Big Impact of Ryan’ Speech: News Media Scrambles to Find 15 Euphemisms for “Lying”
For centuries politicians have fudged the truth, but in the case of Mitt Romney’s soon-to-be-running mate Paul Ryan, the Wisconsin Congressman’s red-meat-hurling speech at the Republican convention has brought a slew of charges that it contained outright…mistatements….accuracy challenged assertions. Well, let’s use the word “lies.” And now, The Week reports, the news media has been trying to find ways not to use the “l” word:
Republicans are delighted with Paul Ryan’s GOP convention speech, hailing it as an out-of-the-ballpark hit that demolished President Obama’s case for re-election. The nation’s fact-checkers, however, are not as pleased. Ryan suggested that Obama’s policies failed to save a GM plant in Ryan’s hometown of Janesville, Wis. (It closed before Obama was inaugurated.) He accused Obama of raiding Medicare of $716 billion “at the expense of the elderly.” (Ryan’s own budget includes the same savings, achieved, as in Obama’s plan, by cutting reimbursement rates to health care providers, not seniors’ benefits.) And Ryan even chastised Obama for ignoring the recommendations of a presidential bipartisan debt commission. (Ryan sat on the commission and voted against its report.) Truly, Ryan was apparently trying to “set the world record for the greatest number of blatant lies and misrepresentations slipped into a single political speech,” says Sally Kohn at Fox News. However, since it’s impolitic to accuse a vice presidential candidate of being a liar, most news organizations have tip-toed around the L-word. Here, 15 euphemisms they’re employing instead (emphasis added in all cases):
Go to the link to read the 15.
I suspect they will add many more phrases and words to the list as the days progress…
UPDATE: And more and more media attention is coming in on the point that this was not your usual fudging in a speech..
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Factual Shortcuts is my favorite one. I’m really looking forward to Ryan’s speech being dissected by Jon Stewart.
Sally will be fired in 3 2 1…
So you have to wonder what they’re going to do with this:
Rolling Stone’s found the ‘smoking gun’… here’s the documents
Steve can you please explain what exactly all that means? I’m not sure I appreciate the full meaning.
slamfu, If you click on the right side of the photos of document it will advance the story, there are 13 pages with photos of documents and story on right.
Basically it shows that in 1991 – 1993 Bain tried to restructure itself under Mitt Romney’s leadership and they failed so the FDIC came in with 10+M and bailed Romney and Bain out.
Here’s the text on pg 12 of the article:
I noticed no one used “evolved” perhaps that is an Obama exclusive. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
In the week after the president voiced his sudden personal support for gay marriage, a move which two-thirds of Americans have concluded was primarily motivated by politics, liberal bloggers and media personalities have characterized the decision as an “evolution,” rather than a flip-flop.
Mr. Obama’s top national security aides described the evolution of the president’s views on Afghanistan as a result of three rude discoveries.”
[Obama] reviewed his strategy, concluding that it was time for a dramatic shift in approach,”
The Post’s headline for the piece: “Obama’s evolution: Behind the failed ‘grand bargain’ on the debt.”
The Los Angeles Times downplayed the criticism in 2009 as a necessary symptom of the president’s “evolving approach to global diplomacy.”
On gay marriage: media personalities have characterized the decision as an “evolution,” rather than a flip-flop.
Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2012/05/20/media-says-obama-evolved-not-flip-flopped-on-major-issues-through-the-years/#ixzz254QtXr5V
Of course who can forget that Obama is proud that we are producing so much domestic oil and gas (eight year high) but he wasn’t the one responsible for that which started with oil leases on public land under you know who. Take credit where credit ain’t due.
Oh yeah, keep the euphemisms rolling.
I’ve got a few euphemisms for ya but I can’t share em here.
. I guess I’ll settle for “factual shortcuts” too.
Gee, I’m confused. This guy says Sally’s fact checker needs fact checking.
http://sharprightturn.wordpress.com/2012/08/30/on-paul-ryans-speech-sally-kohns-fact-checker-needs-fact-checking-paulryanvp-rnc2012/
And furthermore, he doesn’t use euphemisms. So there!
Can’t wait till the Democrats’ convention to find out the factual shortcuts they use and this guy’s help in straightening them out.
Whose nose has gotten longer in the last four years?
