Liars and Idiots

Republicans are not like Democrats. Republicans are liars, first and foremost. Yes, all politicians, even my guy President Obama, stretch the truth, mislead, and tell outright lies sometimes, but that does not mean that the two sides are equivalent. Republicans have come to rely on a never-ending series of lies as their primary means of retaining power. They have virtually no honest policy accomplishments or platforms.

Here is a list, off the top of my head and from a review of my blog entries, of conservative beliefs, statements, accomplishments, etc.:


1. Al Gore said he invented the Internet, and started the Love Canal investigation, and was the inspiration for Love Story, and grew up on a farm.
2. George Bush was declared the victor in Florida, by Fox News, on election night, 2000.
3. The Florida votes couldn't be recounted.
4. The phony "protest" in Florida over recounts, featuring Republican congressional staffers.
5. The authorization of the use of force in Iraq was about keeping the peace, avoiding war (Bush actually said that.)
6. Bush viewed war with Iraq as "the last option." He said that too.
7. Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.
8. Bush didn't cherry pick the evidence for war with Iraq.
9. Sadaam kicked the inspectors out.
10. Saddam Hussein had ties to al Qaeda.
11. George Bush, Dick Cheney, and members of their adminstration knew that Iraq had WMDs. Meaning it was absolutely certain, because that's what we know means.
12. George Bush did not lie to the American people about the evidence for war in Iraq.
13. John Kerry did not earn his medals in Vietnam (and apparently the Navy doesn't know what they are doing.)
14. Iraq was behind the 9/11 attacks.
15. Waterboarding isn't torture.
16. Because John Yoo says it isn't.
17. You can just call someone an "enemy combatant" if you want to incarcerate them indefinitely without charges and mistreat them.
18. Abu Ghraib was the result of a few low-level "bad apples."
19. The Vice Presidency is not part of the executive branch.
20. Sarah Palin is qualified to be President of the United States.
21. Sarah Palin is better qualified than Barack Obama.
22. Being mayor of a really small town (like my uncle was!) is really good experience if you want to be the Vice President.
23. Valerie Plame wasn't exposed by the Bush Administration as political payback for her husband exposing lies about the Iraq War.
24. Scooter Libby was railroaded.
25. People who opposed the war in Iraq don't support the troops.
26. People who question the reasons behind the Iraq War are trying to "rewrite history."
27. Denying gays the right to marry isn't bigotry. It's about defending marriage.
28. The founders wanted the United States to be a Christian country.
29. Barack Obama was pallin' (How do you even spell that? palin'? That would be funny.) around with terrorists.
30. Obama wasn't born in this country.
31. Obama was educated at a madrassa.
32. Obama is a muslim.
33. Obama is a socialist.
34. Obama hates America.
35. Unlike Obama, Bush kept the country safe from terrorism.
36. Republicans are "real Americans," unlike Democrats who are...French.
37. The Affordable Care Act is " a government takeover" of healthcare.
38. The ACA "leads America on a path to tyranny." (Mitch McConnell)
39. Death panels.
40. The Community Reinvestment Act caused the housing crisis.
41. Republicans want bipartisanship.
42. Republicans think it's important to listen to the American people and respect their choices at the ballot box.
43. Republicans believe in small government.
44. Republicans are fiscally responsible.
45. Republicans are concerned about the deficit.
46. Republicans don't think the reconciliation process should be used to pass major legislation.
47. Republicans want to work with Barack Obama.
48. Barack Obama wants to speak to schoolchildren in order to brainwash them.
49. Fox News is fair and balanced.
50. Fox News is not a mouthpiece for the Republican Party.
51. Fox News is actually a news network, like CNN.
52. Global warming is not man made. The scientists are confused or lying. Only Republican politicians understand this subject.
53. Obama's trip to India cost $200 million per day.
54. The stimulus did not create any jobs.
55. Obama was responsible for TARP.
56. MSNBC is like Fox News, only liberal.
57. The country is becoming more conservative.
58. ACORN stole the 2008 presidential election.
59. Democrats are using widespread voter fraud to alter election results.

These statements all have something in common: They are LIES told by LYING LIARS and believed by IDIOTS. Another thing they have in common is that Fox News is in some way behind nearly every one of them. You can quibble about a few of these if you like, but on the other hand, I could have made it an even 100 if I had wanted. 59 already seemed like a lot.

These are not little lies. Al Gore would almost certainly have been elected President if it weren't for the lies about him inventing the Internet and more. (He never said that or anything very close -- a Republican hack "invented" the line.) The 2004 election was close enough too that it was probably decided by lies about John Kerry's war record and by George Bush very deliberately misleading people who weren't paying attention (a big group!) by constantly conflating Iraq and 9/11. It is very fair to say that the last two times a Republican was elected President, it was probably due to really big Republican lies. In addition, it is quite possible the Iraq War, and the 4,400 dead American soldiers and 100,000+ dead Iraqis would not have happened without the falsehoods used to justify it. These lies, all of them listed above, and all the countless others, have consequences.

Conservatives like to defend their lies by saying that a large number of Democrats have their falsehoods too; for example, many Democrats believe that Bush had prior knowledge of the 9/11 attacks. This is a pathetic false equivalence that shows how weak the conservative argument is. Many Democrats do believe that Bush had prior knowledge of the attacks, but I'm not sure where they got the idea. Unlike virtually every conservative lie listed above, this one was not promoted by any prominent politician or media outlet. The best-known person I remember pushing the idea was Rosie O'Donnell.

That long list of conservative falsehoods above did not happen by accident. You can't look at all that and not realize that spreading lies, lots of them, all the time, is a very deliberate strategy that the Republican Party uses to keep power.

When I first started this blog, I didn't have a specific purpose in mind, and I wrote about various things. Now I have a purpose: to keep chronicalling the lies, day after day and week after week, and reminding people of what one of our major political parties has become.