Krugman warned us they may go overboard. Here they go again, claiming that Clinton's claim that Obama tried to compromise is a "stretch."
CLINTON: "When times are tough, constant conflict may be good politics but in the real world, cooperation works better. ...Unfortunately, the faction that now dominates the Republican Party doesn't see it that way. They think government is the enemy and compromise is weakness. One of the main reasons America should re-elect President Obama is that he is still committed to cooperation."
THE FACTS: From Clinton's speech, voters would have no idea that the inflexibility of both parties is to blame for much of the gridlock. Right from the beginning Obama brought in as his first chief of staff Rahm Emmanuel, a man known for his getting his way, not for getting along.
"One of the more high-profile examples of a deal that fell apart was the outline of a proposed "grand bargain" budget agreement between Obama and House Speaker John Boehner in 2011.
The deal would have required compromise from both sides. It slashed domestic spending more than most Democrats wanted and would have raised some taxes, which most Republicans oppose."
"Boehner couldn't sell the plan to tea party factions in the House or to other conservative activists. And Obama found himself accused of going too far by some Democratic leaders. The deal died before it ever even came up for a vote."
"In another instance, Obama appointed a bipartisan group, known as the Simpsons-Bowles Commission, to recommend ways to fix major fiscal problems like Social Security and Medicare. The commission issued its recommendations but fell three votes short of formally endorsing them. And Obama mostly walked away from the report. He later incorporated some of the less contentious proposals from the report into legislation he supported."
"But that ensured the tough compromises would not get made. The problem with compromising in Washington is that there are few true moderates left in either party. The notion that Republicans are the only ones standing in the way of compromise is inaccurate."
There are a lot of things wrong with this alleged "fact check." Again, recall Krugman's warning. Paul Ryan got called out for blaming the President for a plant closure that closed before he was in office. When this was pointed out Ryan replied two things that would have impressed Orwell's O'Brien:
1). He never blamed the President for the plant closing
2). That nevertheless this was another example of the President breaking him promise.
Yet 2 negates 1. If you claim the President broke him promise, then you're blaming him.
The claim that "right from the beginning" Obama refused to compromise because he brought Rahm Emmanuel in is also specious. If you recall, the initial stimulus got bogged down by the fact that the President had insisted that he didn't want to pass the stimulus without Republican support. Yet he couldn't get a single vote.
The Republicans, we now know, under Boehner had planned to sandbag the President-as they had done ti Clinton in 1993; his deficit reduction package passed without a single Republican vote. We have Mitch McConnell declaring that the number 1 priority was to make Obama a one term President.
The AP fact checkers draw an equivalence by this statement of bad intent with the President bringing someone into his cabinet that they claim has such and such a reputation?
Right-"both sides do it" because McConnell says his number 1 goal is to see that the President fails and Obama brought in Rahm Emmanuel.
The AP claim that inflexibility by both parties caused the grand bargain to fail is also false. Yes, it's true liberals were concerned about the reports that Medicare cuts were part of the GB. However, what the AP is trying to claim is false if Clinton's claim that Obama brought a spirit of compromise not whether every Democrat loved the idea of Medicare cuts.
What AP ignores is that these complaints from liberals did not sink the GB, What sunk it specifically was Eric Cantor and the Tea Party House members.
Also this AP narrative grossly puts all the burden on liberals. What is left out of their allegedly more nuanced account is recognition of the fact that Obama had already compromised and compromised. What sunk things was that the GOP refused to accept a deal that even had a ration of 85% spending cuts and 15% tax increases.
Whether or not Medicare was in the deal, Obama had already put lots of spending cuts in. It was the Republicans refusing any revenue increases that sunk the deal not the Democrats as they never said there can be no spending cuts-far from it, they had already compromised repeatedly and the GOP always demanded more and more.
As for Simpson-Bowles, Ryan runs around trying to give the President full blame for it's failure when he walked out of the talks and urged other Republicans to do the same. The panel was unable to pass it's own recommendations. How is the story here the President's refusal to compromise?
One more example that underscores how specious this "both sides do it" narrative is shown by another "fact check."
CLINTON: "Their campaign pollster said, 'We're not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact checkers.' Now that is true. I couldn't have said it better myself — I just hope you remember that every time you see the ad."
THE FACTS: Clinton, who famously finger-wagged a denial on national television about his sexual relationship with intern Monica Lewinsky and was subsequently impeached in the House on a perjury charge, has had his own uncomfortable moments over telling the truth. "I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky," Clinton told television viewers. Later, after he was forced to testify to a grand jury, Clinton said his statements were "legally accurate" but also allowed that he "misled people, including even my wife."
This appalling example shows you how desperate they are to go on Krugman's "orgy of false equivalence." Can you imagine a more egregious example of false equivalence than this? How it the fact that Romney's team say that fact checkers don't matter in any way either disproved or mitigated by the fact that the GOP tried to run Clinton from office back in the 90s over a an affair that the GOP tried to destroy him for political gain?
So AP is actually going to refute this by saying 'well you had an affair and lied about it so there?' Let's be clear: there is no such thing of a real fact check coming back with but what about Monica Lewinsky.
I think the AP is remind us how their false equivalence in the 90s contributed to that whole sorry spectacle about Monica Lewinsky and Ken Starr.
They claim both sides do it, but that AP has to reach to the extent of going Matt Drudge shows you how weak the claim is.
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/04/an-orgy-of-false-equivalence/
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