Out of bounds! Obama misstates McCain's position on regulation

[kaydee457 13]

By Steven Thomma, McClatchy Newspapers

Fri Sep 19, 12:33 PM ET

Throw the flag on: Barack Obama .

Call: Offside.

What happened: Obama tried this week to tie rival John McCain to the financial crisis on Wall Street .

""He has consistently opposed the sorts of commonsense regulations that might have lessened the current crisis," Obama said.

"When I was warning about the danger ahead on Wall Street months ago because of the lack of oversight, Senator McCain was telling The Wall Street Journal , and I quote: 'I'm always for less regulation.' "

Why that's wrong: First, while McCain is generally an anti-regulation conservative, he's supported some tougher federal regulations.

In 2002, for example, he pushed for tougher corporate-accounting standards after the scandals at Enron and other corporations. "I have long opposed unnecessary regulation of business activity, mindful that the heavy hand of government can discourage innovation. But in the current climate, only a restoration of the system of checks and balances that once protected the American investor, and that has seriously deteriorated over the past 10 years, can restore the confidence that makes financial markets work," McCain said.

In 2006, he called for tighter regulation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac , the two federally chartered, privately run mortgage giants that the government now has taken over. "If Congress does not act, American taxpayers will continue to be exposed to the enormous risk that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pose to the housing market, the overall financial system and the economy as a whole," McCain said.

Second, Obama omitted the rest of McCain's March interview in The Wall Street Journal , particularly the part in which he called for government oversight in the sub-prime mortgage mess. Citing one part of a quote and leaving out the second half is deliberately misleading.

Here's the full quote:

"I'm always for less regulation. But I am aware of the view that there is a need for government oversight. I think we found this in the sub-prime lending crisis, that there are people that game the system, and if not outright broke the law, they certainly engaged in unethical conduct which made this problem worse. So I do believe that there is role for oversight.

"As far as a need for additional regulations are concerned, I think that depends on the legislative agenda and what the Congress does to some degree, but I am fundamentally a deregulator. I'd like to see a lot of the unnecessary government regulations eliminated, not just a moratorium."

Penalty: Five yards and an automatic first down.

source

[spookyturtle 9,466]

They're politicians, why would they tell the truth?

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

On lies and deception, Obama doesn't even get close to McSame / Bush-Palin. Not even close.

Maybe facts don't matter

By Farhad Manjoo, Slate

Published Wednesday, September 17, 2008 7:27 PM

Since July, John McCain and his campaign have made 11 political claims that are barely true, eight that are categorically false, and three that you'd have to call pants-on-fire lies — a total of 22 clearly deceptive statements (many of them made repeatedly in ads and stump speeches).

Barack Obama and Joe Biden, meanwhile, have put out eight bare truths, four untruths, and zero pants-on-fire lies — 12 false claims. These stats and categories come from the St. Petersburg Times' PolitiFact.com, but the story looks pretty much the same if you count up fabrications documented by FactCheck.org or the Washington Post's Fact Checker, the other truth-squad operations working the race: During the past 2½ months, McCain has lied more often and more outrageously than Obama.

Of course, it isn't possible to prove in any scientific manner that McCain is being more deceptive than Obama. Judging political lies is a bit like trying to evaluate bad American Idol performances; we agree that they all kind of suck, but we can still have endless fights about which ones suck the least.

Some of McCain's recent claims, though, are the William Hungs of political lies: so heroically deceptive that anyone not blinded by partisanship feels the urge to cover his ears. Take McCain's ad claiming that Obama's "one accomplishment" on education policy was to push "legislation to teach 'comprehensive sex education' to kindergartners." It's difficult to find a single true word in the whole spot. The Illinois Senate bill the ad refers to was not Obama's legislation. (He voted for it but didn't write or sponsor it.) It was not an "accomplishment" — the bill didn't pass. Nor did it advocate teaching kids about sex before they learned to read, as McCain claims; it envisioned "age-appropriate" language instructing children on "preventing sexual assault," among other dangers, and it allowed parents to hold their kids out of these classes.

Obama, too, has run deceptive ads. He edited a McCain quote to suggest that the senator favors trucking nuclear waste through Nevada but not through his home state of Arizona — a trick that renders the spot barely true. And Obama claimed McCain doesn't support auto industry loan guarantees, which used to be true but no longer is.

But Obama's ads employ the routine deceptions of politics — they exaggerate the opponent's positions, they play fast and loose with dates, they draw convenient inferences from strings of unrelated events. Yet they also contain a few actual facts. That's not high praise, but it reaches a higher standard than McCain's accusation that Obama called Sarah Palin a pig. Or McCain's insinuation that FactCheck.org found Obama making "false" attacks on Palin — a complete distortion of FactCheck's finding that anonymous e-mailers were attacking Palin.