Barack Obama says 60 percent of his promises are ‘done’
Well, not quite:
That said, here’s the current breakdown of promises on the Obameter:
Promise Kept 151, or 30 percent
Compromise 46, or 9 percent
In the Works 189, or 37 percent
Stalled 68, or 13 percent
Promise Broken 52, or 10 percent
Not Yet Rated 2, or 0.3 percent
Verdict: False according to Polifacts.
Barack Obama says the United States has doubled exports during his presidency
Not unless you count BS as an export:
All told, then, the data show an increase in exports of about one-third from the baseline Obama inherited — not double.
Here’s another great euphemism: “getting ahead of the fact”- Polifacts
Pro-Obama group blames Romney in woman’s death:
Politico says: The ad uses innuendo for a serious allegation, but there’s no proof directly linking the death to Bain. We rate the claim False.
Get the point? Of course the Reps have longer noses but there are no angels in politics including Dems. Although they pretend that butter wouldn’t melt in their mouths. Well it will.
Clint is knocking them dead with a comedy routine better than any late night comic and worthy of SNL. Fantastic, I am listening and LOL. Don’t miss it.
You’re starting to sound a little worried dduck… Good.
Eastwood was a disgrace. Period.
Follow-up on my comments on Mr. Eastwood.
Although I don’t agree with most of what Mr. Romney said, he made a good speech.
But guess what, that is not what America will be talking about tomorrow.
Tomorrow all the talk and print and video will be about Eastwood’s shameful performance. .
Steve thanks for sharing that link…have reached the place of being speechless with the degree of distortion.
How can a Nation have a discourse when the ground is bottomless quick sand?
Sally seems to be off on the facts. Kind of funny when she is writing about deceiving. There was no one cause for the S&P downgrading and if you had to point to one factor it would be the inability for the govt to come to any agreement on how to come closer to balancing the budget. Trying to blame the Rps for not raising the debt ceiling like she does is a much greater deception than anything Ryan said. Ryan didn’t blame the shutdown of the GM plant on Obama, he blamed Obama for not saving it like he promised. Hell read her liked article and you must wonder what kind of blinders she was wearing. And I don’t care how many times you say Obama isn’t taken money out of medicare, he is! Medicare savings my ass. Those are dollars that were set for medicare that are now designated to go elsewhere. He is taking money out. Now the idea is because of savings medicare won’t miss the money and that may or may not be true, but the money will be taken from medicare. It’s pretty bad when your “fact checkers” are worse than who they are checking.
I thought he was pretty funny.
EE, He was funny, but wrong party affiliation for some.
SK, ??????????. I was more worried months ago.
On the dozens of euphemisms, what seems clear to me is that this was necessary so that dozens of pundits and bloggers could flood the media with their chosen narrative to attack Ryan. When one looks at the meat of the allegations, there’s nothing there besides boilerplate political rhetoric, but the left seems to think that repeating “liar” over and over will make it stick….and for good measue they are throwing in some hyperbole that this is the “lyin’ est campaign evah!!!”
I think now we need to get out the thesaurus to dig up all the ways of saying “desperation” and “panic”.
I think you’re dead on CS.
No, it’s not just political rhetoric. The Romney/Ryan claim about the work requirement for welfare being gutted by Obama is an outright lie, for one. Maybe it wasn’t in Ryan’s speech but it’s in campaign ads and was repeated more than a few times during the convention.
JS, you are correct, gutted is out of line. The Reps could have truthfully said: Obama using a memo to alter the conditions of the 1996 law passed by a bipartisan congress: “The memo notifies states “of the Secretary’s willingness to exercise her waiver authority … to allow states to test alternative and innovative strategies, policies, and procedures that are designed to improve employment outcomes for needy families.” We don’t know what that means because:
“The waivers would apply to individually evaluated pilot programs — HHS is not proposing a blanket, national change to welfare law. And there have been no comments by the Obama administration indicating such a dramatic shift in policy.”"
So can we safely say “altered” instead of gutted the law? Would that work?
Unfortunately hot words like gutted and chained and unchained, and ads by both sides that use innuendo to create a false impression. For example the Soptic case. Polifact says: “The ad uses innuendo for a serious allegation, but there’s no proof directly linking the death to Bain. We rate the claim False.”
