British Perspective on Biden’s Debate Performance
Since the domestic media is largely allied with the Obama Campaign, let’s have a look at what they are saying overseas about Biden’s disgraceful debate performance. From the UK:
Biden’s performance here in Danville, Kentucky was both comical and self-defeating. Just as Al Gore sighed and rolled his eyes in 2000, so Biden smirked and guffawed.
His brief was to show the aggression that Obama so obviously lacked when the President went up against Mitt Romney last week. But as the dust settles today many will be left feeling that he went too far, tried too hard.
Many women and swing voters will have hated his condescending, swaggering display.
It was not due only to his strikingly boorish histrionics that Biden decisively lost the debate, despite it being moderated without impartiality by Obama’s personal friend Martha Raddatz, whose wedding Obama attended. He lied repeatedly and easily demonstrably.
Biden blamed the intelligence community for the debacle that led to and followed the killing of ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans in last month’s terror attacks on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi. …
When asked by Raddatz why the White House had blamed the death of Stevens on protests about a movie, he responded: ‘Because that was exactly what we were told by the intelligence community.’
There is ample evidence that this was not the case.
The same arrogance that inspired Biden to behave like an utter jackass led him to believe he could get away with shouting assertions that obviously are not true. Hopefully the intelligence community will not take this lie lying down.
Even more startling was Biden’s insistence: ‘Well, we weren’t told they wanted more security there. We did not know they wanted more security again.’
That is directly contradicted by testimony from two State Department officials this week. Eric Nordstrom, expressed frustration at how his appeals for more resources were rebuffed.
Biden’s strategy was to sneer, yell lies, and count on the media to back him up with spin. Whether it succeeds depends on how much character we have left.
On tips from Byron, J, and Shawn R. Graphic compliments of Metryq.
Biden going unhinged provided some short term coverage to stop the bleeding with the liberal base – but that only lasted a couple hours before even Tom Brokaw and other liberals in the media note it was scary to see Biden laughing it up over Iran’s nuclear intentions. Now, today, Romney goes up a point in Gallup likely voter tracking poll and despite a big Romney day coming off the period from last week, meaning last night was a big night for Romney and now this morning’s other polls show Romney winning VA+7, FL+7 and even Maine is in play today. By this afternoon the moonbats on the left will become even more unhinged!
Ryan should have told him being louder doesn’t make you right. I heard a great nickname for biteme from a caller on Glenn Beck’s show this morning. Dufus interuptus.
Man, I must be in an alternate universe. I really thought last night was a bad night for Ryan. Not HORRIBLE, but I had big expectations that he’d really take it to Biden. He didn’t.
Then I was worried “OK, so now we have handed some momentum to the Dems. Damn!”
THEN all I hear and see (from people I trust like Hewitt, Luntz, Krauthammer, Wallace) is “WHOA! Big loss for the Dems because of Biden’s behavior.”
Hey, I’ll take a ‘win’ even if by default. Ryan was OK, didn’t flub anything, looked dignified…I just wish he’d have articulated ALL THE STUFF WE HAVE TO HIT THEM WITH. That would have put this to bed.
Oh well, he (Ryan) came off OK, didn’t hose it and the narrative is “BIDEN IS AWFUL” from all the pundits. Also, women were UBER put off by Biden. More erosion of the female vote.
Romney can finish the job Tuesday.
HEE HAWW! HEE HAWW! HEE HAWW!!
Joe blow did show Eddie brought Jack Ass Joe with him. Along with the moderator, that was three on one. He still lost decisively.
Anyone who paid attention to a hearing in Congress this week knew that the administration had been implored to beef up security at the U.S. Consulate in Libya before the deadly terrorist attack there. But in the vice presidential debate Thursday night, Joe Biden seemed unaware. “We weren’t told they wanted more security there,” the vice president asserted flatly.
RYAN: “There were requests for more security.”
THE FACTS: Ryan is right, judging by testimony from Obama administration officials at the hearing a day earlier.
Charlene R. Lamb, a deputy assistant secretary for diplomatic security, told lawmakers she refused requests for more security in Benghazi.
Eric Nordstrom, who was the top security official in Libya earlier this year, testified he was criticized for seeking more security. He said conversations he had with people in Washington led him to believe that it was “abundantly clear we were not going to get resources until the aftermath of an incident. How thin does the ice have to get before someone falls through?”
He said his exasperation reached a point where he told a colleague that “for me the Taliban is on the inside of the building.”
