GOP Convention a Lie-Fest Unchallenged by Media

The Republican Party's "strategy" is blatant lying about the Other Party and its Candidate, having nothing of its own to offer except the failed "concepts" of giving tax breaks to the rich, euphemistically referred to as "business" - note: neither "small" nor "big" - and pouring what's left - the lifeblood of the middle class - into overseas military adventures that benefit a few war profiteers in the upper crust of Republicandom and spill the blood of countless people for whom they care, apparently, more about as places to drape flags when they die and can be "praised for their sacrifice" than their actual life-problems.

The lies about Obama are grotesque, obvious, and need to be attacked, because nobody in the media is apparently interested in truth enough to do it.

Lie #1, from Bush-speechwriter-mouthpiece Sarah Palin:

"There is much to like and admire about our opponent. But listening to him speak, it's easy to forget that this is a man who has authored two memoirs but not a single major law or even a reform, not even in the state senate."

Oh yeah? What about this:

Here are three numbers every Obama supporter needs to know by heart:

820 and 427 and 152

820 is the number of 4laws Obama sponsored in the Illinois State Senate.
427 is the current count of the number of bills Obama has co-sponsored in the U.S. Senate.
152 is the most recent tally of the number of bills that Senator Obama has authored.
You can see his current legislative record here. Three of them, including S. 3558 ("A bill to provide for enhanced food-borne illness surveillance and food safety capacity") were moved upon just last week.

Actually, it's not hard to find bills by Obama that qualify both as major, and as reforms. As Andrew Sullivan points out:

...it seems extremely weird that she should believe that Obama's record is a total zero.

At her first press conference, why not ask her why she said that Obama has never passed a single reform, when he passed the 2007 Ethics Reform, described by many as the most sweeping package of its kind since Watergate. Of course, she doesn't know. She was given this speech. But she should be asked to respond to the question of why she said something patently untrue to the entire country.

As for Obama's community organizer experience, which Palin dismissed as being comparable to her stint as mayor of Wasilla, AK, check this out:

Governor Palin, Senator McCain and the whole RNC should be ashamed of themselves. They call themselves Christians and having high moral standards, but then they slam Senator Obama for not having executive experience when he was community organizing as the original Director of Developing Communities Project. For those of you who don't know what the project is, go here: Barack Obama not only grew the DCP from himself as the sole person to 13 total employees in his three years there, he also increased revenue from $70,000 annually to $400,000 annually. The area he served has well over 100,000 people. He did this all at the age of 22 while Governor Pailin was still a teenager.

The DCP is alive and well today with 32 employees and directors. It provides literacy assistance to the poor, anti-drug education to the young, and leadership training for young women as well as helping to empower the people of the South Side of Chicago to take control over their lives. Besides their children, has either Senator McCain or Governor Palin started something from scratch and built it into something independent of themselves. In three years from age 22 to 25 Senator Obama did something that most business leaders only dream of: created a self-sustaining entity, did it with the support of the community, for the benefit of all involved and that is alive and well after 23 years.

And say, did anyone mention the impressive feat of grassroots organizing that brought Barack Obama to be the Democratic nominee for President of the United States? That alone shows leadership skills - the sort of skill needed in a democracy, not an autocracy - that makes John McCain, he of many "across the aisle" years, look inexperienced.

Speaking of which, how about this:

Go to http://thomas.loc.gov and "Browse Bills By Sponsors" in the middle of the page - from there, you can see the bills currently in congress sponsored by each member. In this tally, could you guess who has more bills sponsored - Obama or McSame?

The count is 129 - 38. Obama wins AGAIN!

Freedom Takes Courage, Dissent, Honesty, and Real Reporting

It's time to address the issue of lying vs. honesty and reporting fairly or unfairly in our democracy. Carl Bernstein had something important to say on this in Frontline:


"I think what we're talking about with the Bush administration is a far different matter in which disinformation, misinformation and unwillingness to tell the truth -- a willingness to lie both in the Oval Office, in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, in the office of the vice president, the vice president himself -- is something that I have never witnessed before on this scale.

"The lying in the Nixon White House had most often to do with covering up Watergate, with the Nixon administration's illegal activities. Here, in this presidency, there is an unwillingness to be truthful, both contextually and in terms of basic facts that ought to be of great concern to people of all ideologies. ...

"This president has a record of dishonesty and obfuscation that is Nixonian in character in its willingness to manipulate the press, to manipulate the truth. We have gone to war on the basis of misinformation, disinformation and knowing lies from top to bottom. That is an astonishing fact. That's what this story is about: the willingness of the president and the vice president and the people around them to try to undermine people who have effectively opposed them by telling the truth. It happened with [Sen.] John McCain in South Carolina. It happened with [Sen.] John Kerry. It's happened with [Sen.] Max Cleland in Georgia. It's happened with many other people. That's the real story, and that's the story that [the press] should have been writing. ...

"It's very difficult, as a reporter, to get across that when you say, "This is a presidency of great dishonesty," that this is not a matter of opinion. This is demonstrable fact. If you go back and look at the president's statements, you look at the statements of the vice president, you look at the statements of Condoleezza Rice, you go through the record, you look at what[counterterrorism expert] Richard Clarke has written, you look at what we know -- it's demonstrable. It's fact.

"Now, how do you quantify it? That's a different question. But to me, if there is a great failure by the so-called mainstream press in this presidency, it's the unwillingness to look at the lies and disinformation and misinformation and add them up and say clearly, "Here's what they said; here's what the known facts were," because when that is done, you then see this isn't a partisan matter.

"This is a matter of the truth, particularly about this war. This is a presidency that is not willing to tell the truth very often if it is contrary to its interests. It's not about ideology from whence I say this. It's about being a reporter and saying: "That's what the story is. Let's see what they said; let's see what the facts are." ...

This issue is not "liberal" vs. "conservative": in theory, both sides have a vested interest in free speech, in reporting not being biased, in government not being heavy-handed propagandists via media outlets, and in there being accountability for dishonesty in government. Otherwise, the government takes on a life of its own, unaccountable to the people who then are being lied to about it being democratic, about the government being "theirs", about their having true participation or representation in government. In other words, this breakdown of trust is precisely the hallmark of dictatorships and totalitarian governments. There is a reason, not madness, that many fear the United States is becoming a police state. There is a reason, not madness, that many fear totalitarianism creeping into government, hidden legislation by hidden legislation, Patriot Act loophole by Patriot Act V? loophole.

It starts with waging war for lies disguised as ineptitude, it continues with secret torture camps disguised as "freedom protection" camps, it gets nasty with increased surveillance, until finally, what??? Goodbye, government "by the people" - Hello, watch your back, folks... Is that what you want?