Actually we do know what it means because it is spelled out very specifically. No work requirement is ended, quietly or otherwise. The ad is false.
What the ad says:
Since 1996, welfare recipients have been required to work. This bipartisan reform successfully reduced welfare rolls. On July 12th, President Obama quietly ended the work requirement, gutting welfare reform.
What HHS said:
The Information Memorandum outlines the types of waivers that will and will not be considered. The Secretary is only interested in approving waivers if the state can explain in a compelling fashion why the proposed approach may be a more efficient or effective means to promote employment entry, retention, advancement, or access to jobs that offer opportunities for earnings and advancement that will allow participants to avoid dependence on government benefits.
http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/ofa/policy/im-ofa/2012/im201203/im201203.html#
All this was in an effort to work with Republican governors who requested the waivers.
I tend to agree with Jim’s point, not just on the welfare changes but on a few other comments Ryan made. Ryan’s speech contained lies, misleading statements and hypocrisy. We deserve better from our candidates and the GOP should demand better. The trouble is in this political climate they never will, and neither will the Democrats. The current thinking is to do whatever it takes to win and the truth be damned.
As CS alluded to I think what bugged conservatives was the claim that so many of Ryan’s statements were lies when in fact some of them were “merely” hypocritical or debatable. many of the left’s claims were therefore lies in themselves and put conservatives immediately on the defense. So it’s a vicious circle – Democrats have legitimate beefs with some of Ryan’s comments but have at the same time given Republicans a legitimate beef by going overboard in their criticism of Ryan.
It will be interesting to see how things play out in Charlotte.
Jim doesn’t have much of a point when he trashes out Ryans comments by using something he never said as evidence.
CS is more than capable of defending her own words but I didn’t read that. Alluded my sweet patootie she did no such thing. She didn’t use the word merely which you “quoted” giving the impression that she had and hypocritical never seemed to shop up anywhere and as far as debatable, you do realize that word means that honest people can disagree over an opinion? By being debatable it means you have a factual basis for your opinion. Point of fact she basicly said people were throwing the word liar at Ryan and hoping repeating would make it stick baecause fact were not with them.
Come on why is everyone so hard on Ryan anyway? We all know he had a hard day of pushing granny off a cliff so if he missed a few minor facts so be it.
I don’t know… Maybe you should just ask FOX News.
Ohio, we don’t know what the changes will be because they are “pilot programs”. I was not referring to the ad, which was false in using gutted.
Do you know how 50 state’s “altered” programs will work? No one does. All we know is that states can be “creative”.
SK, my how you are glowing now that you can use dirty, lying, Fox (the official network of the Rep party, according to Bill Maher) as an opinion source. It’s OK, I use the NYT all the time. War makes strange bedfellows- Rush next?
Congrats, Steve.
Paul Ryan:
Dazzling
Deceiving, Deceiving, Deceiving,Deceiving (Count them, four times!)
Distracting
Fix News? Could not believe it. That contributor will soon be looking for another job
Beat that to death why don’t you. Look its foxnews.com not Fox News and just because one of their token liberals starts speaking in tongues doesn’t make it gospel. I’ve already refuted her comments and every point she tried to make is BS but keep repeating it as if that somehow makes fantasy facts.
Comment read.
This statement is completely wrong.
First, here is what Candidate Obama ACTUALLY said:
Nowhere in his speech did he “promise” to keep the plant open.
Second: The plant was already closed before Candidate Obama became President Obama and he had no authority to stop something he never promised to do in the first place.
To quote PolitiFact.com
EEllis insistence that, in spite of direct quotes (and timelines) from both President Obama and Paul Ryan, instead of being a liar Paul Ryan is a victim is very misleading to say the least.
dd
What do we care what the States do as long as whatever they do ” promote(s) employment entry, retention, advancement, or access to jobs that offer opportunities for earnings and advancement that will allow participants to avoid dependence on government benefits”? The HHS is not going to issue waivers if they don’t think the proposals will work.
Using creative solutions to get people into jobs and those already working into better jobs to ease the massive unemployment problem and get people off welfare sounds good to me. I don’t care whether it’s called altering bureaucratic rules or trying pilot programs or thinking outside the box, as long as the HHS thinks it will be effective, let the States try it, I say.
