If you’re familiar with my blog, you’ll know I rarely if ever refer to anybody as a liar. That’s a pretty strong word. I mean, everybody is entitled to their opinion and stand by it, even when their opinion is based on false statements and half-truths.
But when a person claims another person “is gonna” tell you something which they never did say and then proceed to use the fabricated statement in an argument against that person – I’d say that person is a liar. In this case, I’d say he’s a hallucinating double-talking backbiting liar. Such is the scenario around Ron Johnson’s latest campaign ad to create a negative ad against himself, and then claiming Sen. Russ Feingold did it.
Johnson begins his ad ...
"Guess what’s coming in Russ Feingold’s negative campaign. He’s gonna tell you that I said Washington treats Social Security like a Ponzi scheme.
You know what? I did say that...because it's true."
But you know what? Johnson lied. Johnson never said “Washington treats it like a Ponzi Scheme” until today - and he lied again by saying that Feingold's "gonna" say Johnson said “Washington treats it like a Ponzi Scheme.” Got that?
This is Johnson’s actual quote on Social Security…
Wispolitics Excerpt:In my world, there is a difference between treating a person like a dog and stating that a person IS a dog. I'm not splitting hairs here, the difference is like night and day. It's basic comprehension.
"Is it too strong a statement to say that we’ve been lied to? How is Social Security different from a giant Ponzi scheme? Our money has been spent, and the lockbox is nothing more than a future claim against our children’s income." [Johnson’s speech at the Winnebago County Republicans’ Lincoln Day Dinner, March 21, 2010]
So the reality is, if elected, Ron Johnson will go to Washington and treat Social Security like a Ponzi Scheme - because he, not Russ Feingold, believes it to be no different than one.
The other truth is, Feingold doesn’t need to run negative ads against Johnson. This fella Ron Johnson is doing it all for him.
Additional Note: So far, most of Johnson's campaign ads are meant to reconstruct his extremist views into a more moderate populist message. That’s why his latest ads and his campaign staff are constantly contradicting or marginalizing what he said previously. When they can’t pull it off cleanly, they’ll put words in Feingold’s mouth. I think Johnson’s campaign is in permanent damage-control mode. Most of Johnson’s campaign staff's repositioning statements actually coincide more closely with Feingold’s position. They have nothing left to offer but name-calling.
2 comments:
Maybe in my old age I've decided to call people out on lies. It doesn't matter whether it's contained in an opinion or not, it's still a lie.
What fascinated me even more is the idea that politicians can spend the money out of the SS lockbox leaving IOU's, and then say they don't need to pay it back. Even worse, they'll make you and me pay it back, our money, through tax increases. A real insult to the adult mind.
The surplus was a lower and middle class slush fund for the rich that helped pay for their tax cuts. They need to pay us back by lifting the cap.
Agreed. There's definitely a lot of blame to go around about the condition of the SS trust fund. Your second sentence is exactly what we are facing in a nutshell. They borrowed from us without telling us that "we" will have to pay it back.
It also insults the mind how phony fiscal conservatives denigrate the SS program simply because its surplus was legislatively robbed, and then continue to pile on the program to kill it, (instead of the robbbers) by blaming its payback for our national debt.
The same can be said for extending the Bush Tax cuts for the wealthy. They can only be offset by more borrowing from Communist China and Saudi Arabia. But according to Johnson, paying back SS is "extending future claims against our children’s income." It's those tax cuts for the rich what he's fighting for.
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