Symptomatic of this was Ann Romney's tv interview where she snapped that "There will be no more tax returns" and that "We've given you people all that you need to see!"
Mrs. Romney claims that her husband won't release any more tax returns unlike Presidental candidats have done since the 1960s because it will "just givve them amunition."
In other words, Mrs. Romney does not believe that The truth will set her and Mitt free. Yet the truth does set some people free. It set President Obama free last year when he released his long form birth certificate. While unlike Romney's tax returns there was no reason he should have had to release his long form version-as no other President ever did this much less in the middle of his term.
However, once he did it the issue was put to bed. We never heard about this again and Donald Trump's joke of a campaign was done over night.
So why couldn't doing this set Mitt Romney free? That's because the truth is not on his side. Not regarding his tax returns. Not regarding the facts of his tax plan and Ryan's Medicare plan that he has signed off on.
Certainly not on the truth of he and Ryan's position of soical issues like abortion and birth control. That's why Todd Akin is so unwelcome. He gave us a glimpse of the truth of the GOP's position so the whole natioal party has had to repudiate him.
The basic policy of Romney-Ryan is Elect us and we'll tell you what we'll do after you've elected us. Don't worry it will be better than President Obama. Just trust us.
A piece in the Daily Beast points out that Ryan has not infused the campaign with a "Big Idea" but rather "The Big Lie." Of this campaign's proclivity to lie:
"This is not normal. Normal is to stretch the truth. The Obama campaign stretches the truth in trying to connect Romney more directly than it should to Bain-related layoffs that happened after 2002. That’s your basic reach, and the campaign has been called on it. But it’s not a total lie. There is some little grain of truth there, that “Mitt Romney’s company” oversaw such-and-such layoffs, as there usually is in attack ads, even the most vicious ones. The Willie Horton ads were, after all, true. Racist, but true. But the Romney welfare ads have no grain of truth at all."
"Okay. Just making stuff up about the other guy is bad enough. But it is in terms of past and future positions that what Romney-Ryan are doing really plows new and dishonorable earth. What’s happened on Medicare in the last week is just jaw-dropping. Did Bill Kristol and Charles Krauthammer and the folks at AEI lust for a huge philosophical throw down on Medicare solvency? Did they want a ticket that would courageously say to America, as Ryan used to say, that we just can’t afford to pay for all this anymore, and you, America, must now choose between the conservative truth-tellers and the liberal softies who will just tell you what you want to hear?"
"I think they wanted exactly that. But that sure isn’t what they’re getting. Romney and Ryan are both turning somersaults to say that they are this big government program’s true protectors. Ryan even dragged his mother into it over the weekend! And as for Romney, it is just astonishing to hear him stand up as he did last week and whack Obama for cutting $716 billion from Medicare while lavishing praise on Ryan, whose Medicare plan from last year cuts exactly the same $716 billion (and then some), and say that he and Ryan are going to save Medicare, unlike that nasty Obama."
"The truth, of course, is that Ryan’s premium support plan would devastate Medicare because it would slow the increased spending to a rate well below the rate at which health-care costs have been rising in recent years. In polls like one the Kaiser Family Foundation commissioned earlier this year, even majorities of Republicans don’t want Medicare restructured along Ryanesque lines. These guys may not be able to count, but they can read polls, and so they know very well that if they gave the county the honest debate we were told we were going to have about Medicare, and for that matter about taxation, they’d wake up Nov. 7 with about 120 electoral votes in their pockets and conservatism in tatters."
"They know this. They know that the truth would crush them electorally. And so it follows that they know they must lie. They must lie about their Medicare plans. They must lie about the effects of their tax plans on average people and rich people. And they must tell a number of lies about Obama, all the better if they involve race, as the welfare lie does."
"So this will be the entire point of the Romney-Ryan campaign. Lie lie lie. Muddy the waters. Turn day to night, fire to water, champagne to piss. Peddle themselves as the precise opposite of what they actually are. That is clearly the m.o."
"This is the case for two reasons. First, it is forced on them historically. Ronald Reagan could get away with sunny generalizations about supply-side economics because in 1980, it was just a theory. Now, after George Dubya, it’s been utterly discredited in practice. Conservatives still must believe these absurd things—that lower tax rates will produce more revenue—but now we know they’re not true, so they have to lie about them. And second, it is simply in Romney’s weasely nature never to say anything forthright about any topic."
"The Democrats’ job, of course, is to expose this charade for what it is and make Romney and Ryan defend their actual positions. The Obama campaign was a little slow to respond on Medicare, and even then the ad wasn’t as forceful as it might have been. It’s probably true that there’s a reservoir of good faith there—that is, most people simply aren’t going to believe that the Democrats want to harm Medicare. That should work to the Democrats’ advantage, but still, the Obama campaign and the Democrats generally have to nail these guys to the wall on what their actual positions are and what the impacts of their policies will be. Romney and Ryan are terrified of a real Big Debate. Obama and Biden need to drag them into one."
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/08/21/the-only-big-idea-coming-out-of-the-romney-ryan-camp-is-the-big-lie.html
Absolutely. I think most Americans know the Dems wouldn't hurt Medicare-it's their program. Still they must fight back very hard. The only hope of the GOP is to muddy the waters. The Dems have to go through point by point the various GOP lies and distortions. The lie about $716 billion in Medicare cuts. The lies about Obamacare. The lie that the Ryan plan does not end Medicare for all Americans-regardless of whether or not they are over 55.
By choosing Ryan, Romney is forced into defending the budget he supported anyway. This is what the Dems have alwasy wanted: a true fight on the issues.
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