Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Say Anything



The Washington Post runs a fact check on a popular right-wing meme: that since becoming president Barack Obama has travelled around the world apologizing for U.S. conduct. Unsurprisingly the Post awards the claim it's highest dishonesty rating of 4 Pinocchios. But what struck me as most peculiar about the examples that the Post culls from right-wing websites and mouthpieces was this statement by Karl Rove:

In London, [Barack Obama] said that decisions about the world financial system were no longer made by "just Roosevelt and Churchill sitting in a room with a brandy" -- as if that were a bad thing.

So, wait... Karl Rove is nostalgic for a (probably mythical) time when decisions about the world financial system were formulated and negotiated in private by two heads of state? Silly me: all this time I thought government intervention was bad and the markets were supposed to organize themselves?

I think what this example shows is that conservatives can make the most absurd, foolish, nonsensical and contradictory claims in the service of attacking the President. It doesn't matter what Obama says. If he said it, it's wrong.

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