President Says GOP Creating 'Fictional' Obama.

[elleng]

Source: NYT/AP

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — President Barack Obama says Republicans are creating a "fictional Barack Obama" during the White House campaign by misrepresenting his positions and words.

Obama says GOP rival Mitt Romney has made disputed allegations the "centerpieces" of his campaign. The president singled out Romney's claim that he stripped a work requirement out of federal welfare laws, a Romney assertion that has been widely debunked.

The president said Romney didn't spend a lot of time at the GOP convention talking about how he would make Americans' lives better. He says Romney's strategy must be to convince the public that getting rid of Obama will be enough to turn things around.

Obama spoke in an interview with USA Today.



Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2012/09/03/us/ap-us-cvn-obama-republicans.html?hp

[freshwest]

1. Very true. Between the media editing and blackout of Obama, the GOP controls the message.

[high density]

2. The Republicans are awesome at creating strawmen

They've got nothing else to run on.

[Qutzupalotl]

4. No wonder they love Ayn Rand.

Strawmen being her specialty.

Eastwood didn't even need straw.

[liberal N proud]

3. Invisible too.

[Angry Dragon]

5. Where are your tax returns Willard??

[randr]

6. The Republican image of their fictional Obama

is too close to past portrayals of black peoples going all the way back to the last century. These people really do live in another world run by their fears and prejudices.

[woo me with science]

7. This whole campaign is fictional.

It is pure propaganda theater, and nobody is talking about what is *really* happening and what is *really* important.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/aug/30/election-2012-media-vast-rightwing-conspiracy-stupid

Election 2012 and the media: a vast rightwing conspiracy of stupid
Glenn Greenwald
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 30 August 2012 11.23 EDT

....
The election process is ....what inculcates many Americans to believe that they enjoy vibrant political debate and stark democratic choice, even as so many of the policies that are most consequential and destructive for their lives – the "war on drugs", the supremacy of the covert national security and surveillance states, vast inequalities in the justice system, crony capitalism that rapidly bolsters the oligarchy that owns the political process – are steadfastly ignored because both parties on those matters have exactly the same position and serve the same interests. (Watch how often Obama supporters will defend their leader from conservative attacks by proudly arguing that Obama's policies are actually the same as that which conservatives advocate: he's severely cut government spending even more than Bush and Reagan! Wall Street and corporate profits are at an all-time high! He's killed and killed and killed some more! His healthcare plan comes from a rightwing thinktank! Nobody has been more faithful to Israel than Obama! He's severely harmed Iran with sanctions and isolation! etc.)

It's where the candidates pretend to believe in a whole litany of base-pleasing and populist policies that enable their loyalists to claim there are vast differences between them, even though such campaign pronouncements have virtually no predictive value in determining what they will do in office – as the New York Times's Peter Baker, writing about foreign policy campaign platforms, put it today with great understatement: "the relationship between what presidential candidates say on the campaign trail and what they do once elected can be tenuous."

It's where the handful of important issues on which there are genuinely sharp and clear differences – social issues, reproductive rights, jurisprudence philosophy, a few social program and tax policies – are endlessly exploited to heighten cultural divisions and, more importantly, to obscure the similarities on everything else.

The election year process could and should be a meaningful opportunity for real political debate: the one time every four years when the majority of the population that is too busy or uninterested to pay much attention becomes engaged and thus informed. Instead, the process is the ultimate deceit. And the ultimate distraction.

[TomCADem]

14. I Disagree With This False Equivalency Narrative WRT To This Whole Campaign Being Fictional

There are real choices being presented to voters. The actions or inaction of the House GOP is a direct result of the 2010 campaign.

Nonetheless, the mainstream media continuously pushes the false equivalency narrative. Is Greenwald's take any different from the standard mainstream media piece wagging its finger at both parties? Republicans and Democrats and liberal and conservatives are equally at fault. If anything, I think it is merely a cover by the media for their own laziness and complacency in allowing discussion of policies to degenerate into he said, she said yelling matches.

The Republicans pretty much made it a goal to do everything to obstruct efforts by President Obama and Democrats in Congress to respond to multiple crises. The 112th Congress is widely known as one of the least productive Congresses ever. Heck, the GOP House held over 30 symbolic votes to repeal healthcare while make no serious effort to address unemployment. The GOP blocked action on President Obama's job proposals without making any legitimate effort to address unemployment now.

Sadly, many in the media confuse their obligation to be objective with simply engaging in false equivalency. The writer attempts to sit above the fray by declaring both sides at fault. However, this merely empowers the GOP to engage in even more serious lies secure in the knowledge that the media will feel obligated to blame both sides in the interest of objectivity.

