Alter: Boehner’s Response Is Work of Political Fiction

[FourScore]

Jonathon Alter really eviscerates Boehner's speech, point-by-point in this article. It's a good read.

Alter: Boehner’s Response Is Work of Political Fiction
By Jonathan Alter Jul 26, 2011 11:12 AM ET 113 Comments
Bloomberg Opinion

Speeches by politicians are usually full of spin, biased use of facts and appeals to emotion. President Barack Obama’s address to the nation last night on the debt ceiling was no exception.

House Speaker John Boehner’s response was in a different league. It was chock full of statements that simply aren’t true...

SNIP

Boehner: “Here’s what we got for that spending binge: a massive health-care bill that most Americans never asked for. A 'stimulus' bill that was more effective in producing material for late-night comedians than it was in producing jobs. And a national debt that has gotten so out of hand it has sparked a crisis without precedent in my lifetime or yours.”

Facts are stubborn things. Whatever one thinks of it, the Obama health-care law wasn’t part of the “spending binge.” The law has yet to significantly contribute to the budget deficit because most of it hasn’t been phased in yet.

According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, the stimulus bill created millions of new jobs, which as a factual matter is at least as “effective” as a David Letterman monologue. And anyone with the most rudimentary knowledge of the 2008-09 economic meltdown knows that it was “sparked” by a crisis in private debt, not “the national debt.” The latter wasn’t a big problem when, say, Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. went bust...

MUCH MORE AT: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-07-26/boehner-s-response-is-work-of-political-fiction-jonathan-alter.html

[FreakinDJ]

1. Glad some one called him on it