Gov. Chris Christie: “We have a nominee who will tell us the truth and who will lead with conviction.”

Based on the full text of Chris Christie’s GOP convention keynote speech as prepared, the New Jersey guv uttered the word “truth” 20 times.

As an actor playing the role of the truth-teller, I thought he was awesome. I haven’t caught his act before at this length and it was hard not to get swept up in the truthiness that somehow seemed implicit in his New Jersey accent.

As an actual truth-teller, he was a fraud. Here’s where he lost me once and for all last night:

“We have a nominee who will tell us the truth and who will lead with conviction.”

Really? Portraying Mitt Romney – who has been on both sides of most major issues, who would rather lose the election than divulge how he made his millions and how he sheltered them from taxes — as a man of honesty and candor, tells me something very clear and very sad about Gov. Christie’s “authenticity.” It’s fake.

Lately I’ve seen several pieces arguing that Mitt Romney is the biggest liar ever to run for president. I doubt that. But I do believe that no modern candidate has ever managed to get this far while divulging less about either his biography or his program.

Said Christie:

“Mitt Romney will tell us the hard truths we need to hear to put us back on the path to growth and create good paying private sector jobs again in America. Mitt Romney will tell us the hard truths we need to hear to end the torrent of debt that is compromising our future and burying our economy.”

Really? Mitt Romney has a tax plan. It starts with everyone in America paying a lower income-tax rate. But Romney says it will be revenue neutral because he will close enough loopholes and deductions and tax credits to offset all the revenue that the tax cuts would others forego. Without the offsets, the tax cuts for everyone (no tough talk there) would add trillions to the “debt that is compromising our future and burying our economy.”

What deductions and credits will he eliminate? He won’t say.

Said Christie:

“Mitt Romney will tell us the hard truths we need to hear to end the debacle of putting the world’s greatest health care system in the hands of federal bureaucrats and putting those bureaucrats between an American citizen and her doctor.”

Really? Mitt Romney wants to repeal the national health reform that is based on the Massachusetts health reform that was his own signature accomplishment as governor and replace it with something better. Where’s that replacement plan?

I haven’t followed Christie’s term in New Jersey closely. According to the New York Times editorial this morning, Christie didn’t tell the truth about that either.

Said Christie:

“Now we must lead the way our citizens live. To lead as my mother insisted I live, not by avoiding truths, especially the hard ones, but by facing up to them and being the better for it.”

I agree, except that I have no idea if Christie is telling the “truth” about his mother’s commitment to “truth,” I know he is lying about Mitt Romney’s commitment to hard-truth telling and I fear he is wrong about “our citizens’” devotion to hard-truth-hearing.

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61 Comments

  1. Right man for the job.

    “Lately I’ve seen several pieces arguing that Mitt Romney is the biggest liar ever to run for president. I doubt that.” But I’m going to print it anyway, just ’cause, you know…

    “But I do believe that no modern candidate has ever managed to get this far while divulging less about either his biography or his program.”

    I guess Eric would have been happier if Mitt laid out an agenda he had absolutely no intention of following:

    (Washington Times, 2008)
    “EXCLUSIVE:

    President-elect Barack Obama over the weekend scrubbed his transition Web site, deleting most of what had been a massive agenda for his first term that appears on his campaign’s site.”

    http://bit.ly/Ox9iip

    I’m just going to let the part regarding “biography” go by….too obvious, way too easy.

    Judging from Eric’s selectively outraged reaction, I’d say Gov. Christie has hit a home-run.

    1. Seriously?

      So, you’re making a comparison of something that was scrubbed POST-election (and widely available and discussed everywhere prior to the election) to Mitt and his campaign’s blatant, daily, abject lying DURING the campaign?

      As usual, that Moonie rag the Washington Times tried to make something out of nothing – the agenda and details we’re available everywhere. If you didn’t know Obama’s largely centrist agenda prior to voting for him you either were not paying attention to him at all, or lived in the Fox “News” echo chamber.

      That said, Eric hit the irony nail right on the head, vis-a-vis the Romney Etch-A-Sketch lying campaign and what Christie was talking about. On a side note, I thought Christie gave a great acceptance speech. His audition for the 2016 RNC was spot-on.

