Big Lies 2012:
The Right-Wing Propaganda Machine
and How It Still Distorts the Truth
Introduction ....................................................................................................................... 4
Big Lie One: The GOP Reveals Debt Clock They Misplaced In 2001 ............................... 7
Big Lie Two: Paul Ryan Repackages The Gingrich Medicare Hoax ................................ 10
Big Lie Three: Killing Obamacare And Stealing From Seniors ........................................14
Big Lie Four: Fabricating A Failed Obama Presidency.................................................... 16
Big Lie Five: Job Creationism .......................................................................................... 19
Big Lie Six: Redistributing A Failed Argument ................................................................ 22
Big Lie Seven: Republicans Are Fiscally Conservative ..................................................... 25
Big Lie Eight: The Osama Swiftboaters ........................................................................... 27
Big Lie Nine: “Completely False” Race-Baiting On Welfare Reform .............................. 29
Big Lie Ten: The Right To Be An American ......................................................................31
About the Author............................................................................................................... 35
About the Editor ................................................................................................................ 35
Introduction
Nothing has better characterized the vicious 2012 presidential campaign—which began, for Republican
leaders, with the inauguration of Barack Obama in January 2009—than the re-emergence of
disinformation and dissembling as the right’s primary weapons in political combat.
While these techniques scarcely represent anything new, as I documented in Big Lies: The Right-Wing
Propaganda Machine And How It Distorts The Truth (St. Martin’s Press, 2003), time has multiplied the
capacity of the Republican Party to amplify falsehoods about the economy, health care reform, civil
rights, immigration, and a host of other critical issues. Added to the truth-destroying artillery of Fox News
Channel plus The Rush Limbaugh Show and all its broadcast imitators are the online venues, such as the
Breitbart empire and—perhaps most significantly in an election year—the vast advertising resources in all
media provided by dark campaign money under the Citizens United ruling to groups like Karl Rove’s
American Crossroads and the Koch brothers’ Americans for Prosperity.
Just review the fact-checking sites that have become so influential over this cycle, and it is easy to see that
Republican deception is the dominant theme of this campaign—and of politics in America today. On sites
like the Pulitzer Prize-winning Politifact, as science journalist Chris Mooney has documented, the
frequency and intensity of “Pinocchio” or “Pants on Fire” ratings earned by Republicans far outstrips
those won by Democrats, even though mainstream fact-checkers strive to achieve partisan parity. Well
before the election season officially began, the likelihood of being rated a liar was roughly two to three
times greater among Republicans than Democrats.
We have argued in The National Memo and elsewhere that this imbalance is not accidental, for the
capacity of Republicans to attract voters depends heavily on concealing the historical results of their
policies.
Consider the economy, which voters and pundits agree is the most salient question in a nation still
recovering from the Great Recession. Polling data shows that most voters still hold the Bush
administration responsible for the ruinous condition of the economy, dissatisfied as they may be with the
progress achieved since President Obama took office. Yet roughly half the electorate still regards Mitt
Romney and his fellow Republicans as more likely to improve the economy and create more jobs.
Based on the historical record, this is a grave misconception—as former President Bill Clinton has
pointed out many times. And characteristically, he has done the arithmetic. At the Democratic National
Convention in September, Clinton explained: "Since 1961, for 52 years now, the Republicans have held
the White House 28 years, the Democrats 24. In those 52 years, our private economy has produced 66
million private-sector jobs. So what's the job score? Republicans 24 million, Democrats 42." When CNN
fact-checked Clinton’s numbers, the network found that he was just slightly off—because he was too
generous to the Republicans. Their numbers showed “a net increase of 44.7 million jobs created during
the Kennedy, Johnson, Carter, Clinton and Obama administrations, compared to a 23.3 million figure
during the Nixon, Ford, Reagan and both Bush administrations.”
The partisan pattern of Republican economic incompetence goes back much further than 1961, however,
as Dr. James Gilligan of New York University carefully documented last year in his path-breaking book
Why Some Politicians Are More Dangerous Than Others (and as I reported in Big Lies as well). Using
statistics compiled by the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the National Bureau of Economic Research,
Gilligan found that unemployment rose during every Republican administration and fell during every
Democratic administration for more than a century. Every Republican president left unemployment
higher than when he entered the White House, and every Democratic president left it lower, with
unemployment rates remaining higher for longer periods under the Republicans.
“If we count up the net sum of all the increases that occurred during Republican administrations from
1900 through 2008, we find that the Republicans brought about a cumulative increase of 27.8 percent in
the unemployment rate, and the Democrats an almost exactly equal decrease of 26.5 percent,” Gilligan
calculated. The reason was that America suffered about three times as many months of recession under
Republican government than under Democratic government, from 1900 through 2010, according to the
National Bureau of Economic Research—an organization headed for many years by the conservative
Harvard economist Martin Feldstein, who is currently among Mitt Romney’s top economic advisors.
Recessions began 17 times during Republican presidencies and only six times during Democratic
presidencies, and always lasted several months longer under Republicans, too.
Only a torrent of malarkey, as Joe Biden would say, can distract and deceive the citizenry about these
basic facts— combined with the historical amnesia that remains our most crippling political affliction.
But the economy is certainly not the only important issue distorted by Republican mendacity.
As National Memo’s executive editor Jason Sattler demonstrates in these brief but biting essays, the
trumpery extends from health care reform and Medicare to the federal deficit, taxes, and the record of the
Obama administration itself. What is most troubling about this year’s campaign is the determination of
the Republican ticket and its supporters to mislead voters not only about the president’s achievements and
intentions, but about their own plans for the nation’s future.
The Big Lie lives. But in these pages you will find the big truths that are the only effective antidote.
We’ve made them available for free, because we believe that reliable information and honest analysis are
vital to defending democracy and defeating plutocracy.
http://www.ibew73.org/Big-Lies-2012.pdf
**************
Read and learn.
You must be voting for Johnson.
Best of luck with that one...
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