Ohio, when they wrote the law, obviously they didn’t trust the states to all do the right things or at least a fairly uniform thing.
Personally, i think some states don’t do such a good job managing programs. The Reps just made this into an issue because Obama did it with a memo and that gave them an excuse and of course they screwed it up by using gutted instead of a nice word like altered.
dd
I think you nailed it. Lies by ommission, therefore misrepresentation, like the Soptic ad and the Janesville ad, outright lies like the gutted work from welfare rules, lies committed by fudging numbers on arcane hard to explain subjects like Medicare – all should be called lies because no matter how they are used, they are meant to decieve not elucidate.
If you can’t make your case with plainly understood facts (and ALL the facts) – not theory – you probably aren’t suited to govern. Mr. Ryan did several creative manipulations of facts in his speech. We will see how many the Democrats will do in theirs. We don’t have long to wait, so be ready, dd, we’re counting on you.
Ohio, I’ll try, but it is the economy and I think all the rest is BS but done with a high degree if ineptitude. If you are going to try and con me please do it with more art. I resent that they are so crude (both sides).
“Both Sides!” “They all do it!” “They’re all just the same!”
What does it take to get some to see how dishonest the “both sides” argument is? Granted, there have been times in our history that “both sides” was an accurate statement… There have been times in our history that Democrats were more dishonest than Republicans… BUT at this time in our history it is provably the Republicans.
I linked to this Andrew Sullivan article last week but it appears some missed it – Politifact, Politifact, Who Is The Truthiest Of Them All?
SK
My observations mimic these charts, but remember these charts were produced by “a reader with too much time on his hands (who) dug into Politifact’s massive data base of corrections and analysis” according to Mr. Sullivan. That’s hardly a recognized reputable source.
The willingness to believe a fact(s) shouldn’t be overcome by not-necessarily-authentic sources. That way lies questionable conclusions; like Ms. McKinley of recent record.
Hang in there Steve, you are doing great. The “other side” will never admit…
dd
Ya, if they could only decieve us with more finesse, we’d feel better and maybe not even notice it.
Ohio, there you go again. You are worried that with out the lying (mostly Reps, OK) that “with finesse”, I call it more intelligent and honest (also boring TV ads), that we are not intelligent enough to judge the two side’s position and make an informed choice. Now, we have to try and discern the truth through the fog and static thrown up to confuse us.
Oh, The scientific ratio of ineptitude and whatever other terms, charts, statistics that will make their day (the Dems), I agree that the Reps do it better and more often. I hope that makes some people happy and makes their day.
Ok, what now? Well, we can vote to give Obama four more years of the same and hope for the best. Or, we can roll the dice and take a chance that perhaps we can do better with the economy. A Hobson’s choice, perhaps.
dd
You did notice my critique of those charts? You did remember my remarks about political dissimulation being an abomination? You did see the
symbol mocking the finesse? I’m agreeing with you, friend. It is frustrating. Terribly frustrating.
We might disagree about which candidate would do better in the next four years, but we both know either one will be limited by who shows up in congress and how the President can influence those congress folk to cooperate and get some good things for the country done. That’s as good a yardstick as any, as far as I can see. Almost everyone is focusing on the presidential race when all those other races from the local through the national are more important in the long run.
Ohio, I ignored the charts so your criticism didn’t resonate. I saw your smiley face, but since nobody is actually using finesse (they clobber us instead), I didn’t get it.
Anyway, you are correct on the other races, so a tough choice on the presidential will provide coattails galore.
[sigh]
Sorry, not big on charts, statistics, polls or eggplant.
Not from my view. Obama definitely meant for the people at that speech to think “elect me and I’ll save your plant”. That is just common sense. Now you want to give Obama a pass because he was slick enough to you words that only implied it so he couldn’t be held to it yet you are holding Ryan to such a high standard that he is being called a liar for saying
“A lot of guys I went to high school with worked at that GM plant. Right there at that plant, candidate Obama said: ‘I believe that if our government is there to support you … this plant will be here for another hundred years.’ That’s what he said in 2008. Well, as it turned out, that plant didn’t last another year. It is locked up and empty to this day. And that’s how it is in so many towns today, where the recovery that was promised is nowhere in sight.”
Wow he is a liar for implying but Obama isn’t. Yeah that makes sense.