      1. You’re right, Steve…

        Saving the blatant, daily, abject lying until after the campaign is immensely preferable to doing so prior to installation.

        Please consider me corrected.

  2. It’s Interesting How the Republicans Have Now Switched

    From the old-fashioned, “How to Win Friends and Influence People” approach to politics,…

    to the “Getting to Yes” approach.

    The former was the approach of the affable friend who won you to his/her trust,…

    or in terms of the old Machiavelian dialectic, “It is better to be loved.”

    The latter is the approach of the manipulative salesperson of the type that any purchasing manager can smell coming in the front door and whose ministrations wise buyers ignore,…

    and any car buyer, recognizing them as they’re walking toward you across the used car lot, turns around and walks the other way,…

    since such salespeople are always trying to win your confidence with rank flattery, then fast talk you into following the path they desire, rapidly resorting to belittling you and even bullying you when you try to slow them down enough to allow you to realize they’ve presented NO evidence which would give you a reason to trust them or buy their product.

    This is what most people identify as “Machiavellian” tactics: the effort to make you so afraid of the person seeking to manipulate you (or as a corollary, so afraid of the consequences if you don’t take the path they’re trying to force you toward): i.e. “It is better to be feared.”

    Personally, I don’t much care for Machiavellian manipulation, nor do I care for Machiavellian politicians. I’m highly frustrated that our economy and our election processes are now so dominated by a few VERY wealthy individuals as to enable those people to use such an approach on our entire nation, and any politicians we elect,…

    pressuring them and us to do things their way or they will make sure our economy never recovers and NONE of us ever have decent jobs again (not that they’ll ever allow the kinds of pay and benefits that we enjoyed during the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s, anyway, unless we remove them from their positions of power and influence ).

    I have always loathed bullies, and thus, I’ve rapidly come to loathe Chris Christie. My loathing for the Republican Party has deepened as it has gradually become more and more clear that it has become filled with the kinds of people whose leaders admire Christie’s Machiavellian bullying and whose members would be unsophisticated and ignorant enough to buy whatever such a manipulative salesperson is selling.

  3. Speaking about reality and doing it are two different things

    Christie used the new GOP operative buzz word “Truth”. It is ironic when they don’t put any effort into speaking the “truth “. Several months ago Arizona Senator Jon Kyle, got caught in a bald faced lie by the media. His response was,” you can’t assume everything I say is factual”. So much for the GOP “truth” telling. That is the GOP in a nutshell. Ann Romney hit it out of the park, which is what you would expect from a devoted wife. They billed her speech as showing us the real Mitt. I guess we have had the fake Mitt for the past few years. Her portrayal of Mitt just shows he is a very different person at home than he is in public. Unfortunately we will get the public version of Mitt no matter what she says. You have to draw your own conclusions of Mitt, not rely on a wife’s definition. He has been characterized as resolute. It is fine to resolute but you have to have the right beliefs to be resolute about. They have to be the beliefs that will serve the entire country not just the GOP. Trying to get in touch with the common man a couple of days ago Ann said Mitt was wearing one of three shirts he bought at Costco. Now that is coming down from your high perch to get in contact with the everyday person. For myself, I feel the Romney’s are way out of touch with the everyday American. Nothing is going to change that, they are what they are. Interesting the GOP can’t hardly wait to spew Ronald Reagan’s name but they don’t want anyone talking about George W. Bush or Dick Cheney. Just sweep the two of them under the carpet like their “fiscal conservatism” didn’t do anything disastrous to the county. They won’t admit it, but the entire GOP is complicit in George W. Bush’s administration because they stood solidly and completely silent behind Bush while he ran our country into the financial canyon we find ourselves in. Voters, as you can see “fiscal conservative” doesn’t have any meaning. The choice is yours in November.

    1. If I recall…

      …Kyle’s actual quote was “…not intended to be a factual statement” uttered after he completely pulled something out of his colon pertaining to abortion during a speech on the floor of the Senate. That was a great Twitter meme for a couple of weeks and made Kyle look like a complete fool (admittedly, not that difficult, but…)

      What’s great is when these guys DO tell the truth how telling it is – especially lately.

