Any politician is going to color and spin. That, unfortunately, seems to be inherent in political discourse. That doesn’t excuse it, and it doesn’t make pointing out the lies a useless exercise.

Romney’s campaign, however, does more than merely exaggerate on a regular basis. His lies form the basis of his campaign. Without his lies, he doesn’t have anything to run on. His lies are particularly worth pointing out, because he hasn’t got a campaign without them.

The tendency of Romney supporters to play tu quoque games when Romneylies or Ryanlies are pointed out doesn’t distract from or excuse the Romney/Ryan lies. Nor are the statements on anything like the same level.

Take one of the President’s statements. Were 100% of the funds used to rescue the financial industry repaid? Probably not. The larger question is, was the financial system worth rescuing? Was that a good thing to do? That is the policy question we should be discussing, and the question about .whether 100% of the funds have been repaid is, at most, incidental to that.

In contrast, take one of the Romneylies. He said, “Obama inherited a bad recession, and made it worse.” Romney’s campaign is based on the premise that President Obama has “worsened” economic conditions. But that is untrue — he has improved them. Without Romney’s lie, he has no actual point to make.

Or take a Romney objection to the ACA — that it will increase the deficit by “trillions.” Romney is proposing this as a reason to repeal the ACA. It’s a lie, but without the lie, the reason he is advancing to repeal the ACA vanishes.

The points that the President is making are valid (and would, therefore, be even better served) without rhetorical exaggerations (but then, we saw in the first debate what happens when facts are presented calmly and rationally — the President is chided by critics as being “lackluster” and “passive”). In contrast. The points Romney makes evaporate without the lies. Without his lies, Romney has nothing to run on. That is the difference.

1) That TARP lie is one you repeat all the time too and I wish Obama would bring it up in the debate so Romney can point to how much was lost in the auto bailout.

2) Romney wasn’t saying Trump is a small business, just that many businesses get taxed like individuals (Donald Trump being an individual).

3) Its unlikely to see large price increases given the current state of the economy, so low health increases aren’t exactly shocking. Inflation is low right now.

4) Not sure of all the differences between Wide Receiver and Fast + Furious. They weren’t identical.

Grog apparently is of the opinion that both Obama/Biden and Romney/Ryan lie with equal ease and frequency and importance. He wanted some “evidence” of this being not true. The only way I know whether we can have any “evidence” is for us to examine statements from them both and assess their truthfulness. I presented some from Romney/Ryan and urged Grog to follow with some from Obama/Biden. We then need to assess the truthfulness of each.

So yes, I want to have that discussion.

Let’s address the statements you raised:

“We got back every dime we used to rescue the financial system, but we
also passed a historic law to end taxpayer-funded Wall Street bailouts
for good,”
Not true. The CBO says TARP will cost the federal government $24 billion.
“The
cost to the federal government of the TARP’s transactions (also
referred to as the subsidy cost), including grants for mortgage programs
that have not yet been made, will amount to $24 billion,

Is “rescue of the financial system” the same thing as TARP? Answer: no, it isn’t. So your response is not relevant. (Be aware that TARP was enacted under Bush, not Obama.) I am gratified that you didn’t dispute the statement about the new financial regulations.

Obama: “Under Gov. Romney’s definition … Donald Trump is a small business.”
Not true. Even Politfact rated the claim as “False”.

I’m not interested in what Politifact says. You tell me why the Presidents statement is untrue — give me Gov Romney’s definition of “small business” and tell me why Trump does or doesn’t fit. Then address the larger issue — the President’s point was that when Romney claims raising tax rates on incomes over $250,000 will harm “small businesses,” Romney is being misleading at best.

Obama: Because of Obamacare, “over the last two years, health care premiums have gone up — it’s true — but they’ve gone up slower than any time in the last 50 years.”
Nope. Not true. Premiums have not gone up slower than any time in the last 50 years.

Please furnish some data, then I’ll address this one.

Obama: “I think it’s important for us to understand that the Fast and Furious program was a field-initiated program begun under the previous administration”
Nope. Not true. The Fast and Furious program began in October 2009. That was not during “the previous administration”.

