Righteous Rant! Tom Toles on Lyin' Ryan
Friday rant This just in: Lying works! edition
By Tom Toles
Where to begin? A better question is: Where to end? I have a good answer to that. You could stop watching and listening to Republicans forever when Paul Ryan, “Mr. Tough Truths”, opened his mouth, and let out a river of lies that the stranded barges on the dried-up Mississippi could have floated on all the way to his beloved Janesville. This was among the best of several take-downs of this outrageous speech, because it began with the Simpson-Bowles meme, with which the GOP has been contaminating the public discussion about deficits for some time.
And our beloved mainstream media? They should have put Bernstein’s post on page one and moved on to cover Sports and Weather. But no, we got respectful reporting and analysis of whether or not mendacity more naked than Prince Harry was “effective.” Gee, the GOP crowd really warmed up this new level of public deception! Was it effective “despite” it’s lies, as some analysts tried to explain it? No. It was effective BECAUSE OF its lies. Are reporters unaware of the history of lying propaganda? IT WORKS! When you build a heart-rending tale AROUND A LIE, well, by golly, people RESPOND. It was so heart-rending! Effective!
Dangerous. Yes there is an ideological division in this country, but when a national ticket starts defining its case around complete, brazen, and deliberate lies, then it’s time to sign off. No, you cannot have a public policy discussion with this level of misrepresentation. This level ends and poisons public policy discussion. Try discussing something with the open end of a giant sewer pipe. It doesn’t end well. It doesn’t end well, either, for a party to become known as a sewer pipe.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/tom-toles/post/friday-rant-this-just-in-lying-works-edition/2012/08/30/9d006a00-f2c7-11e1-a612-3cfc842a6d89_blog.html
= new reply since forum marked as read