[emulatorloo]

19. Since your speciality is excoriating your own version of "Fictional Obama"

I am not surprised you are promoting this False Equivalency propaganda.

[Iliyah]

8. And another one, the killing of OBL the GOPpers bogeyman

which BHO destroy the GOPpers ability to use the bogeyman scenario against the Dems, so what do the GOPpers do - claim it was actually W & his admin. that had the intel which O used to get OBL or in other words, W actually killed OBL not BHO and when that failed, guess what "swift boating" video and now a book.

The GOPpes are pissed that the "bogeyman" is dead and now they have to create fear some other kind of way, Race. Now it appears that the Race tactics is not working as well, and we all know GOP hates women, Black, Brown and gays and the GOPpers also hates Unions, Healthcare and voting rights, so what do they have left besides the economy which is slowly. . .getting better, so I think the next phrase, MORE CRAZY FEAR-MONGERING. Seriously I read that Chuck Norris claims that if O gets back into office America and I guess the rest of the world will be in damnation for 1,000 years! I think he saw that futuristic movie 2016 where a RW predicts how evil O is.

[nxylas]

18. Or claim it never happened

For the "black helicopter Republicans", everything is a conspiracy, and this is no exception. According to them "there is evidence that" (their favorite weasel phrase) the whole thing was staged, and they love to quote the half-truth that the Navy SEALS who carried out the operation were killed in a helicopter crash a week later (other members of Navy SEAL Team 6 were killed, but not the ones involved with the Bin Laden killing).

[Smilo]

9. So true - so get out there and fight

don't let them get away with it.

Remember the more times they tell the lies, the more times the dumbnuts believe it.

[annabanana]

10. Jon said it last Friday. There is an Obama that only

Republicans can see. . .. . Thecommiemuslinsocialistical one who hates america

[mindwalker_i]

11. Obama should bring a chair to the debates

and otherwise always have a chair around. Then he can keep pointing to it and saying, "Here's what Republicans want to talk about, the 'me' that isn't me at all, but the 'me' they wish they were running against. As you can see, we are quite different." He can also point to the chair on occasion and tell it to make his day.

[Peaceful Protester]

12. The GOP's network of ruthless deception

Last edited Wed Sep 5, 2012, 05:12 AM - Edit history (6)

1) During the presidential campaign of 2008, Rupert Murdoch of News Corp / Fox News, had wanted Obama to kiss his ring, but Obama dragged his feet. Murdoch then assigned Rodger Ailes, the Fox News Chairman, the task of attacking Obama. When Obama finally met with Murdoch and Ailes, Obama said he didn’t want to waste his time talking to Ailes if Fox was just going to continue to abuse him and his wife, that Fox had relentlessly portrayed him as suspicious, foreign, fearsome -- just short of a terrorist. Ailes, unruffled, said it might not have been this way if Obama had more willingly come on the air instead of so often giving Fox the back of his hand.

http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2008/10/wolff200810

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/02/AR2008090202730.html

2) On inauguration night 2009, Paul Ryan (R-WI) and several Republican Party members plotted to undermine President Obama. One can only assume this was simply a continuation of the Fox News' Republican re-election center's attack against Obama, resulting from the Republican Party's close-knit relation with Fox News.

http://tinyurl.com/the-plot-to-obstruct

3) Rupert Murdoch promotes the Tea Party on Fox News as wealthy contributors utilize the Citizens United ruling to funnel unlimited amounts of money to Tea Party members running for Congress.

4) Ginrich, Rove and Adelson view the RNC festivities from an exclusive skybox. (Source FSTV)

5) On Meet The Press, Gingrich confirms he attended an inauguration day meeting, but the questions go no further.

6) On Meet The Press, no one mentioned Paul Ryan (R-WI) -- Romney's VP pick -- participated in the secret meeting to plot against President Obama. No one even considers that Rupert Murdoch or Fox News may have been involved.

7) Mitch McConnell (R-KY) finally officially announces the Republican Party's priority

"Our political priority, over the next two years, should be to deny President Obama a second term."

http://tinyurl.com/4xztuxm (08 sec)

8) Scott Walker (R-WI) Scott Walker says he wants to "divide and conquer" Wisconsin

"The first step is: We're going to deal with collective bargaining for all public employees, to use Divide and Conquer."

http://tinyurl.com/7n2jc34 (38 sec)

9) Mike Turzai (R-PA) is caught on tape as he confirms the GOP's election fraud strategy

"Voter ID, which is gonna allow Gov. Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania, done!"

http://tinyurl.com/c6bl5se (13 sec)

10) Marco Rubio (R-FL) gives an RNC speech complete with a very revealing Freudian slip

"We chose more government instead of more freedom."

http://tinyurl.com/95oxtmx (42 sec)

[gcomeau]

13. I've been hoping ever since "Old Man Yells At Chair" night...

...that the Obama campaign takes proper advantage of the gift from the political gods they were handed. The RNC accidentally, at their own freaking convention, pulled the curtain back on their entire campaign strategy of "we're going to run against a completely fictional version of Obama" and put it on display for the entire country.


