Keeping Track of Willard's Lies

It's time for Willard's Lies of the week.


Once again, I will point out the site on the blog roll: Romney The Liar: because there are Liars, Damn Liars, and then there's Mitt Romney.


Steve Benen, now at The Maddow Blog:. Here's last week's entry of Chronicling Mitt's mendacity:


The opening:

Chronicling Mitt's Mendacity, Vol. XXII


By Steve Benen - Fri Jun 15, 2012 1:59 PM EDT.


A New York Times editorial this morning noted, almost in passing, that Mitt Romney's "entire campaign rests on a foundation of short, utterly false sound bites." That's true, but the fact that such observations have become commonplace is itself rather jarring.


It's equally jarring to appreciate why Romney does this. As Kevin Drum explained this week, the Republican presidential hopeful tells falsehoods because he knows he can get away with it.


Politicians have increasingly discovered over the past couple of decades that even on a national stage you can lie pretty blatantly and pay no price, since the mainstream media, trapped in its culture of objectivity, won't really call you on it, limiting themselves to fact checking pieces ... buried on an inside page. And because virtually nobody except political junkies ever see this stuff, it doesn't hurt their campaigns at all.


I agree, and yet, I feel compelled to make an effort anyway, hoping that accountability still plays some role in the American political discourse. With that in mind, consider the 22nd installment of my weekly series, chronicling Mitt's mendacity.


1. Trying to clean up his own mess, Romney told Fox News, "[T]eachers and firemen and policemen are hired at the local level and also by states. The federal government doesn't pay for teachers, firefighters or policemen."


That's simply not true.


2. In Iowa, Romney blamed Obama for the fact that "the median income in America has dropped by 10 percent over the last four years."


That only makes sense if we count Obama's first year in office, which relies on a standard Romney believes is fundamentally unfair.


3. In the same Iowa speech, Romney claimed about the president, "[H]is answer for economic vitality by the way, was of course pushing aside the private sector."


There is no universe in which this is even remotely accurate.


4. Romney added that Obama has failed to "reduce the deficit."


Actually, Obama reduced the deficit in his first year in office by over $100 billion. What's more, the deficit is projected to shrink again this year.