Fact-checker Glenn Kessler at the WaPo says that Obama’s gone and lied again:
In addressing a dinner of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in Los Angeles, President Obama made a rather striking claim — that Senate Republicans have filibustered “500 pieces of legislation that would help the middle class.”……[W]hen you go through the numbers, there have just been 133 successful filibusters — meaning a final vote could not take place — since 2007.But, even if you accept the way Senate Democrats like to frame the issue, the president is still wrong. He referred to “legislation” — and most of these cloture motions concerned judicial and executive branch nominations. In the 113th Congress, for instance, 83 of the 136 cloture motions so far have concerned nominations, not legislation.Even then, while Obama referred to “500 pieces of legislation,” the same bill can be subject to as many as three cloture motions, further inflating the numbers…So far in the 113th Congress, 36 pieces of legislation were subject to a cloture motion — and 12 were actually filibustered…Obama’s count also includes at least a half-dozen instances when Republicans were blocked by Democrats through use of the filibuster.
But that’s not all, although it would be enough to earn as many Pinocchios as the WaPo allows. In what Kessler refers to as “the biggest oddity”:
…the president reached back to 2007 in making his claim, so he includes two years when he was still a senator. On eight occasions, he voted against ending debate — the very thing he decried in his remarks.
Obama is no ordinary political liar. He’s an Orwellian political liar.
And even Kessler at the WaPo knows it:
On just about every level, this claim is ridiculous.We realize that Senate rules are complex and difficult to understand, but the president did serve in the Senate and should be familiar with its terms and procedures. Looking at the numbers, he might have been able to make a case that Republicans have blocked about 50 bills that he had wanted passed, such as an increase in the minimum wage. But instead, he inflated the numbers to such an extent that he even included votes in which he, as senator, supported a filibuster.
One of the saddest and most outrageous things about all of this is that, although most people on both right and left know by now that Obama is flagrantly mendacious, only the right condemns it (often impotently, for the most part) and the left either lies about it or applauds it.
[Neo-neocon is a writer with degrees in law and family therapy, who blogs at neo-neocon.]
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