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 this week's entry of Chronicling Mitt's mendacity:

The opening:

Chronicling Mitt's Mendacity, Vol. XXIX

By Steve Benen -

Fri Aug 10, 2012 2:50 PM EDT.

Joe Klein reflected briefly on Mitt Romney this week, noting, "I can't remember a candidate so brazenly allergic to facts. What a travesty." Kevin Drum offered some related thoughts.

[I]t's common to twist and distort and cherry pick. But Romney has flatly claimed that Obama said something that, in fact, a John McCain aide said. He's snipped out sentences from an Obama speech and spliced the two halves back together so nobody can tell what he did. Then he did it again to another Obama speech. And he unequivocally said that Obama plans to drop work requirements for welfare even though he's done nothing of the sort.

This really is a post-truth campaign. It's different. It's one thing to be nasty. All campaigns are nasty. It's one thing to twist and distort and mock. Every campaign does that too.... But this is different. This is a presidential candidate just baldly making stuff up on the assumption that nobody will ever know.

The same afternoon, in an apparent attempt to push the 2012 campaign even deeper down the rabbit hole, a Romney spokesperson tweeted, "After months of distortions and lies, how can we trust anything the Obama campaign says?" She wasn't kidding.

Of course, if months of distortions and lies causes irreparable harm to a presidential candidate, Romney might as well pack up and go to one of his mansions now. To consider this problem in more detail, consider the 29th installment of my weekly series, chronicling Mitt's mendacity.

1. In a radio interview yesterday, Romney said of the president, "His campaign and the people working with him have focused almost exclusively on personal attacks."

That's both ironic and untrue.

2. In an attack ad launched this week, Romney said Obama "quietly announced a plan to gut welfare reform by dropping work requirements."

This is as obvious a lie as any presidential candidate has ever told.

3. In the same ad, Romney claims, "Under Obama's plan, you wouldn't have to work and wouldn't have to train for a job. They just send you your welfare check."

Even putting aside the racial subtext, the claim has no foundation in reality whatsoever.

4. In reference to voting rights in Ohio, Romney wrote on Facebook that Obama believes "it is unconstitutional for Ohio to allow servicemen and women extended early voting privileges."

This is ridiculously untrue. Obama wants servicemen and women to have extended early voting privileges, just like every other eligible voter in Ohio