Fox News Is Already Preparing For An Obama Win

Ken O’Brien

I’ve been sitting here watching Fox News and they are getting ready, even before the first votes are in, to make excuses.

If they know anything they know the truth. How else could they work to twist it so effectively?

Wait to see where they place the blame. 

The Romney Campaign Ends With A Lie - The Same Way It Started

No Romney Gaffe? What About “Syria Is Iran’s Route To The Sea”?

Ken O’Brien

To listen to the Romney campaign flacks and the cable news pundits you are left with one fundamental talking point. That message is, “Romney did what he had to do; he made no mistakes and proved acceptable as a commander in chief.”

That is absolute, unmitigated crap. For someone who keeps using the term “geopolitical”, with the emphasis on “GEO”, he made a gaffe as significant as Gerald Ford’s infamous pronouncement that Poland was not under Soviet hegemony.

Obama Takes The Rubber Match

The Return Of Multiple Choice Mitt

Ken O’Brien

Snap polls from CNN, PPP and CBS News gave President Obama the victory in the foreign policy debate.

In the CNN-ORC poll, 48 percent of voters said Obama won; 40 percent said Romney did. Public Policy Polling's swing state poll gave it to Obama by 53 percent to 42 percent. The CBS poll of uncommitted voters was more dramatic: Obama took 53 percent, Romney took 23 percent, and another 24 percent called it a tie.

Following is a series of observations over the course of the debate. 

Obama Shoots, He Scores, He Wins – Again, And Again, And…

Ken O’Brien

It was the Michael Jordan of American politics versus its Lance Armstrong.

It was heart, talent, spirit, and mastery of the fundamentals versus “win at all costs”, “whatever it takes”, and regret the truth later.

Romney was constantly tripped up by having to tap dance around prior positions he now wants to disown. He continually failed to provide specifics. He repeatedly said “I know how to improve the economy”, but he never said how. You have to wonder why his support in the state where he was governor is now only 34% and before he announced he would not seek reelection he was losing in polls by 16% to his leading competitor. 

The First Debate: Mitt Romney's Five Biggest Lies

Ken O’Brien

Mitt Romney turned in a polished performance in the presidential debate – and revealed himself to be an accomplished and unapologetic liar. In an evening where he sought to slice and dice the president with statistics, Romney baldly misrepresented his own policy prescriptions, made up numbers to fit his attacks and buried clear contrasts with the president under a heaping pile of BS.

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Here are Mittens’ five most mendacious statements: 

If Benghazi Was A Screw Up, What Was 9/11?

Ken O’Brien

The right-wing media, led by Faux News, has been trying for weeks to construct a narrative castigating the Obama Administration for incompetence in the events leading up to the tragedy at the Benghazi consulate. Clearly there is an earnest hope of creating an “October surprise” to upset the President’s momentum heading into the last weeks before the election. 

Smoke Versus Clarity: Romney V. Obama Tax Plans

Ken O’Brien

It’s still the economy stupid.

In a run-up to Wednesday’s first Presidential debate it’s important to keep this in mind. And equally important, the issue is not the past but the future.

The core components of the economy issue are twofold – economic growth to provide jobs and the reduction in Federal indebtedness.

So You Don’t Trust The Polls, But You Trust The Free Market

Ken O’Brien

Are you one of those who have come to doubt the polls about the Presidential election after the relentless attacks by some elements of the media this week?

Do you long for an “unbiased” source that reflects the true sentiment of the public as regards the likely outcome of the race?

If only there was a free-market model that provided an accurate reflection of where the contest was headed, where people actually had to back up their beliefs with their dollars.

Well there is such a place. 

Kristol: Obama Turned Around Economy

Ken O’Brien

Bill Kristol, Editor of the conservative magazine The Weekly Standard, told Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday, “Bush was president during the financial meltdown, the Obama team has turned that around pretty well.”

Romney: Obama Voters Are Freeloaders-Video

From Mother Jones

UPDATE: 9/18 – The full video (40 minutes) of Mitt Romney’s Florida fundraiser speech is available onYouTube.

UPDATE: 9/18 The American Conservative online, of all people, just released a map prepared by the conservative Tax Foundation showing which states have the highest proportion of residents that pay no Federal income taxes. I bet it will come as a surprise to Barack Obama when he finds out from where Mitt Romney says Democratic support is coming, (Top ten states in ratio of non-Federal-income-tax paying residents are in red. The lowest ten are in blue.)

“When he doesn't know a camera's rolling, the GOP candidate shows his disdain for half of America.”

During a private fundraiser earlier this year, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney told a small group of wealthy contributors what he truly thinks of all the voters who support President Barack Obama. He dismissed these Americans as freeloaders who pay no taxes, who don't assume responsibility for their lives, and who think government should take care of them. Fielding a question from a donor about how he could triumph in November, Romney replied:

Platform Posturing

Ken O’Brien

When your opponent is shooting himself in the foot, you don’t help him.

That was exactly my reaction when I heard about all this right wing high-fiving about the Democratic Convention changing the language in their platform.

Overnight the Republican smear machine launched a campaign about the absence of the word “God” and the reference to Jerusalem as the Capital of Israel from their platform. 

An Exercise In Irony

Ken O’Brien

Norman J. Ornstein is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. As such he is no left-wing firebrand. Indeed, the AEI is one of the hallmark institutions of contemporary American conservatism.

In April of this year he joined with Thomas E. Mann who is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. Together they penned an editorial for the Washington Post titled, “Let’s just say it: The Republicans are the problem”.

The article was drawn from their book, “It's Even Worse Than It Looks: How the American Constitutional System Collided With the New Politics of Extremism”.

In the book they summarized their views as follows:

Court Orders Restoration Of Ohio Early Voting

Ken O’Brien

From the Huffington Post:

A federal judge sided with the Obama campaign and ruled Friday to order Ohio to restore three days of early voting before Election Day, a decision that could affect the outcome of the 2012 election in a key battleground state.

Judge Peter C. Economus of the Southern District Court of Ohio granted an injunction in favor of Obama For America, the Democratic National Committee and the Ohio Democratic Party, which sued Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted to restore in-person voting in the last weekend before the election. 

Romney’s Energy Plan – Dick Cheney On Steroids

Ken O’Brien

Mitt Romney’s comprehensive energy plan was officially announced today. It was comprehensive in name only.

While giving a brief mention to renewables, the plan seems to have been crafted in the boardroom of Exxon-Mobil or any other oil company It's hard to imagine that what Vice President Dick Cheney and the energy companies cooked up in their secret get-together in early 2001 could be any more favorable to the oil giants and coal companies. 

Mitt Romney: Serial Flip-Flopper or Congenital Liar?

Ken O’Brien

Remember John Kerry’s Presidential campaign?

Do you remember the endless barrage of ads that characterized him as a “flip-flopper”?

That was all over one vote.

Now, however, conservatives are so consumed with, dare I say it, outright hatred of Barack Obama that they haven’t stopped at a relentless volley of lies about subjects ranging from his birthplace to his religious convictions.

Rather, they are willing to embrace a Presidential candidate who is not merely a demonstrable liar, but someone who has been characterized as one by his own Republican fellow travelers.

Repeating It Doesn’t Make It True

Ken O’Brien

“The definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over and expect different results."

Repetition of an untruth is the surest way to guarantee that it becomes an accepted fact.

Take for instance the above quotation.

Just about any of you who are familiar with it have seen it with the attribution “- Albert Einstein”.

Just yesterday the quote appeared as a question on “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?”.

Unfortunately, there is absolutely no record that Einstein ever said it. 

Distorting Again – Romney Returns To His Roots: A Video Profile

Ken O’Brien

Allow me to set the stage. Let’s return to the halcyon days of yesteryear when Mitt Romney and his fellow Republicans were bashing each other over the head in the Republican primaries.

In order to distinguish himself from his opponents in a state he was expected to win handily, Romney launched his first anti-Obama ad.

In case you’ve forgotten, Eric Fehrnstrom is better remembered for his “etch-a-sketch” and the “mandate is a tax, just like it was in Massachusetts” comments.

The latest firestorm on the right is fueled by the following quote:

Romney's Lies

Ken O’Brien

Rachel Maddow 

Rarely do journalists have the courage to use the term liar when referring to a candidate for public office.

It is even more unusual for a journalist with a national forum to use the term in reference to a candidate for President of the United States.

On Thursday, May 31, Massachusetts' own Rachel Maddow did this on her nightly program.

Regardless of whether you agree with her political leanings or not, one aspect of Ms. Maddow's reporting is her devotion to verifiable facts. She has assembled one of the best research staffs in the cable news business.