      I love how one minute Ann was talking about “love” – and Christie in his pseudo-acceptance speech quashed that by saying its not about “love” but about “respect.”

  4. The truth

    It always does irritate me and make me a little suspicious when some has to tell me they are “telling the truth” before making a statement. It’s like they know they don’t always tell the truth and have to clue me in when they are doing it.

  5. Agreed

    “…I have no idea if Christie is telling the “truth” about his mother’s commitment to “truth,” I know he is lying about Mitt Romney’s commitment to hard-truth telling and I fear he is wrong about “our citizens’” devotion to hard-truth-hearing.”

    Agreed on both counts for Mr. Christie, in talking about Mr. Romney and the general public.

    Having served on the periphery of local government for some years, I can’t imagine someone being elected to local or state office on the basis of a plan that, so far, consists of “I’ll tell you after I’m elected.” No one on the local or state scene – the people about whom many of us, right and left, have had much to say over the past year and more – would be elected on that basis. That Republicans would seriously contemplate voting for someone whose primary accomplishment is one he now denies, and who refuses to disclose information that’s routinely expected of every other candidate, suggests to me two things: the irrational, hysterical depth of their loathing for Barack Obama (who has governed as a moderate Republican); and the degree to which “truth” in any genuine sense is unimportant to them.

    And for Governor Christie’s information, we’re a very long way from having the world’s greatest health care system, based on actual health, and disease and injury outcomes. The Massachusetts plan put into law with Mr. Romney’s support and signature while he was Governor might have helped, expanded to a national scale, but he now disavows it.

    1. “the irrational, hysterical depth of their loathing…”

      Is actually a medical condition, called Obama Derangement Syndrome, or ODS. The AMA is doing studies now.

    2. A plan after election

      Nixon said the same thing about ending the Vietnam war, that he had a “secret plan” to end the war. Didn’t.

  6. Chris Christie’s speech

    The other “truth” Christie twisted a bit was when he mentioned how good the GOP is at working to reach compromise. that was a bit of shock…

  7. Bipartisan Scrutiny?

    I know Mr. Black will never skip an opportunity to bash Republicans, I just think it’s sad that there’s no chance he’ll apply the same scrutiny during the DNC convention.

    1. In fairness

      There has never been an attempt by either Eric, or Minnpost to convince anyone that they are not presenting leftist propaganda, Justin.

      You just learn to work with the material they present…like the material itself, it’s pretty simple.

    3. You must be new to this site

      because Mr. Black hasn’t thusfar hesitated to jab at DFLers when deserved.

      1. Mr. Black

        …doesn’t hesitate to jab DFLers that stray off the leftist reservation.

    4. When in doubt, attack the journalist. It is clear to me that Eric Black has hit a nerve because no one here has defended Christie or Romney. Really, how could they? Instead they all accuse EB of being biased and partisan. Whew, that was easy!

  8. Truth telling

    Eric,

    I hope you use the same criteria on the Dems and especially B.O.

    Of course, you have not done that for years.

  9. Truth

    Unfortunately the very concept of ‘truth’ is really ill-defined now…Romney could say that the sky is cerulean blue, while Obama says it is deep teal, and spark an instant and heated disagreement between their supporters. We’re all looking at the same blue sky but seeing very different things.

    I think the “truth” is this: the deficit is a very convenient, and very easy, political stick with which to beat Obama over the head with and the Republicans have had their period of fun. However, there is no indication to me that the Republicans are any better equipped to make the hard decisions that they seem to relish so much than Obama is. We’ve seen it on a state level, where the Republicans campaigned on “jobs, jobs, jobs” but once in office were completely clueless as to the next step to go about creating them.

    I also think that the “truth” is this – Greece, Spain, Ireland do not only have public debt problems. They also have uncompetitive, inflexible economies, an overleveraged private sector, and a death spiral of austerity leading to lower output leading to decreased tax revenues leading to greater debt. The US has an high (but not alarming) level of public debt, but we also have a private sector that is flush with cash, an economy that is shifting towards exports, decreasing personal debt, competitive companies, and steady if unspectacular growth.

