The review keep coming in for Romney’s official announcement yesterday, and they’re not good. The AP – not exactly a left-wing partisan organization – published a fact-check this morning that eviscerates much of the speech’s content. That, together with PolitiFact’s “Pants On Fire” rating of one of the speech’s central claims, suggests that Romney is having trouble finding things to say to justify his campaign that are, you know, true.
Here are some highlights from today’s AP story:
FACT CHECK: Romney miscasts economy in GOP debut
In rhetorical excesses marking his entry in the presidential campaign, Mitt Romney said the economy worsened under President Barack Obama, when it actually improved, and criticized the president for issuing apologies to the world that were never made….
ROMNEY: “When he took office, the economy was in recession. He made it worse. And he made it last longer.”
THE FACTS: … Obama did not, as Romney alleged, make the economy worse than it was when he took office.
ROMNEY: “A few months into office, he traveled around the globe to apologize for America.”
THE FACTS: Obama has not apologized for America…. [T]here has been no formal – or informal – apology. No saying “sorry” on behalf of America.
…
ROMNEY: “Instead of encouraging entrepreneurs and employers, he raises their taxes, piles on record-breaking mounds of regulation and bureaucracy and gives more power to union bosses.”
THE FACTS: Romney ignores ambitious tax-cutting pushed by Obama….
ROMNEY: “The expectation was that we’d have to raise taxes [in Massachusetts] but I refused. I ordered a review of all state spending, made tough choices and balanced the budget without raising taxes.”
THE FACTS: … [T]he Republican governor and Democratic lawmakers raised hundreds of millions of dollars from higher fees and fines, taxation by another name. Romney himself proposed creating 33 new fees and increasing 57 others – enough to raise $59 million.
The really disappointing thing about Romney (well, one of them … there are so many) is that he is a smart guy, and he knows better. He surely knows that much of what he is saying is demonstrably not true. Kudos to AP and PolitiFact for staying on top of this stuff. Here’s hoping that the rest of the media will catch on soon.
UPDATE: Along similar lines, Greg Sargent at WaPo offers a bleak assessment:
What you’re seeing here the limitations of fact-checking, and it’s something we rediscover during every presidential campaign. Candidates make false claims; media fact-checkers go to work and debunk them; the candidates go right on making them anyway; reporters weary of pointing out that they’re false and they start making their way into stories with no rebuttal….
And as the Associated Press points out, according to the prime measure of economic strength [Romney’s claim is] demonstrably false. Will reporters press him to explain himself if he keeps making this claim? Will media outlets take a stand on whether it’s false every time he makes it?
*sigh*
