Republicans Revert to Lies

It may be the New Age of Obama, but Republicans can't break their old habits, including the one they used most often to rule for 8 years: lying.

Right now they're getting their mugs on TV and filling their media blather with lies about the Obama economic recovery and stimulus package, and those who support it. In recent days, two economists called them on it.

Paul Krugman wrote about the plausible sounding lies GOPer lawmakers are telling any camera or microphone that sits still long enough. Some of it is the usual lying with selective misuse of statistics. Some of it involves assertions that have proven not to be true, such as tax cuts (especially if not exclusively to the wealthy) stimulate the economy better than spending programs. Krugman doesn't think these Republicans themselves even believe this. "The point is that nobody really believes that a dollar of tax cuts is always better than a dollar of public spending."

Some of the lying is word play. Programs that create jobs and perform necessary public work is demonized as "pork." Republicans complain that Obama's choices can't be proven to be the best ones. That's just a non sequiter.

Beyond stuffed shirt lawmakers, there's the roiling windbags of the right, and economist Robert Reich is fighting back at them. On his blog, Reich wrote:
"In the last few days, manifestly distorting my words and pulling them out of context, you have accused me of wanting to exclude white males from jobs generated by the stimulus package. Anyone who takes a moment to examine what I actually said and wrote knows this to be an absurd misrepresentation of my position (see this). My goal is and has always been to create as many opportunities for as wide a group as possible, and not exclude anyone from access. There is and has never been any ambiguity about this. The hate mail I have received since your broadcast suggests that the mischievous consequences of your demagoguery are potentially dangerous, in addition to being destructive of rational and constructive political discourse. I urge you to take responsibility for your words. Words and ideas have real world consequences, and you have demonstrated a cavalier disregard for both."

We've had decades of this kind of toxicity ruling the roost. It's going to take time to get beyond them, but that's part of what President Obama meant when he said in his Inaugural that it's time to put away childish things.