    This is why, despite our public debt, investors are still flocking to our bonds despite tiny returns. The “truth” is that we are miles from being in anywhere near as bad a spot as Greece, and I believe in a better spot than even Germany, and possibly even China when it comes to future prospects. The key for the future is to unwind the growth in our public debt without damaging the areas where we enjoy strengths. The Republicans, unfortunately, seem willing to take a sledgehammer to the whole damned thing, without any regard to the subtleties of the situation or acknowledgement of areas where government spending actually creates tremendous good.

    1. Very reasonable

      This is an excellent and well thought out comment. It’s easy enough to point to Greece and say the sky is falling, but your comment shows that it’s only the ceiling in a poorly-built house. We don’t live in the same house, and our house is at least serviceable.

      1. It also seems that Greece, Spain, and Italy are the European countries that right-wingers have heard about lately. What about Ireland, which the right-wing media used to tout as “proof” that their economic theories were the magic recipe for prosperity? The GDP was growing, former emigrants were coming back home, young people were staying instead of emigrating, multinational companies were setting up shop there…and then the whole thing collapsed.

        Now the right wing doesn’t talk about Ireland or Iceland (which allowed the banksters to use its banks as their private casino) or Latvia (another former right-wing “success story,” now a charity case for Scandinavian church groups). Once again, both Ireland and Latvia are losing their most ambitious young people to emigration.

  10. Rove 101: Take your greatest weakness and pin it on your opponent, as loudly and aggressively as possible. The tactic is employed over and over and over. I don’t know about a claim that Mr Romney is the “biggest liar” ever to run for President. What has been observed is that Mr Romney simply finds the concept of truth to be an irrelevancy. Indeed, the two marquee elements of the GOP attack on Mr Obama -the recasting of “You Didn’t Build It” and the purported waiver of welfare work requirements, have been unequivocally and roundly discredited as false, but this is entirely irrelevant. Words exist now simply as tools to manipulate emotions and it is no longer necessary that they bear any relation to an existing reality. This development is so notable that even members of the establishment media are beginning to depart from the “both sides do it” mantra to remark on it. Hence, the GOP has determined to invoke Rove 101: now the GOP is about “Truth.” Look at Scott Walker’s quote reprinted in the Daily Glean yesterday – it is a plunge down the rabbit hole where considering truth to be obsolete makes you the party of Truth. Who thought the GOP would be the ones to usher in post-modernism?

  11. Christie

    I was unable and unwilling to watch the convention news. I did briefly, but it’s easier for me to handle these things if I read them, instead of listening to a finger pointing bellowing politician tell me a lot of stuff I know is not true.
    I didn’t see any fact-checking from our local newspaper, but I’ll watch for it from FactCheck and a couple other sites. (They do Democrats too, as does Eric Black: equal treatment.)

    1. Really hard

      FactCheck.org has to work realllly hard to come up with Demo lies to balance the Republican ones, including the Republican ones about Democrats.

  12. Mitt’s secret plan for the economy…

    strikes me as very similar to Richard Nixon’s secret plan to end the Vietnam War, so secret and sensitive that it could not be revealed prior to election, as it would compromise our troops and security. As history showed, his plan amounted to escalation, which failed, followed by unilateral withdrawalsix years later (which Republicans later railed was a “failure of our leaders to allow our troops to win the war” – evidently forgetting Nixon’s escalation attempts to win the war, including invading Cambodia.)

    It was a successful tactic for Nixon and Romney will need it to be successful for him, as he has no real plan for economic development, save to protect millionaires. The failed policies of the Republicans under George W. Bush, renamed but not revised.

    If Romney gets elected (which I hope will not occur), how long before he has to start another war to pump up the economy? That seems to be the Republicans’ signature stimulus move. And in war, one can again ignore the deficits that are incurred by massive military spending with no corresponding tax revenues to pay for it (1980-1992, 2001-2008.) A continuing prescription for economic disaster. No wonder he doesn’t talk about the plan.

    Dwight Eisenhower warned us 50+ years ago of the military-industrialist complex dominating America and its politics. Mitt Romney is just the latest featured performer in this disastrous course we citizens allow to continue. Christie looks like he’s lined up to be another. God save our children.