Obama's speech at the DNC should take a serious departure from his usual soaring oratory. Everyone knows he can give a speech. What the undecideds need this year is "this guy has things under control and knows what he's doing".

Use the giant screens and multi media capabilities that stadium is going to be packed with and have Obama school the country on reality vs. GOP fantasy by spending the entire time comparing and contrasting Real Obama with Invisible Obama. With all the data and references to back it up. Give the fact checkers *nothing* to complain about the next day. Just leave them all stumped.


Real Obama cut taxes. Invisible Obama raised them.

Real Obama saved the US auto industry. Invisible Obama somehow closed a GM plant during the Bush Administration.

Real Obama saved 700 billion dollars in the Medicare program, used those savings to strengthen coverage, and extended it's solvency another 8 years. Invisible Obama "cut" 700 billion from Medicare and is trying to kill the program or something.

Real Obama responded to requests from GOP GOVERNORS for some leeway to find more effective ways to get people on welfare back to work. Invisible Obama "gutted welfare work requirements".

Real Obama has had a jobs act being blocked by a Republican congress for over a year. Invisible Obama "has no plan to get people back to work".

Real Obama ordered a strike into Pakistan to take out Bin Laden. Invisible Obama is an appeaser.

Real Obama turned 800,000 jobs lost a month into years of job growth. Invisible Obama somehow caused the unemployment rate to spike before he even got elected.


Seriously, there's an entire speech there. Throw the graphics up with the numbers while you're at it. Go full on policy wonk, throw the GOP a curveball when they're expecting more high concept inspirational rhetoric and it simultaneously accomplishes several things.


1. It finishes the job Eastwood started of exposing the entire GOP campaign strategy to the light of day.
2. It drives home to people that yeah, Obama is an inspiring figure but he also *knows what he's doing and has things under control*.
3. It draws a ridiculously stark contrast with Romney's speech, in which policy details were avoided like they were some kind of highly contagious communicable disease. I mean, read this focus group response to his speech and see if you detect a theme:

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/politics/july-dec12/undecided_08-31.html

"I didn't find enough meat on it, "



"He talked about developing skills and choice in schools, but he didn't connect, like, how do you get there? How are we going to improve that issue? What would you do as president to help with that issue?

And I think on every point, he did that. There just was really nothing behind his ideas, other than, you know, look, we can do better than we have done, and I'm the guy to maybe do better."




"When he talks about, you know, repeal Obamacare, and replace it with something, and he just -- he brushed on it, well, what do you mean? What are you going to replace it with? And what are you going to do? Because that's huge."

[Amonester]

15. Did Obama promise to keep the rate of unemployment at 8 percent? (No.)

Neither Obama nor anyone in his Administration has promised that the unemployment rate would not go above 8 percent. Politifact has repeatedly rated this GOP talking point as false. The speculation about Romer being a fall person is just that, speculation.

[bucolic_frolic]

16. GOP Using Ryan's Lies to Take the Heat

so that Romney's Lies About Obama will go Unchallenged
by the MSM

Beware, we are in a real tight race

The fictional Obama is a deliberate propaganda technique

[oldsarge54]

17. What do you mean "during the White House campaign?"

The Republicans have been creating a fictional Obama for the entire last four years. Labeling him communist (guilt by association), for example. Yet no one can point anything out as being actually Marxist in his actions. Labeling the stimulus as bribes for unions was creative, as was supporting loans to green energy companies a payback for campaign contribution. Then there is 2016. Is is me, or is it the Republicans who are delusional?

[AZ Progressive]

20. GOP HAS been creating a fictional Obama for the past 4 years

Their Fictional Obama of course is a Secret Muslim that born in Kenya and is a traitor communist trying to turn America into a communist nation and giving away America's power to the UN and other nations.

[apnu]

21. Boy the GOP sure does have a bunch of Obamas: Invisible, fictional, and real. Any more?

[TrogL]

23. That's a clever way of explaining the "straw man" logical fallacy

[Iris]

24. As opposed to their "factual" Romney?