How does one argue with a dolt like this?
Show him the facts and the twisted fantasy world he inhabits won't allow him to see them.
These people are hopeless.
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FactCheck: 100 Days of Spin
What Obama said—and what has been said about him.
Apr 29, 2009 | Updated: 5:28 p.m. ET Apr 29, 2009
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Summary
After 100 days in office, we find President Obama is sticking to the facts—mostly.
Nevertheless, we find that the president has occasionally made claims that put him and his policies in a better light than the facts warrant. He has claimed that private economists agreed with the forecast in his budget, when they were really more pessimistic. He's used Bush-like budget-speak trying to sound frugal while raising spending to previously unimagined levels. And he has exaggerated the problems his proposals aim to cure by misstating facts about school drop-out rates and oil imports.
At the same time, there's been no shortage of dubious claims made about the president by his political opponents. Republicans have falsely claimed that Obama planned to spend billions on a levitating train and that his stimulus bill would require doctors to follow government orders on what medical treatments can and can't be prescribed, among other nonsense.
And those whoppers are mild compared with some of the positively deranged claims flying about the Internet. No, the national service bill Obama signed won't prevent anybody from going to church, for example. And no, he's not trying to send Social Security checks to illegal immigrants.
Analysis
Economic Cheerleading
Facing some heat from critics who complained that the administration's budget figures are too rosy, Obama offered a misleading defense to a national TV audience during his March 24 prime-time news conference. He said: "Our assumptions are perfectly consistent with what Blue Chip forecasters out there are saying." That wasn't true.
Obama was referring to the Blue Chip Economic Indicators, a survey of forecasts from 50 private economists. In fact, at the time he spoke, the most recent Blue Chip forecast was far more pessimistic than the administration's budget projections. That's no small matter, since a weaker economic performance will produce even larger federal deficits than the Obama budget already forecasts.
Obama's Prime Time Pitch
March 25
Budgetspeak
Obama also got it wrong when he claimed in that same speech that "we are reducing nondefense discretionary spending to its lowest level since the '60s." His own forecast puts this figure higher than in many years under Reagan, Clinton or either Bush.
Furthermore, he used the same verbal sleight-of-hand that President George W. Bush had used to deflect attention from the larger truth—that total federal spending is (and was) soaring far beyond the government's means to pay for it. "Nondefense discretionary spending" is just a small slice (under 20 percent) of total spending. It excludes military spending, homeland security spending and rapidly rising Social Security and Medicare spending, among other things. So even if Obama's claim had been true, it would have been misleading—pure spin.
Obama's Prime Time Pitch
March 25
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