  13. New Jersey’s ecomedie

    Christie managed the great achievement of making New Jersey’s economy the fourth weakest in the nation, right down there with Michigan. But he didn’t have the excuse of a collapsing auto industry.
    He did kill a tunnel that would have helped NJ by strengthening it’s economic link to NYC, so I guess the only underground thing he’s interested in is politics.

    1. No tunnel…

      …but a giant shopping mall slurping up tax dollars is o.k. for Christie.

  15. Truth is Relative

    I recall a line from the rock opera “Jesus Christ Superstar”, in which Pontius Pilate, interrogating Jesus, says, “We both have truths; are mine the same as yours?” This is the kind of truth that Christie, the GOP, and sadly, politicians of all stripes, deal in.

    Sadly, I don’t believe that most American voters want to hear the unadulterated truth, and no politician could get elected after speaking it. Obama included. Americans don’t want to hear the truth about the problems facing us, about the foundations of those problems. They don’t want to hear about an overpopulated, finite world facing resource constraints that mean that the party is essentially over; that the vaunted American lifestyle is unsustainable for the 7.5 billion people who want it. They don’t want to hear the truth about the devastation occurring in the natural world, the wholesale destruction of ecosystems upon which all life depends. They don’t want to believe that climate change has anything to do with them. They don’t want to believe that the global financial system is rotten to its foundations and may well implode at any time. They don’t want to acknowledge that every great empire that has had to sustain itself via endless war and a vast military apparatus has ultimately gone bankrupt and fallen due to imperial overstretch. They don’t want to believe that clinging to fantasies such as special creation hold the entire civilization back, because in order to do so, science must be denied.

    So, we don’t have truth in politics. We have “truthiness”. We have actors like Christie who convincingly sell “truthiness” in order to win elections, contracts, and to keep “bidness” rolling, while the world in general goes to hell. Christie is simply better at it than most, but just as much a fraud.

    In the end, nature does not care about politics, and the piper will be paid. It would be comforting to think that those responsible would, in the end, at least acknowledge how wrong they were as they sift through the ruins, but they won’t. They’ll simply blame others, as tribal humans always do, cursing as they try to eek out an existence in an impoverished, greatly diminished world.

    We are clever, tool using primates, but not so very smart after all.

    This is the essence of my disappointment with Obama. He too has avoided dealing with the hard truths – in the financial system, in energy technologies, in environmental matters, and more – preferring instead to pursue the same old failed “solutions”, to keep the ball rolling until the next election, rather than lead in new direction. Of course, he does it because the voters will have it no other way.

    1. Thank you, Mr Groth.

      Eloquently said. I.e., “we get the democracy we deserve.” Unfortunately our tool use will do us in before we get smart enough to avoid it. We made it to homo habilus, but I think homo sapiens was a bit premature.

  16. Christie and Romney

    have the shared experience of being elected in states, New Jersey and Taxachusetts, that are overwhelmingly democrat (80-20) yet they succeeded in getting their agendas passed with bi-partisan support which have resulted in reversing the bad economies they inherited.

    In seems to me that since the republicans of this country have seen fit to honor these men for their record of bi-partisan problem solving, any gracious democrats, should any still exist, would be in agreement that they deserve our thanks and admiration.

    1. Christie’s Record

      Is pretty funny if you examine Christie’s record. Chief among them is his using some budgetary sleight of hand reminiscent of our own Teflon Tim Pawlenty…

      And you only have to pay attention to New Jersey’s record for a minute and see that the “Jersey Comeback” under Christie’s tenure has been anything but. 9.8% unemployment, for starters…but hey, guess that’s “bi-partisan problem solving”.

    2. Like Romneycare?

      Yes,

      Let’s talk more about Romneycare, Mitt’s signature bi-partisan accomplishment in Mass.

    3. Which Democrats

      in these states were elected by 80% margins?
      Or are you pulling numbers out of your ….hat again?

  17. Disproportionate deception merits disproportionate criticism

    Keep up the good work Eric.

  18. Somehow it seems odd, Mr. Tester,

    that Mitt Romney did such a wonderful, bipartisan, job in Massachusetts yet did not run for a second term because of the low esteem in which he was held. And the projections for the upcoming election are that Mr. Romney will lose overwhelmingly in Massachusetts. Very strange that the people who know him best would vote against him in such large numbers if he did such a wonderful job.

