The Latest Lie: Now Romney Doubles Down On Welfare Lie

Candidate Mitt Romney is trying to "get the job done" of winning, doing anything and saying anything to accomplish that, no matter the hard done in his wake. After doubling down and scaring Ohio's auto workers [1] with his "Jeep moving all its jobs to China" lie, now he has revived his "Obama gutted the work requirements in welfare" lie. The problem is that too many people are too busy to pay close attention, so they only see the lies and don't have a chance to dig for the truth. And many other people are watching FOX or listening to Limbaugh, so they will never hear that these ads are just lies. It just might work.

How Many Lies?

How many lies and tricks can you count in just this one ad?

"If you want to know President Obama’s second term agenda, look at his first: gutted the work requirement for welfare," the script goes. "Doubled the number of able-bodied adults without children on food stamps. Record unemployment. More women in poverty than ever before. Borrowed from China and increased the debt to over $16 trillion, passing the burden onto the next generation. We may have made it through President Obama’s first term – it’s our children who can’t afford a second."

Obama doubled the number of people on food stamps? Maybe the fact that 815,000 people lost their jobs just in the last month of Bush's presidency had something to do with people needing food stamps? Here is the actual record:

[2]

When Romney talks about jobs lost under Obama, he is talking about the left side of that chart, when the country was still suffering from the Bush crash! And just look at the tremendous difference the stimulus made, just completely turning things around!

The Worst Lie (In This Ad)

But the worst lie in this ad (can there be a "worst" lie?) is the one about "gutted the work requirement for welfare," The reason this is the worst lie (in this ad) is that we've been over this and over it, and every single non-Romney fact checker that has looked at it has called it a blatant, outright, flat-out, bald-faced lie. And here he is retelling it, betting that it will fool a few more voters.

Sam Stein at Huffington Post, Romney Revives Obama Welfare Reform Attack In Unannounced Ad [3],

As newsworthy as the ad's script is the way in which the Romney campaign released the new spot. There was no public pronouncement, at least not via email (the campaign did post the spot to its YouTube page). And it seems to fit a pattern. The campaign is throwing what it can against the wall in the election's closing days. Any movement it creates among voters outweighs howls it may cause from the press corps, the campaign believes.

Benjy Sarlin at TPM, in Romney Camp Going Off The Fact Checking Rails In Ohio [4] writes,

In a blast from the past, the Romney campaign is also reviving ads (unannounced, yet again) that feature a debunked claim that Obama “gutted” welfare work requirements. Romney’s original welfare attack in the summer was savaged in the press as inaccurate, prompting Romney’s pollster Neil Newhouse to respond that “we’re not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact checkers.”

Does Romney Get Away With It?

Does Romney get away with it? Simple answers to simple questions: so far, yes.

P.S. this might be a good time to refer readers to yesterday's post, What Does Romney's Campaign Of Lies Say About Our Country? [5]

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