Wednesday, February 13, 2013

Weasel Words



Last night, Mr. Mendacity gave his State of the Union Message. I could not bring myself to listen to his modern-day equivalent of “War is peace.  Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.” (George Orwell, 1984).  But there were listeners, some of whom found that Obama was stretching the truth well past the breaking point.  Even NPR this morning  found many of his more audacious remarks to be questionable.  To catch up on his speech, I found the following fact-check listing of many of Obama’s truth-twistings.  It is well worth a read:  Breitbart Analysis.  (Actually, even the Lily Ledbetter analysis is incomplete.  There have long been laws that guarantee equal pay (for women) for equal work.  The Lily Ledbetter law did nothing more than extend the period over which lawyers could sue employers for such misfeasance.)  After pulling out your hair over these whoppers, you might consider a stiff martini.

I have also heard that, last night Obama bragged that his administration has created six million jobs since he took office … an oft-repeated misdirection.  This may be true in the sense that six million Americans have found new jobs.  But what he doesn’t enumerate is how many Americans have lost jobs during this same period.  When His Royal Highness took office in January of 2008, there were 145.4 million workers.  Now, there are 143.3 million workers in this country … which means that there are now 2.1 million fewer workers … while at the same time our population has grown by 10.9 million (Source Bureau of Labor Statistics).  Basically, 6 million Americans may have found jobs, but 8.1 million have obviously lost jobs.  If one were measuring the height of the tide last year this way, it would be 2 miles high because one would never count for all its ebbs.

The real sad part of this narrative is that obviously maybe half of all Americans are taken in by this claptrap … the uninformed voter if you will.  Are you one of them?

2 comments:

  1. I didn't watch the speech either, and I don't trust anyone else's partisan interpretations.
    FYI, Politico ran a story fact-checking Marco Rubio's response. Apparently all politicians lie. This is not breaking news.

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  2. Let me see ... one politician stretching the truth is morally equivalent to another politician telling 15 whoppers. I suppose this kind of thinking is why we now have an imperial President.

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