Big Lies 2012: The Right-Wing Propaganda Machine and How It Still Distorts the Truth By Jason Sattler Edited and Foreword by Joe Conason 1 Big Lies 2012: The Right-Wing Propaganda Machine and How It Still Distorts the Truth By Jason Sattler Edited and Foreword by Joe Conason First Edition Copyright © 2012 by Eastern Harbor Media, LLC All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-1-300-34081-2 2 Table of Contents Introduction ....................................................................................................................... 4 Big Lie One: The GOP Reveals Debt Clock They Misplaced In 2001 ............................... 7 Big Lie Two: Paul Ryan Repackages The Gingrich Medicare Hoax ................................ 10 Big Lie Three: Killing Obamacare And Stealing From Seniors ........................................14 Big Lie Four: Fabricating A Failed Obama Presidency .................................................... 16 Big Lie Five: Job Creationism .......................................................................................... 19 Big Lie Six: Redistributing A Failed Argument ................................................................ 22 Big Lie Seven: Republicans Are Fiscally Conservative ..................................................... 25 Big Lie Eight: The Osama Swiftboaters ........................................................................... 27 Big Lie Nine: “Completely False” Race-Baiting On Welfare Reform .............................. 29 Big Lie Ten: The Right To Be An American ...................................................................... 31 About the Author ............................................................................................................... 35 About the Editor ................................................................................................................ 35 3 Introduction Nothing has better characterized the vicious 2012 presidential campaign—which began, for Republican leaders, with the inauguration of Barack Obama in January 2009—than the re-emergence of disinformation and dissembling as the right’s primary weapons in political combat. While these techniques scarcely represent anything new, as I documented in Big Lies: The Right-Wing Propaganda Machine And How It Distorts The Truth (St. Martin’s Press, 2003), time has multiplied the capacity of the Republican Party to amplify falsehoods about the economy, health care reform, civil rights, immigration, and a host of other critical issues. Added to the truth-destroying artillery of Fox News Channel plus The Rush Limbaugh Show and all its broadcast imitators are the online venues, such as the Breitbart empire and—perhaps most significantly in an election year—the vast advertising resources in all media provided by dark campaign money under the Citizens United ruling to groups like Karl Rove’s American Crossroads and the Koch brothers’ Americans for Prosperity. Just review the fact-checking sites that have become so influential over this cycle, and it is easy to see that Republican deception is the dominant theme of this campaign—and of politics in America today. On sites like the Pulitzer Prize-winning Politifact, as science journalist Chris Mooney has documented, the frequency and intensity of “Pinocchio” or “Pants on Fire” ratings earned by Republicans far outstrips those won by Democrats, even though mainstream fact-checkers strive to achieve partisan parity. Well before the election season officially began, the likelihood of being rated a liar was roughly two to three times greater among Republicans than Democrats. We have argued in The National Memo and elsewhere that this imbalance is not accidental, for the capacity of Republicans to attract voters depends heavily on concealing the historical results of their policies. Consider the economy, which voters and pundits agree is the most salient question in a nation still recovering from the Great Recession. Polling data shows that most voters still hold the Bush administration responsible for the ruinous condition of the economy, dissatisfied as they may be with the progress achieved since President Obama took office. Yet roughly half the electorate still regards Mitt Romney and his fellow Republicans as more likely to improve the economy and create more jobs. 4 Based on the historical record, this is a grave misconception—as former President Bill Clinton has pointed out many times. And characteristically, he has done the arithmetic. At the Democratic National Convention in September, Clinton explained: "Since 1961, for 52 years now, the Republicans have held the White House 28 years, the Democrats 24. In those 52 years, our private economy has produced 66 million private-sector jobs. So what's the job score? Republicans 24 million, Democrats 42." When CNN fact-checked Clinton’s numbers, the network found that he was just slightly off—because he was too generous to the Republicans. Their numbers showed “a net increase of 44.7 million jobs created during the Kennedy, Johnson, Carter, Clinton and Obama administrations, compared to a 23.3 million figure during the Nixon, Ford, Reagan and both Bush administrations.” The partisan pattern of Republican economic incompetence goes back much further than 1961, however, as Dr. James Gilligan of New York University carefully documented last year in his path-breaking book Why Some Politicians Are More Dangerous Than Others (and as I reported in Big Lies as well). Using statistics compiled by the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the National Bureau of Economic Research, Gilligan found that unemployment rose during every Republican administration and fell during every Democratic administration for more than a century. Every Republican president left unemployment higher than when he entered the White House, and every Democratic president left it lower, with unemployment rates remaining higher for longer periods under the Republicans. “If we count up the net sum of all the increases that occurred during Republican administrations from 1900 through 2008, we find that the Republicans brought about a cumulative increase of 27.8 percent in the unemployment rate, and the Democrats an almost exactly equal decrease of 26.5 percent,” Gilligan calculated. The reason was that America suffered about three times as many months of recession under Republican government than under Democratic government, from 1900 through 2010, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research—an organization headed for many years by the conservative Harvard economist Martin Feldstein, who is currently among Mitt Romney’s top economic advisors. Recessions began 17 times during Republican presidencies and only six times during Democratic presidencies, and always lasted several months longer under Republicans, too. Only a torrent of malarkey, as Joe Biden would say, can distract and deceive the citizenry about these basic facts— combined with the historical amnesia that remains our most crippling political affliction. But the economy is certainly not the only important issue distorted by Republican mendacity. As National Memo’s executive editor Jason Sattler demonstrates in these brief but biting essays, the trumpery extends from health care reform and Medicare to the federal deficit, taxes, and the record of the Obama administration itself. What is most troubling about this year’s campaign is the determination of the Republican ticket and its supporters to mislead voters not only about the president’s achievements and intentions, but about their own plans for the nation’s future. The Big Lie lives. But in these pages you will find the big truths that are the only effective antidote. We’ve made them available for free, because we believe that reliable information and honest analysis are vital to defending democracy and defeating plutocracy. 5 I hope you will share Big Lies 2012: The Right-Wing Propaganda Machine and How It Still Distorts the Truth as widely as possible between now and Election Day. Joe Conason Editor-in-Chief The National Memo 6 The Big Lie: The Republican National Convention featured a debt clock to hold the president accountable for the mounting debt. The Truth: Republican policies and the economy they created are responsible for the vast majority of the debt and the Romney/Ryan budget plans would only increase the debt. One of the most notable decorations at the 2012 Republican National Convention was a clock that counted the amount of debt racked up from the moment the event opened. It was supposed to be a visual indictment of the president’s policies—the result of “wasteful government spending.” But the Republican debt clock would have been more honest if it had been captioned by the RNC’s slogan: “We Built It!” No one at the podium in Tampa addressed the actual source of the debt. The most candid speaker was New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who said he hopes everybody has forgotten: “It doesn’t matter how we got here.” Facts are now officially for the other guys. During the Republican National Convention, Mitt Romney’s pollster Neil Newhouse finally said something that fact-checkers found accurate: “We’re not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact- checkers.” The Romney campaign’s disregard for facts is warmly embraced by a right wing that has built up a vast alternative media to reinforce their own version of reality. In this reality, President Obama’s 2009 budget was the first budget ever to hit a $1 trillion-dollar deficit, which was entirely the result of his policies. The fact that