Judging from the facts on the ground, he was correct.
RYAN: “Look at just the $90 billion in stimulus the vice president was in charge of overseeing — this $90 billion in green pork to campaign contributors and special interest groups.”
To be sure, there were notable failed investments, such as $528 million to the politically connected and now-bankrupt solar power company Solyndra.
RYAN: “And then they put this new Obamacare board in charge of cutting Medicare each and every year in ways that will lead to denied care for current seniors. This board, by the way, it’s 15 people, the president’s supposed to appoint them next year. And not one of them even has to have medical training.”
THE FACTS: Ryan is referring to the Independent Payment Advisory Board, created under Obama’s health care overhaul law. It has the power to force cuts in Medicare payments to service providers if costs rise above certain levels and Congress fails to act.
BIDEN, when asked who would pay more taxes in Obama’s second term: “People making a million dollars or more.”
THE FACTS: Obama’s proposed tax increase reaches farther down the income ladder than millionaires. He wants to roll back Bush-era tax cuts for individuals making more than $200,000 and couples making more than $250,000.
BIDEN TRIED, AND FAILED, TO BLAME RYAN PERSONALLY FOR BENGHAZI!
“The congressman here cut embassy security in his budget by $300 million below what we asked for.”
— Biden
Ryan, as head of the House Budget Committee, set broad targets for spending in his budget blueprint that would have cut nondefense discretionary spending by 19 percent in 2014. There were no specific cuts in embassy security. It is not a real number with true budget impact. The Hill newspaper detailed some back-and-forth rhetoric concerning the negotiations over the funding, noting that the figure also includes money for construction and maintenance, not just security.
“Prior to the election, prior to him being sworn in, Governor Romney was asked the question about how he would proceed. He said, ‘I wouldn’t move heaven and earth to get bin Laden.’”
— Biden
Romney made this statement in a 2007 interview with the Associated Press: “It’s not worth moving heaven and earth and spending billions of dollars just trying to catch one person.”
But Biden has ignored the rest of the interview, in which the AP quoted Romney as saying “he supports a broader strategy to defeat the Islamic jihad movement.” Just a few days later, Romney expanded on his remarks during a debate:
“We’ll move everything to get him. But I don’t want to buy into the Democratic pitch that this is all about one person — Osama bin Laden — because after we get him, there’s going to be another and another. This is about Shia and Sunni. This is about Hezbollah and Hamas and al-Qaida and the Muslim Brotherhood. This is a worldwide jihadist effort to try and cause the collapse of all moderate Islamic governments and replace them with a caliphate.”
BIDEN QUOTES MOONBAT EDITORIALIST, ATTRIBUTES ROMNEY – nice attacking someone who’s not even present to refute his lies!
“Romney said, ‘No, let Detroit go bankrupt.’”
— Biden
This statement is drawn from a headline — “Let Detroit Go Bankrupt” — on an opinion article written by Romney for The New York Times. But he did not say that in the article.
Although “bankrupt” often conjures up images of liquidation, Romney called for a “managed bankruptcy.” This is a process in which the company uses the bankruptcy code to discharge its debts, but emerges from the process a leaner, less leveraged company.
Ultimately, along with getting nearly $80 billion in loans and other assistance from the Bush and Obama administrations, GM and Chrysler did go through a managed bankruptcy.
Biden also overstated the Obama administration’s role in saving the auto industry, glossing over the fact that the outgoing George W. Bush administration first bailed out General Motors and Chrysler.
So, apparently, the fact GM and Chrysler were saved was actually George W. Bush’s fault!
“What we did is, we saved $716 billion and put it back, applied it to Medicare.”
— Biden
Biden is completely wrong when he says the money was applied to Medicare. In fact, the cuts from Medicare were used to help offset some of the anticipated costs of Obamacare, as Ryan said.
“Their own actuary from the administration came to Congress and said one out of six hospitals and nursing homes are going to go out of business as a result of this.”
— Ryan
“That’s not what they said.”
— Biden
Ryan is right on the figure, and Biden is wrong.
And in this one the source, MSNBC, is caught in a lie:
“It’s a plan I put together with a prominent Democrat senator from Oregon.”
— Ryan
“There’s not one Democrat who endorses it.”
— Biden
MSNBC tries to say Biden was right and Ryan was lying, but in fact:
Ryan worked with former White House budget director Alice Rivlin and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) on versions of his Medicare plan.