    Christie is yet another Tea-Paw flavored Republican governor. There is less there than meets the eye.

    See for example:
    Chris Christie’s 9.8 percent problem
    link: http://bit.ly/ND3lh7

    That would be Gov Christie’s unemployment problem.

    And his claims to have balanced budgets is exactly in the same category as Pawlenty’s. There is a statutory requirement for a balanced budget in NJ. So the usual shenanigans ensued.

    “The governor skipped a $3.1 billion pension payment. He didn’t fully fund the school aid formula. He didn’t fully fund the state’s property tax rebate program.”

    link: http://bit.ly/NVr0hb

    It really is amazing that the GOP is taken in – or ignores – the financial chicanery of people like Pawlenty and Christie.

  19. Actually

    Although the story has a slant, it understates the truth. And really should have said the GOP is the party of Lies:
    1. They are the party of freedom- except for women and in your bedroom.
    2. They believe in self reliance- except for big business.
    3. They are for small business- if you define small as greater than $1B per year in revenues.
    4. They are for opportunity- only for white people or minorities that act like they like them to.
    5. They want to be isolationist- unless a country has some resources they want, then they want to grant them “freedom” at gunpoint.
    6. They tell the truth- just like George Orwell.
    7. They believe in the founders- except when they disagree with them, or more to the point the Koch Brothers disagree.
    8. Government should stay out of religion- unless it conflicts with Catholic or evangelical doctrine.
    9. The basis of freedom is education- particularly if they can make a buck off it.
    10. Free markets are the best- particularly if they can get government subsidies to support existing markets- like oil or farming.
    11. They don’t believe in welfare- except for corporations
    12. Voting is a right and privilege- for Republicans only
    13. The family is sacred- if it is heterosexual and like their’s
    14. They honor or military- as long as they fight for us and we can shop here without risk.
    15. They support Arab Democracies- as long as they pump oil.

    I could go on, but the hypocrisy of the right is just getting tiresome. They have an alternative reality that they have used to demean the office of the PResident since Obama got in. They have conveniently forgotten that 11T of the debt was on their watch, that TARP was signed by Bush and they refused to participate in any governing from 2008-10 then they have done everything they could to stall the economy to aid them in winning so they can enrich themselves more.

    1. re: point 6

      Orwell told the truth, unlike Republicans like Christie and Pawlenty who may have taken inspiration from Orwell’s fictional creation Big Brother and his Party’s extensive use of Newspeak to make lies seem true.

      1. Actually center but that is the new left! But a PUNishing comment nonetheless!

  20. oliver twist

    Well Eric, the part in the very same comment

    Said Christie:

    “Mitt Romney will tell us the hard truths we need to hear to put us back on the path to growth and create good paying private sector jobs again in America. Mitt Romney will tell us the hard truths we need to hear to end the torrent of debt that is compromising our future and burying our economy.”

    That yanked my chain was this outlandish overstatement about the wonders of the utopian free market economy. When my father worked for Oliver iron mining in the late 1950’s there was a huge layoff of thousands of workers. Oliver was a representative of the free market economy supplying jobs. However the part that Christie and the rest of these yokels never mention is the big old bait and switch. When the cow runs dry sell. It. leave everything behind. The interests of the free market freebooters is the money they make for themselves. It is not and I cannot say this strongly enough about creating jobs for anyone. That is the lie in it. pure hokum. My personal story can be told through millions of voices in this country. It is the reason I find anything out of the goops repugnant.

  21. Christie a Failure

    Precisely how has Christie turned the economy around in NJ after three years? I believe his state is about 47th in job creation and he sits(ouch) on one of the largest state deficits. He barks and bites and never wags his tail, but where is the beef?

  22. Things were so much better the last time we fell off the cliff – in 2008 under the Republicans.

  23. The truth is

    When the President is re-elected this fall, we will have four more years just like the last four less the health care law. No significant changes to entitlements, unemployment at the 8% “new normal”, troops still in the Middle East, 2% economic growth, and more debt, perhaps nearing 20 trillion. And quite a few new cabinet members beginning with the Secretary of State.

      1. Good news!

        If all the rest is true, do we really care who the the minority party approves of? Who is the Democrat sacrificial lamb in 2016 after another four years of this?

