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The left, in the immediate aftermath of the debate, was in shock - and at MSNBC, in meltdown. But the memos have apparently gone out, and the left's MSM response has coalesced. Yes, Romney won on theatrics and style points, but all of his facts were LIES - all lies, I tell you, LIES. We've seen this exact same thing play out a few weeks ago in the coordinated MSM response to Paul Ryan's speech at the Republican convention. There are some lies being told it - but that's projection on the part of the left.
Let's take a tour through the gutter of the MSM today and see what piles of excreta we can find. Former Enron advisor Paul Krugman is always a good place to start:
OK, so Obama did a terrible job in the debate, and Romney did well. But in the end, this isn’t or shouldn’t be about theater criticism, it should be about substance. And the fact is that everything Obama said was basically true, while much of what Romney said was either outright false or so misleading as to be the moral equivalent of a lie.
After that sweeping assertion, Krugman points to but a single example where he thinks Romney was less than honest. Others at least made a more concerted effort to justify their claim that Romney's speech was not but "lies."
Jonathan Chait at NY Magazine actually titled his commentary Romney's Successful Debate Plan: Lying. Chait's chief complaint relies on the original Tax Policy Center analysis of Romney's tax plan - an analysis done in part by one of Obama's former economic advisors. The upshot is that Obama claims that would add $500 billion a year for ten years to the deficit. But that presumption is based on simply dropping tax rates without closing loopholes - a patently ridiculous assumption.
More importantly. Chait, as do all the left relying on that TPC analysis, neglects to point to an update the TPC has done. TPC now finds that Romney's tax plan would come within $41 billion of tax distribution neutrality. I know that the left has trouble with math, so let me point out that $41 billion times ten is $4 trillion 5590 billion less than the $5 trillion dollar figure that Chait, the President and others are claiming would be added to the deficit by Romney's tax plan. And even that number is based on a static analysis of Romney's tax plan, neglecting any consideration of a growing economy bringing in more tax revenue. To call Romney's claims regarding his tax policy a lie based on the original TPC analysis - and assigning it a claim of raising the deficit $5 trillion over ten years - really is a lie.
Then there is Jonathan Cohn at TNR who writes about The Four Most Misleading Moments in Romney's Debate Performance:
The pundits are unanimous. Mitt Romney had more energy, offered more specifics, and may even have come across as more empathetic. I agree and polls suggest voters saw it the same way.
The debate may not change the dynamics of the election. But if I knew nothing about the candidates and this was my first exposure to the campaign, I’d think this Romney fellow has a detailed tax plan, wants to defend the middle class and poor, and will take care of people who can’t find health insurance.
Problem is, this isn’t my first exposure to the campaign. I happen to know a lot about the candidates. And I know that those three things aren’t true. . .
Cohn too relies on the original Tax Policy Center analysis for much of his argument.
A special mention needs to be made of Igor Volsky of Talking Points Memo who claims to have found: At Last Night’s Debate: Romney Told 27 Myths In 38 Minutes. I won't go down all of them, but just to give you a flavor, my favorite was:
17) “Well, I would repeal and replace it. We’re not going to get rid of all regulation. You have to have regulation. And there are some parts of Dodd-Frank that make all the sense in the world.”
Romney has previously called for full repeal of Dodd-Frank, a law whose specific purpose is to regulate banks. MF Global’s use of customer funds to pay for its own trading losses is just one bit of proof that the financial industry isn’t responsible enough to protect consumers without regulation.
Talk about your non-sequiturs. Repealing Dodd Frank now means no regulation - despite Romney's calls for sane regulation? And talk about the insanity and hypocrisy of pointing to MF Global, led by one of Obama's top bundlers, Jon Corzine, who, incidently, Obama's DOJ has refused to indict for the second largest theft in history. MF Global is one example the left should avoid like the plague. One wonders if Igor is off his meds.
At any rate, the left is still reeling today. So what did the President's chief advisor, David Axelrod, do to stop the bleeding? He has called on his most loyal and stalwart allies to rally to Obama's defense:
Mr Axelrod, speaking on a campaign conference call, made an appeal to reporters to make the points that Obama himself had failed to make in the debate,
What does it say of the state of our MSM when Axelrod can call on them publicly to put out administration spin. The worst part is that you can bet the MSM is already pulling out the long knives to do precisely that between now and Nov. 7.
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