DID OBAMA RECENTLY TELL AN OUTRIGHT LIE?

My ramblings today are to further warn everyone not to swallow everything that is written and reported on, no matter how much you might respect the media outlet or the person making the statement. The political high jinks that are going on with Reid vs Angle in Nevada is typical of what is happening to our entire political system.

I just saw a “sound bite” where Obama, while stumping for Senator Reid, was accusing Sharron Angle, a republican running against Reid in Nevada, with a closed ended statement that “Sharron Angle is worse than most of the Republicans in office in Washington in that she wants to do away with Social Security and Medicare.” My first emotional reaction was to brand the statement as an outright lie.

BUT…trying to keep an “open mind,” I decided to investigate the matter. No, Obama did not outright lie but he deliberately slanted his words to imply, or lead people to believe, something that is not completely true in order to advance Reid’s campaign against Sharron Angle. Here is what I found out. I have “copied and pasted” bits and pieces of some of the interviews on television and reports online regarding Sharron Angle’s positions on controversial matters:

FOX AND FRIENDS:

Angle is asked about the rumors that she plans to dismantle Social Security and Medicare. She responded not just by denying this, but by turning it around into a call for a “lock-box” around Social Security and Medicare, and against the Harry Reid’s of the world who have been “raiding” those funds for a whole host of unrelated purposes. She argues that seniors have paid their money into those funds “in good faith”, and that we need to “personalize” Social Security and Medicare “so that the government can no longer raid it”. To view her personally making this statement:
http://www.redstate.com/georgeinla/2010/06/14/sharron-angle-personalize-social-security-and-medicare/

WASHINGTON POST ONLINE – June 30, 2010:

Las Vegas Political Program: FACE TO FACE

In her TV appearance Tuesday, Angle said that she now believes in protecting Social Security by placing the funds needed to pay for current obligations in a "lockbox" while also allowing some manner of privatization for future recipients.

INTERVIEW WITH HANNITY OF FOX NEWS:

HANNITY: What do you - look, Harry Reid is attacking you in this latest ad that he's got out there, saying that you want to phase out Medicare and Social Security. What is your reaction to what he said?

ANGLE: Well, it's nonsense. I want to save Medicare and Social Security. I'd like to put some of that money back in the lockbox that he has raided and put an IOU in. He's had 20 years to fix Social Security and Medicare. And what we have is an empty lockbox.

And what we need is to make our senior citizens feel secure once more with their own Social Security and Medicare. But going forward we need to personalize that program in a way that the government can't go in and raid it any more.

HOWEVER, Sharron Angle has made some statements about Social Security, Medicare, Department of Education and other governmental programs that can be twisted or slanted into “evil” statements. She needs a Paul Harvey interview where “the rest of the story” is told. This is an example of an interview with her.

LOCAL NEVADA NPR AFFILIATE:

Greg Sargent reports that in a radio interview with a local Nevada NPR affiliate on May 19, Angle talked about how the VA and Medicare were not covering medications for her father -- and she suggested that they shouldn't, "not if you're working towards a privatized system."

Going on in the interview, Angle talks about how as a Senator she would work with other legislators to formulate a proper solution for her idea, haggling over the details and implementation of privatization without giving up on the main idea itself: "The idea of privatizing and getting out of Medicare and Social Security is not up for grabs."

THE REST OF THE STORY…

Sharron Angle feels that Social Security, Medicare, Education programs and more are “broken” and that she wants the Senate and Congress to come up with a “better plan” than what is in place now. What is amusing to me is that Harry Reid’s people have dug up what they feel is a “slam” against her by republishing an old web site of hers, thinking that we can see the “real Sharron Angle” on this site.

If Harry Reid thinks that this “old website of hers” will turn conservative people against her, he is absolutely wrong. It will only turn the liberals against her because they will view her policies as radical...but they are the radiacal ones.  This maneuver on his part shows just how low our political system has sunk.  It has begun to look more like “running with the bulls” in Spain rather than our politicians coming across as level-headed elected officials who are honest, competent and are looking out for the American people.

If interested in viewing Sharron Angle’s old web site that has been reinstated by the Harry Reid people to slam her, visit: http://www.therealsharronangle.com

We need to follow an old IBM method of influencing their employees. When I was eighteen years old, I went to IBM for an interview for a job and everywhere I looked, I saw plaques that simply said in big, bold letters: THINK! Some people are like baby birds and simply sit and open their mouths for someone to feed them and digest it without concerning the consequences. Don’t be a baby bird. THINK, THINK, THINK for yourself.