Aw, geez…

Wow. Even Republicans have to be flinching when their Number One Two on the ticket resorts to going full Palin on them. But that’s what Paul Ryan did on the campaign trail yesterday.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OC2Mos2-iH0

You remember that one where he said people in places like Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, we cling to our guns and our religion. Hey, as a Catholic deer hunter, guilty as charged, alright?

Fer cryin’ out loud, that “other time” was four years ago! Seriously? You couldn’t find something more recent than that? The dude has spoken in public hundreds and hundreds of times. Surely there was something he’s said since he’s actually been president that you could use to fire up the Catholic hunter base.

He also said, “You remember Joe the Plumber? Yeah, so, this was about four years ago. He said ‘We need to spread the wealth around’.”

Here’s the video:



Meanwhile, Romney himself has now released his fifth ad slamming President Obama for stripping $716 billion out of Medicare, the EXACT same amount the Romney/Ryan plan “strips out of Medicare”. Here’s what Steve Benen at The Maddow Blog had to say about that:

Consider these comments from Joe Scarborough yesterday: “I’ve been looking for a week-and-a-half to try to figure out the basis of this welfare reform ad,” Scarborough said, concluding that that the attack is “just completely false, and I’m pretty stunned.” The Associated Press this morning ran a news piece on the racially-charged smear, calling the attack “factually inaccurate,” noting the campaign can’t “back up” the attack, and explaining that Romney is “distorting the facts.” But Romney just doesn’t give a damn. He’s put out five videos repeating the attack — three for broadcast, two for the web — in just two weeks, and his campaign repeated the same obvious falsehood again this morning, effectively taunting reality. “Yep, I’m deliberately and repeatedly lying to the public,” Romney seems to be saying . “What are you going to do about it?”

Benen is right. This bald-faced lying has gone off the rails. While politicians have always played fast and loose with the facts, Romney has simply resorted to making things up and then repeating them again and again and again.

The Republican Party itself is happily following Romney’s leadership on this. They have now planned an entire day of their convention around the lie that President Obama suggested that entrepreneurs didn’t build their own businesses. It’s a lie. He never said that. Anyone who watches the speech he made or reads the transcript knows this. But they are going to spend an entire day of their convention based on a complete fabrication; a lie.

It’s gotten so bad the President Obama himself nearly used the word “lie” when talking about the Romney campaign this week:

I don’t think that Governor Romney is somehow responsible for the death of the woman that was portrayed in that ad. But keep in mind, this is an ad that I didn’t approve; I did not produce; and as far as I can tell, has barely run. I think it ran once. Now, in contrast, you’ve got Governor Romney creating as a centerpiece of his campaign this notion that we’re taking work requirement out of welfare. Which every single person here who’s looked at it says, it’s patently false.

Patently false, lie. Potato, potahto.

Liar.

Frankly, I find it a bit heartening in some ways that Romney and the Republican sheep following him off the cliff like lemmings are telling such blatant lies. They’ve become so brazen that even the Associated Press is calling them out on it. Eventually, reasonable, rational, thoughtful Republicans — and, yes, there are some of them still around, they’re just in hiding — have got to be asking themselves “WTF???”

The GOP may be courting the far right tea party freaks for fear of losing their vote but, the fact is, they will be losing the vote of reasonable Republicans in the process. And, while tea partiers will NEVER vote for Obama, some of these more rational Republicans WILL vote for Obama.

So, while it’s depressing to me that this race has gotten so stupidly insulting and offensive, it gives me hope that it’s all a bunch of foot-shooting by the Republicans.

And Obama wins.

[CC photo credit: Terry Alexander | Flickr]