  24. Good Luck with all that…

    As my wife and I sat and watched a few of the speeches from last nights episode of “Days of Our Lives.” I’m sorry, I meant the RNC, all we heard were the normal attacks against President Obama and his team. As they continued to attack and state all of the failures of this administration I found myself shouting at the TV, what’s your plan to fix it? Never once did I hear anything even close to a plan of action or even an idea, just attacks. We forget so fast where exactly we were 4 years ago at this very time. Remember when the economy almost collapsed. It wasn’t struggling, it nearly collapsed. Now, the economy while certainly not perfect has rebounded significantly. Remember four years ago when we had been in two wars for nearly a decade without striking the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks. Now, he is dead and apparently buried at sea. Just remember where the country was in the 1990’s under Bill Clinton’s leadership compared to where we were after the George W Bush administration. How soon we forget how “W” nearly bankrupted the country. How soon we forget that the last republican VP candidate was so oblivious of any true facts she in my opinion out of embarrassment quit the governorship of Alaska. This brings me to Paul Ryan, I couldn’t figure out if he is running for VP or trying to sell me an 1989 Chrysler Newport. Again, beat up the opponent with no plan of action. To you Mr. Ryan I say good luck debating Mr. Biden a tried and true veteran of US politics, while Mr. Biden does slip up from time to time it does not take away from his experience and record. I am going to harken back to something I believe Mr. Clinton asked us way back when…are you better off today than you were 4 years ago? Well, I can say for my family, the answer is a huge yes. 4 years ago I had just lost my job and my wife owned a very part time business. 4 years later we both have very lucrative full time careers and within the last year have purchased a 5 bedroom home on 5 acres of land. Are we the exception? I choose to believe that we are not the exception. I choose to believe that by working hard you can still succeed in the USA. With that said, believe real truths not fabricated truths, believe in yourself and believe in the last 4 years. Look at the facts and remember you don’t have to remember the truth. The truth is not memorized, the truth is not practiced, the truth is the truth. Here is a truth about the republican agenda, Cut taxes for the ultra rich, Outlaw Abortion and Ban Gay Marriage. Really, the freedom party (republican party) is trying to not only limit freedoms but flat out dictate what you will do and when you will do it. The fact is this country while based on capitalism truly needs to look at reality instead of some made up fantasy land, which apparently seems to be in either New Jersey, New Mexico, Wisconsin or Massachusetts. Sorry for rambling but just how schizophrenic can America get? Run that direction as far as we can and then run back the other way as far we can. Maybe this is whats meant by balance? I am no longer sure. Good Day.

  25. Integrity 101

    This is the thing that bugs me, it’s the dishonesty. It’s always funny when Republicans lie ( I thank Eric for simply stating the fact without qualifications or dilution) and their sympathizers respond by wondering why a writer doesn’t talk about any lies that Democrats may be telling. This just highlights the moral bankruptcy of our erstwhile moral champions. One’s integrity is not contingent upon anyone else’s integrity, this is basic basic basic ethics. Being in a room full of liars does not make you a truth teller with you lie. No one else’s dishonesty can convert your dishonesty into honesty. Anyone who argues that their integrity is dependent upon the integrity of someone else not only lacks integrity themselves, but also lacks any viable concept of integrity and are incapable of recognizing integrity when they see it. What you have here is a group of people with one of the most seriously damaged moral compasses on the planet, and of course they claim to be the “truth” tellers. Our language actually doesn’t have a word that describes this level of hypocrisy.

    From photo ID to health care all we get are lies, obfuscation, and high school debate rhetoric. The solution to this is for our journalist and media to adopt the Black method, call it what it is. Liars will always respond to journalistic honesty with hysterical cries of bias but the only antidote for lies is truth.

    At any rate, history shows that no one has ever entrusted their government to a bunch of mega-hypocrits like this and gotten good results. On the contrary, people like this are far more likely to bring a nation down.

  26. The other irony..

    There’s also no word in the English language for this level of irony. Here you have a group of people who claim to be champions of personal responsibility, but they won’t even accept responsibility for their own integrity. Whenever they get caught in a lie they blame it on the fact that they’re not the only liars.

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