Oh, I know there are those out there who object to my calling Mitt Romney a liar, a liar beyond the ordinary political variety.
But his perjurious pathology was on full display on Thursday, as he said the following, with out-of-business Solyndra as a backdrop:
Two years ago President Obama was here to tout this building and this business as a symbol of the success of his stimulus. Well you can see that it’s a symbol of something very different today.
It’s a symbol not of success but of failure. It’s also a symbol of a serious conflict of interest. An independent inspector general looked at this investment and concluded that the administration had steered money to friends and family – to campaign contributors. This building, this half a billion dollar taxpayer investment, represents a serious conflict of interest on the part of the president and his team…Free enterprise to the president means taking money from the taxpayers and giving it freely to his friends.
Let’s be clear about what Romney is asserting by quoting him again:
An independent inspector general looked at this investment and concluded that the administration had steered money to friends and family – to campaign contributors.
Go that? Obama allegedly gave, via his stimulus plan, taxpayer money to “friends and family,” so says “an independent inspector general.”
Except, of course, the assertion is blatantly false. It’s a lie. A real lie, different in kind from what we normally expect from candidates who spin facts to fit the narrative they are offering on any given day, at any given event.
Now, I only surveyed two sources—but I am sure there are more—that reported Romney’s remarks without any attempt to correct the record. ABC News and The Washington Post simply quoted Romney without noting what Time.com’s Michael Grunwald (who will soon release an entire book on the 2009 stimulus) did, commenting on an ad that is running and pushing the same lie:
I’ve spent two years in stimulus-world, and I had no idea an inspector general had said that. I asked the Romney campaign for documentation, and it produced a Newsweek article asserting that Energy Department inspector general Gregory Friedman “has testified that contracts have been steered to ‘friends and family.’”
Except that Newsweek article was an excerpt from the book “Throw Them All Out,” written by Peter Schweizer, a right-winger who has served as an adviser to Sarah Palin’s PAC, edited one of Andrew Breitbart’s websites, and written a slew of books portraying liberals as pond scum. Not exactly a disinterested source. And it turns out that the inspector general never testified that stimulus contracts were steered to friends and family. He said his office was investigating whether stimulus contracts were steered to friends and family. So far, it hasn’t confirmed that any were.
Let’s get this straight one more time: Romney accused President Obama of corruption, asserting as fact that an inspector general has determined he gave stimulus money to friends and family, and Romney’s source for that “fact” was a man who makes Rush Limbaugh look like Dennis Kucinich.
For fun, let’s turn Romney’s own technique against him.
A man with enough chops to make a religious documentary said Mitt Romney,
has the blood of a nomadic polygamist tribesman.
That same man suggested that Romney may have multiple wives, as many as five of ’em.
Based on that, Mr. Obama could but won’t stand in front of a Mormon church somewhere and make this short declaration:
Mitt Romney uses his fealty to this church you see behind me as a symbol of his uprightness. In fact, this church is a symbol of Mitt Romney’s lack of integrity. It’s also a symbol of a serious problem Romney has with one-man, one-woman matrimony. Like the Mormon church of old, Mitt Romney supports polygamy.
A religious expert looked at his life and concluded that Romney has five wives. When he tells us he believes in the sanctity of marriage, he doesn’t, unless you think it’s okay to pledge to be faithful to a whole basketball team of women.
Romneyesque, that.
Thank God that somewhere beyond all this nonsense about Solyndra happens to be a few, real, facts:
♦ The previous administration, uh, I think that was that Bush guy, started the government’s commitment to Solyndra.
♦ Even big-talking Darrell Issa has given up finding Obama corruption surrounding Solyndra.
♦ More than one Solyndra lobbyist is raising cash for Romney as we speak.
♦ And then there is this:
GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney has hammered President Obama for his administration’s tax-funded investment blunders — but when Romney was governor, the state handed out $4.5 million in loans to two firms run by his campaign donors that have since defaulted, leaving taxpayers holding the bag.
Uh, oh.
The Erstwhile Conservative: A Blog of Repentance 
Jim Wheeler
/ June 1, 2012Very interesting post here. This information needs to be aired because so many believe the lie. I have had several conservative acquaintances mention Solyndra to me as evidence of the Obama administration’s corrupted nature.
It is also worth noting in this context I think that not all of Bain Capital’s multi-million dollar projects were successful. There were a number of them that lost millions because of the vagaries of the market, the same forces that took down Solyndra, so Mr. Romney should understand how those things work, shouldn’t he?
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ansonburlingame
/ June 1, 2012OK, some quotes and links below with my own conclusions.
First from President Obama saying in 2010, “But through the Recovery Act, this company received a loan to expand its operations. This new factory is the result of those loans”
Second is the Washingon Post in March of 2012 at http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/obamas-solyndra-shuffle/2012/03/22/gIQAEy4dUS_blog.html.
The Bush administration set up the law to provide Energy loans but NO LOANS were made under that law during the Bush years. Obama’s administration, using the stimulous was the one that started dooling out the money, a half a billion to Solynda.
A broader view of the Solyndra scandel can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solyndra_loan_controversy.
My conclusion from about 30 minutes of browsing is two fold.
First and foremost the loan was a terrible business decision, a decision made by the Obama administration. As a result of that decision taxpers lost a half a billion dollars, flat out.
My second conclusion is “I’m Not Sure, Are You” regarding how much politics played in the decision to loan Solyndra the money. NO government loan of that amount is ever provided without some politics involved. Anyone that has done business with the government knows that. In this case “how much” is the question and no clear answer will every be found, in my view.
I could cherry pick all sorts of right wing “stuff” to “prove” a point that cannot really ever be proven in my view. BUT, I put some credibiliy in the Washington Post, NYT and Wikipedia to shed some light on the matter. In reading such sources, credible sources to me there is enough smoke revealed to at least suspect fire as well.
I tried to find the actual words written or spoken by the DOE Inspector General or his office but could not find them.
Did Romney LIE. Nope, not in my view, any more than Obama LIED when he claimed “you can keep your current policy (HC)” in his SOTU address long ago.
But there was enough spin coming out of the mouths of both men to make a major league curve ball look very small indeed.
Anson
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ansonburlingame
/ June 1, 2012I am compelled to add the following view as well. Every man and his brother has been “investigating” Solyndra for well over a year now. NOTHING has been revealed to suggest anything illegal was done. I doubt seriously that any charges will ever be filed in this matter, much less proven in a court of law.
So I boil down the whole situation to be one of a very bad loan decision by the Obama administration, ignore excuses why the decision was made, much less “blame it on Bush” and leave the rest to politics which is this case I discount as well.
But if you want to “get personal” with each candidate, my view is that Romney is a very shrewd investor and Obama has never done such work. So I would put some money on Romney NOT to make such bad business decisions or appoint people that would do so.
Anson
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Treeske
/ June 1, 2012If Romney was a Democrat, Fox news would publish this: The proof that Romney has plural wives is clear, his sons are all the same age!
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ansonburlingame
/ June 1, 2012See what I mean about inane comments. But of course the follow an inane title to a blog as well.
AB
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Jane Reaction
/ June 2, 2012Romney was NOT an investor Anson. He was a pirate. I had an office across the street in Houston from Bain Capital. They were/are vultures. The SOB was blatant enough that Lehman Brothers wouldn’t do business with him. Get your head out of your posterior for a change.
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ansonburlingame
/ June 2, 2012Go read the Clinton quote provided on a previous blog Then go tell Clinton to get HIS head out of……. If Romney was not an investor, just how did he make all that money, from a salary???
However I suppose in your view all investors are pirates. I suggest you join an OWS protest to express such views.
AB
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