I was starting to worry about our friend Rob Eno over at Red Mass Group. He hasn’t been posting much lately, and he apparently had not a thing to say about some stories that I’d have thought were right up his alley, such as Scott Brown’s epic flip-flop on Paul Ryan’s Medicare Destruction Act.
Fortunately, all’s well. My post about Mitt Romney’s dismal jobs record as MA Governor got his blood boiling enough that he sprang to the Mittster’s defense, even though he claims not to support him. But he apparently didn’t check his links carefully, and so posted up the following epic fail. He’s fixed his error by now, so thank heavens for screen-shots. 😀
LOL Error 404 indeed. Please supply your own caption in the comments. As for the content of Rob’s post, I’d simply like to observe that (1) Rob’s blockquote consists entirely of material not originally said by me, but by a reporter for Market Watch (in fact, I blockquoted it myself), and (2) Christy Mihos agrees with me.
Anyway, here are a few other Romney tidbits.
- Did you know that PolitiFact awarded its coveted “Lie of the Year” trophy for 2010 to the claim – recently and often repeated by Romney – that President Obama’s health care plan represents “a government takeover of health care”?
- In his speech today, Romney absurdly claimed that “we are only inches away from ceasing to be a free market economy.” Politifact got a hold of this one too, and rated it – you guessed it – Pants On Fire. Here’s their bottom line:
It’s true that the government’s footprint on spending has grown over the past few years, due in large part to the recession. But while the statistics show that the government continues to have a large influence on the economy, there is little indication that the government’s role has risen dramatically enough over the past few years to threaten the kind of free market that the U.S. has operated under in recent decades. And international comparisons show that the U.S. ranks low in both total tax burden and high in economic freedom — at least as measured by a prominent conservative think tank.
So, as measured by economists from both ends of the spectrum and, most importantly, from the conservative Heritage Foundation, it’s ridiculously false to say we are close to losing our free-market economy. We find Romney’s statement Pants on Fire.
“Ridiculously false.” I like that.
- Garrett Quinn and I were on Emily Rooney this afternoon talking about, among other things, Romney’s announcement speech, which included the melodramatic claim that “Obama has failed America.” Here’s an excerpt from our exchange (starting at about 5:35):
ROONEY: Is it a good message, though, “Barack Obama has failed America”? Or is it too negative, is it too nasty?
ME: First of all, it’s incredibly negative, and —
ROONEY: It’s a little offensive.
ME: and conventional wisdom says that that’s not a good way to run a campaign. And secondly, it’s not true. That’s the basic problem that he has.Here’s the whole segment: