The Assault on Paul Ryan

Minutes after Paul Ryan gave his speech at the RNC last Wednesday night, fact checkers were out in full force, searching through his speech for anything that didn't comport with the way they see things.  And did they find many things that fit that descriptoin, chiefly among the Ryan's argument that involved the GM plant in Janesville, WI and his blasting the president for ignoring the findings of the Simpson-Bowles Commission.  

Steve Hayes finds that these fact checkers may want to actually take time from reading Democrat Party talking points and look at the facts.  Here are his observations on the articles that accuse Ryan of lying about the Simpson-Bowles Commission:

Here’s the funny thing about most of these articles: They fail to cite a single fact that Ryan misstated or lie that he told. In most cases, the self-described fact-checks are little more than complaints that Ryan failed to provide context for his criticism of Barack Obama. For example, virtually every one of these articles included a complaint about Ryan’s comments on Obama and entitlement reform. In accusing Obama of failing to lead on entitlements, Ryan noted that Obama had ignored the findings of the Simpson-Bowles Commission that the president himself had empaneled. The complaint: Ryan did not mention that he had served on the commission and voted against its findings.

Could Paul Ryan have gone out of his way to disclose his role? Of course. Does his failure to do so constitute a “lie”? Hardly. There’s an additional irony here. None of those accusing Ryan of omitting important context noted in their reports that Ryan, both before and after voting against Simpson-Bowles, authored comprehensive and detailed plans to address entitlements and debt—something that might be considered important context for their critiques of Ryan.

I've noticed that in many these fact checking columns, the authors really need to go back to second grade and figure out what is a fact and what is an opinion.  So many of these columns treat every word said by a politician as a statement of pure fact.

Hayes continues on what they missed in their accounts of the GM plant in Janesville:

Ryan didn’t claim that Obama was responsible for the closing of the GM plant, he faulted Obama for failing to do what he’d suggested he’d do: Save it. It’s an important distinction. If Ryan’s intent had been to deceive, he wouldn’t have introduced his critique noting that “we were about to lose a major factory” when Obama told workers, “this plant will be here for another 100 years.” Second, Kessler was simply wrong to claim “the plant was closed in December 2008, before Obama was sworn in.” The plant was producing trucks as late as April 2009, several months after Obama was sworn in. On February 19, a month after Obama’s inauguration, the Janesville Gazette reported on the imminent closure: “General Motors will end medium-duty truck production in Janesville on April 23, four months to the day after the plant stopped building full-size sport utility vehicles. About 100 employees associated with the line learned of the layoffs Wednesday.” 

It’s true that GM, in the summer of 2008, had announced its intention to put the plant on standby. But if announcing something accomplished it, I would have long ago announced that I’d lost 30 pounds. The plant was not, in fact, “closed in December 2008.”

And furthermore, the plant is still not even closed for good.  It can re-open again in the future.

The massive irony in all of this:

But the narrative was set. How did this happen? Immediately after Ryan finished delivering the passage on the GM plant in his speech, top Obama adviser Stephanie Cutter sent this tweet: “Ryan blaming the President for a GM auto plant that closed under Pres Bush—thought he was smarter than that.” With one click after another, Cutter’s false claim became accepted wisdom. 

So we are left with this irony: Paul Ryan was accused of lying because journalists and self-described “fact checkers” relied, at least in part, on a misstatement of fact that came directly from the Obama campaign.

It wasn't just hyperbole when I stated at the top of this post about the fact checkers relying on Democratic Party talking points.  It's a sad state of affairs.