The McCain camp's other sin is one of repetition: They keep saying things that have been proved untrue. In TV ads and nearly every stump speech, Palin has repeated the line that she stopped the federal government's plan to build the "bridge to nowhere," a claim that fact-check sites and nearly every major news organization have shot down. McCain keeps running ads stating that Obama would raise taxes on the middle class when Obama's plan would actually lower taxes for most people.

On several occasions, Obama has adjusted his message when called out by fact-checkers. Last month PolitiFact wrote that Biden was wrong to say McCain voted with Bush 95 percent of the time. Shortly thereafter, the Obama camp began using a more accurate measure, 90 percent.

This is exactly what's so puzzling about Obama's strategy — why is he paying any attention to the fact-checkers? So far, McCain has seen little blowback from lying. Polls show that he's perceived as more "honest and trustworthy" than Obama and that the public believes his claim that Obama would raise taxes on the middle class.

In my book True Enough: Learning To Live in a Post-Fact Society, published earlier this year, I argued that in the digital world, facts are a stock of faltering value. The phenomenon that scholars call "media fragmentation" — the disintegration of the mass media into the many niches of the Web, cable news, and talk radio — lets us consume news that we like and avoid news that we don't, leading people to perceive reality in a way that conforms to their long-held beliefs.

In the past, Democratic voters have been willing to accept lies. Researchers at the Annenberg Public Policy Center found that in 2004, the Kerry campaign managed to convince Americans that 3-million jobs had been lost during George W. Bush's first term (at the time of the election, it was less than 2-million) and that Bush "favored sending American jobs overseas." (He didn't.) Kerry and others on the left repeated these claims often, and in time they took root.

The misstatements of 2004 suggest a category of lies that Obama could get away with — ones that the public is already primed to believe about McCain. What about that 100-years war? Picture an Obama ad showing McCain saying that the war in Iraq will last 100 — or even 1,000! — years. The ad patches in footage of McCain singing "bomb Iran" and describing all the devastating effects of war. Actually, that ad exists—a comedy group posted it on YouTube in February. Nearly 2-million people have watched it. It's hilarious, effective, and a complete lie. Obama's advisers should be pushing him to approve that message.

[Wei&Shu(Joe) 2]

By Steven Thomma, McClatchy Newspapers

Fri Sep 19, 12:33 PM ET

Throw the flag on: Barack Obama .

Call: Offside.

What happened: Obama tried this week to tie rival John McCain to the financial crisis on Wall Street .

""He has consistently opposed the sorts of commonsense regulations that might have lessened the current crisis," Obama said.

"When I was warning about the danger ahead on Wall Street months ago because of the lack of oversight, Senator McCain was telling The Wall Street Journal , and I quote: 'I'm always for less regulation.' "

Why that's wrong: First, while McCain is generally an anti-regulation conservative, he's supported some tougher federal regulations.

In 2002, for example, he pushed for tougher corporate-accounting standards after the scandals at Enron and other corporations. "I have long opposed unnecessary regulation of business activity, mindful that the heavy hand of government can discourage innovation. But in the current climate, only a restoration of the system of checks and balances that once protected the American investor, and that has seriously deteriorated over the past 10 years, can restore the confidence that makes financial markets work," McCain said.

In 2006, he called for tighter regulation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac , the two federally chartered, privately run mortgage giants that the government now has taken over. "If Congress does not act, American taxpayers will continue to be exposed to the enormous risk that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pose to the housing market, the overall financial system and the economy as a whole," McCain said.

Second, Obama omitted the rest of McCain's March interview in The Wall Street Journal , particularly the part in which he called for government oversight in the sub-prime mortgage mess. Citing one part of a quote and leaving out the second half is deliberately misleading.

Here's the full quote:

"I'm always for less regulation. But I am aware of the view that there is a need for government oversight. I think we found this in the sub-prime lending crisis, that there are people that game the system, and if not outright broke the law, they certainly engaged in unethical conduct which made this problem worse. So I do believe that there is role for oversight.

"As far as a need for additional regulations are concerned, I think that depends on the legislative agenda and what the Congress does to some degree, but I am fundamentally a deregulator. I'd like to see a lot of the unnecessary government regulations eliminated, not just a moratorium."

