single payer countries who cover everyone and have better healthcare. TRUE, we rank 37th...
25) More MFG/Private sector jobs added under Obama than Bush...YES..
26) Did Obama attend in Indonesia a Madrassa? No, it was a Jesuit school.
27) Was Obama as an adult employed by the Catholic Church?, Yes as acommunity organizer to retrian workers whose jobs had been exported by the Mitts of the world.
1) Is oil production up or down under Obama? Yes
2) Is gas production up or down under Obama?.Yes
3) Is gas our number one export under Obama? Yes
4) Are our corporate taxes among the highest in the world? No, second lowest
5) Are our corporate effective tax rates just 12.5% per the CBO? True.
6) Our our taxes almost the lowest of all effective tax rates of major developed nations? Yes
7) Is GDP now higher than under Bush? yes.
8) Are middleclass taxes lowest in 80 years under Obama? yes
9) Are corporate profits the highest in 20 years under Obama? yes...
10) Is cash on hand in corporations the highest in decades? yes...
11) Does free trade exist? NO!
12) Have there been "Czars" under most presidents, including 33 under Bush? YES
13) CBO says that Obamacare will reduce healthcare costs and the federal budget? True
14) Did waterboarding help in the getting of Osama Bin laden? NO.
15) Were WMDs found in Iraq? NO
16) Whch party is most responsible for our debt? Repubs, not even close
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/07/the-chart-that-should-accompany-all-discussions-of-the-debt-ceiling/242484/
Regards