Once again, Republican shills at the Associated Press, on the day after our president gave what is universally recognized as one of the greatest and most important addresses of the past 100 years, launch a nit-picking fusillade of hair splitting, distortions, and outright lies.
Get this for the AP's idea of just how bone-headed Obama's speech really was:
OBAMA: "And I believe the nation that invented the automobile cannot walk away from it."
THE FACTS: Depends what your definition of automobiles, is. According to the Library of Congress, the inventor of the first true automobile was probably Germany's Karl Benz, who created the first auto powered by an internal combustion gasoline engine, in 1885 or 1886. In the U.S., Charles Duryea tested what library researchers called the first successful gas-powered car in 1893. Nobody disputes that Henry Ford created the first assembly line that made cars affordable.
http://news.yahoo.com/...
More below the fold.
Today in an article entitled "FACT CHECK: Obama's words on home aid ring hollow", AP writers Calvin Woodward and Jim Kuhnhenn provide a Santelli-esque diatribe against the president's speech. In a jumbled grab bag of opinions masquerading as financial news, they present a framework for Wall Street opposition to the president's plan under the guise of a red herring debate over the automobile and a smarmy, all or nothing implication that since "each and every" loan ever made cannot be scrutinized under an amorphous notion of fairness, then the housing plan must be wrong.
In point after tedious point the AP writers torture Obama's words. Oil imports peaked in 2005 and are off slightly. Therefore since the president said "we import more oil today than ever before", a parsing of the meaning of the word "now" is in order. Never mind that the Bush oil bubble caused a precipitous drop in demand, if you want to accept the AP's thinly veiled assertion, it looks like we really don't have an energy problem!
It just goes on and on. Obama's passing off debt to future presidents. Generational theft anyone? Republicans aren't at fault for the deregulation debacle. Democrats are! Reducing waste in government? Not gonna happen! Renewable energy? Forget it.
This is a roadmap for Republican talking points and Congressional intransigence for the next four years. Keep an eye on the AP, folks. Looks like they know who butters their bread.
Update:
Thank you for the rec's! I'm a little surprised, this is my silliest, shortest diary yet. Funny, that. :) And I didn't mean to say this was the greatest speech or anything, but I do think it was an important speech, well delivered and well received, and it came at a really important moment. I was just surprised at the AP's tone.