Fast and Furious was the most recent phase of the interdiction and monitoring program that was set up under the Bush Administration. It was pretty much identical to what had gone before, and was being executed by the same people under the same rules and using the same techniques. You’re arguing about whether the Dallas Cowboys started playing football at the beginning of this season or whether they’ve been playing for a few years.Giving an ongoing operation a new name doesn’t mean it suddenly was created out of thin air.

Shall I keep going?

Sure. Maybe you can come up with some actual false statements on the level of the Romneylies I presented.

Is this how you want to play it? Since you apparently think Obama is so lily pure that he is incapable of lying, you want me to provide lies by Obama, then you follow with more Romney lies until we declare who the biggest liar is?

Here we go.…

Obama made this claim last Thursday:
“We got back every dime we used to rescue the financial system, but we also passed a historic law to end taxpayer-funded Wall Street bailouts for good,”
Not true. The CBO says TARP will cost the federal government $24 billion.
“The cost to the federal government of the TARP’s transactions (also referred to as the subsidy cost), including grants for mortgage programs that have not yet been made, will amount to $24 billion,”

Obama: “Under Gov. Romney’s definition … Donald Trump is a small
business.”
Not true. Even Politfact rated the claim as “False”.

Obama: Because of Obamacare, “over the last two years, health care premiums
have gone up — it’s true — but they’ve gone up slower than any time in the last
50 years.”
Nope. Not true. Premiums have not gone up slower than any time in the last 50 years.

Obama: “I think it’s important for us to understand that the Fast and Furious
program was a field-initiated program begun under the previous
administration”
Nope. Not true. The Fast and Furious program began in October 2009. That was not during “the previous administration”.

Shall I keep going?

Of the 14 “lies” you posted.  8 I’d rate as actually true,5 as irrelevant or I don’t care enough to check, and 1 as an actual lie.The beauty of Romney’s provocative statements is that its really hard for Obama to respond to them without looking bad. I mean, what is he going to say when Romney “lies” about the $90B in breaks to greenies—-“no Mitt, it was only $40B and it was only to Solyndra and Ener1,but yes it was far more than the idiotic oil subsidies I keep whining about”. Good luck with that. So Mitt picks subjects that he knows are bad for Obama, makes provocative statements about them, and dares Obama and his “factcheckers” to spend more time discussing the issue. I dare him to tell Mitt that CBO had rated Obamacare as deficit neutral in a debate. Lets see how that goes over with the viewing public.

Mittles really only believes in Mittles. That is one theory now being promulgated in op ed world. That would explain his acrobatic deftness.

He may be a weasel but he isn’t stupid. Clinging to the stinking pile of bat shit crazy he wallowed in to prevail over the various screeching primary dwarves was clearly a huge loser with regular America.

So he jettisoned the whole mess with stunning deftness catching Obama flat footed.

And those who continue to cling to batshit crazy with all their strength were too busy chortling over his imaginary defeat of that negro to notice that he did so by mind melding with the latter, shape shifting into the sparkling white version with impressive haste and no small degree of anxiety that the stunt would fly before the fence sitting contingent took time to parse his prior spew stream with several years of provenance.

It may turn out to have been a terrible miscalculation but what do you expect from old 47%?

He’s beginning to look a lot like Kerry.

And, I take some comfort in this back handed endorsement of sanity. I just wonder how the batshit crazy clan will handle it once the betrayal sinks in, a sort of hangover from their excessive guzzling of spiked kool aid whereby the principles were left in a ditch in the zeal to just win.

#74: “ It’s not sur­pris­ing that you and the oth­ers think that Rom­ney and Ryan lie worse than Obama.My ques­tion stands.  What empir­i­cal evi­dence do you have to back up your claim?”

#79 is empirical evidence of those lies. Unless you can match or exceed the list dc presented, you’ve been pwned. You can “bow out” if you wish, but you do so demonstrably defeated in the quest of your own hypothesis.

I know the right-wing meme is “Everybody lies, so what difference does it make?” I understand the idea is to excuse the lies, and even perhaps to pretend they are acceptable and maybe even somehow a good thing. I don’t buy it.

You are free to present times Obama has “lied” — particularly ones that were not corrected when pointed out, which would probably make them “errors” rather than “lies.” Romney not only doesn’t correct them, but doubles down and reinforces them. Ryan is at least as bad.

Thanks for playing. I think the point has been proved.