Penalty: Five yards and an automatic first down.

source

The problem with America, IMHO, is that it isn't only the politicians who abandon truth in the name of ideology. Decide first, read later should be our motto. What is the penalty for illogical intellectual dishonesty? Obviously in America it just wins votes and gets you employment as a journalist.

Look at McCain's actual quote. He doesn't just say he's against regulation and wants it eliminated, he says it 3 TIMES, and Obama quoted only one of them but still that isn't what McCain meant. He repeated it 3 times to let us know it was opposite day then, correct? The last time he says it he makes clear that he doesn't want them temporarily eliminated but wants them repealed forever, regardless of who may suffer.

So what does he say or do that gets him off the hook for what he said 3 times?

One will be the word unnecessary. Because he said "unnecessary regulation" everyone of that bent will assume he meant regulation that gets in the way of efficient government and a vibrant economy. In fact, it's impossible to look at the record and conclude that he means anything other than regulations that get in the way of he and his rich friends getting richer on the backs of the middle class, who we will then pass the buck to when our greed destroys us. Many Americans are willing to ignore that however because ideology made their choice before any facts were considered.

The second is that on a whopping 2 occasions he supported a regulation. To a realist, that is meaningless and consistent with his pattern of embracing that which he abhors when he needs to get elected.. If he were a democrat he'd be a flip-flopper. So he's not against every regulation. I'm sure that will make everyone who suffers from the current collapse feel better.

What does he say in his quote that actually counters what was quoted? He says that he is "aware of the view" that there is a need for government oversight. He notes that without regulation lots of people get screwed so maybe they should be overseen. Yes, once the unregulated industries create a mess we ought to keep an eye on them so we can get ready to socialize them. Oh my god, don't call it that! It's those dems who want socialism but they want selective social policy for the dirty masses and not for the mega rich so they are evil.

One way to clearly see the ideological overlay that obscures the truth is to switch the context away from something you've already concluded is good and see if it still makes sense. This switch is made to make a point and not to suggest that he has some relationship to this activity.

Someone is accused of supporting rape because even as the removal of rape laws has resulted in a large number of roving gang rape bands he has said, "I am always for more rape." But a closer look shows us that he actually said, "I'm always for more rape. But I am aware of the view that there is a need for government to outlaw rape. I think we found this in the past gang rape crises, that there are people that game the system, and if not outright broke the law, they certainly engaged in unethical conduct which made this problem worse. So I do believe that there is role for oversight of people who do wish to engage in rape. Maybe they should be tested for HIV for example.

"As far as a need for rape prohibitions are concerned, I think that depends on the legislative agenda and what the Congress does to some degree, but I am fundamentally a pro-rapist. (In fact, twice in the past when the raping got really really bad, I voted for some regulation of this activity.) I'd like to see a lot of the unnecessary government regulations on rape eliminated, not just a moratorium."

Now that the context is changed, what can you conclude about the speaker? Even if he voted to legalize rape many times, even if he was involved in his own scandal many years ago, it would still be unfair, on the basis of this statement in the midst of a crisis, to conclude that he supported rape, correct? I mean give him a break! He is "aware of the fact" that some other people think rape should be illegal! When the predictable results of his pro-rape policies got really bad he voted to limit it in the past. So it is easy to see how incredibly unfair and dishonest it is to describe someone who calls themselves "fundamentally pro-rape" with the inaccurate label of "pro-rape."

As you and I get "raped" by his rich friends in the banking industry, it isn't so far from the truth.

[IAMX 3,055]

The problem with America, IMHO, is that it isn't only the politicians who abandon truth in the name of ideology. Decide first, read later should be our motto. What is the penalty for illogical intellectual dishonesty? Obviously in America it just wins votes and gets you employment as a journalist.

Actually, the problem with America concerning Democrats and Republicans is people won't vote for anyone else besides Democrat or Republican. 50% chance, one of them wins. I'd sure as hell take those odds any day. Get people into thinking they only have two choices, and voila -- they have two choices, and politician wins.

It works just like the free market. The more competition, chances greatly increase of a better service winning, because they are catering to the customer. Less competition, less options, customer caters to them, they can control prices, not the consumer. Politicians, when having competition, find themselves in a position in needing to cater to the voter to keep their position. However, when there's far less competition, like now, with only two parties getting roughly 98-99% of the votes, they only need to bullshit you enough to get your vote, and don't need to try hard to keep their job because they have a 50% chance of keeping it anyways!

Unfortunately, people are simply too goddamn stupid to figure this out, and even further lazy, those who know this, not to do something about it, so they're left playing cheerleader and voting for a party that's going to ** them where the sun doesn't shine.

Edited September 21, 2008 by SRVT