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.

Hyperbolize Much?

Oh, this is nice. Here's a Fox headline describing illegal immigration as "America's 3rd War:"




Yeah, that's right, Murdoch's propaganda network is comparing undocumented workers coming to the US looking for work to armed, violent insurgents in Iraq and the Afghan Taliban. Stay classy, Fox, and next time armed border vigilantes murder a 9 year old girl as she pleads for her life, remind us how you had nothing to do with it.

GOP Family Values

So, according to the GOP now, it's not really "incest" if she's over the age of 18.

The new version of the [GOP abortion] bill apparently retains the clause that limits the incest exemption to girls under the age of 18 and language that makes it tougher for women to obtain abortion coverage through their private insurers.

My guess is they're just trying to cover their tails.

VIA: TPM Cafe.