Here is another blatant case of MSNBC lying to make Ryan look bad:
“Was it a good idea to spend taxpayer dollars on electric cars in Finland, or on windmills in China?”
–Ryan
We’ve written repeatedly about such claims. There are foreign connections but the stimulus money was generally spent in the United States.
WRONG. Ryan was 100% accurate in his claims.
“The middle class will pay less, and people making a million dollars or more will begin to contribute slightly more.”
— Biden
In describing the administration’s tax plan, Biden appeared to have moved the goal posts. The president has consistently said he would roll back Bush-era tax cuts for couples making more than $250,000 and individuals making more than $200,000.
“With regard to the assault on the Catholic Church, let me make it absolutely clear: No religious institution, Catholic or otherwise — including Catholic Social Services, Georgetown Hospital, Mercy, any hospital — none has to either refer contraception, none has to pay for contraception, none has to be a vehicle to get contraception in any insurance policy they provide. That is a fact.”
— Biden
Biden went a bit far saying it is “a fact” that religious groups will not pay for contraceptives under the health care law.
Some church organizations still object to the mandate despite the exemption for religion-affiliated groups, arguing that they could end up paying for birth control indirectly if the mandate causes their health insurance costs to rise. Furthermore, the Obama administration said in March that it will come up with an accommodation for religiously affiliated employers that self-insure, but it has not yet decided how to handle that seven months later.
Ryan pointed out that the accommodations failed to satisfy many religious groups. “If they agree with you … why would they keep suing you?” he asked.
And yet again MSNBC is caught in a lie trying to claim Ryan lied:
“We should not have called Bashar Assad a reformer.”
— Ryan
Most famously, as the uprising in Syria began in 2011, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said that “many of the members of Congress of both parties who have gone to Syria in recent months have said they believe [Assad is] a reformer.”
We actually looked into this question at the time and concluded that Clinton’s claim of a bipartisan support for the idea that Assad was a reformer was not credible. She earned Three Pinocchios.
But Ryan bringing this up makes him a liar somehow? GUESS AGAIN!
This is a sterling example of one of the many serious foreign policy errors of this administration, which has furthered to cause of Islamic extremism and related terrorism around the world.
Using the same standard that was applied to Bush, by killing bin Laden they made him a saint and caused thousands to join the suicidal jihad efforts.
“We are leaving [Afghanistan] in 2014. Period.”
— Biden
Actually, the administration has long discussed having an “enduring presence” of 10,000 to 15,000 troops, mainly as advisors who would reside on military bases. An agreement must still be reached with the government of Afghanistan.
And again MSNBC lies to try and make Ryan look bad:
“Now, we think that government taking 28 percent of a family and business’s income is enough. President Obama thinks that the government ought to be able to take as much as 44.8 percent of a small business’s income.”
— Ryan
Ryan is mixing up some apples and oranges here. The Romney plan would reduce income tax rates, but it does not affect payroll taxes. But to reach his 44.8 percent top rate, Ryan is including Medicare taxes, as we have previously documented.
They just admitted Ryan’s number is SPOT ON! Ryan gave an accurate answer and they are characterizing it as a lie!
“97 percent of the small businesses in America pay less — make less than $250,000”
— Biden
According to the Joint Committee on Taxation “small businesses” paying taxes would be affected by Obama’s plan to lift marginal tax rates on families making more than $250,000 and individuals making more than $200,000. (See page 25 of the JCT report.) About 750,000 taxpayers would be affected – this accounts for 50 percent of the estimated $1 trillion in business income reported in 2011.
So in other words the jobs that produce 50 percent of this income would be directly threatened by Obama/Biden getting another 4 years.
ABC (the moderator was one of theirs) chimes in with Biden lies
Vice President Joe Biden: We Weren’t Told They Wanted More Security Again. We Did Not Know They Wanted More Security Again.” Raddatz: “And they wanted more security there.”
Biden: “Well, we weren’t told they wanted more security again. We did not know they wanted more security again. And by the way, at the time we were told exactly — we said exactly what the intelligence community told us that they knew. That was the assessment.”
ABC’s Dana Hughes has the facts:
It is incorrect for Biden to say the entire Obama administration was not told that security officials in Libya wanted more security. State dept officials were aware security officials on the ground had concerns. Two officials dramatically testified on Capitol Hill Wednesday that they had made their reservations about the security situation in Libya known within the State Department.
One of the security officials, Eric Nordstrom, compared bureaucrats in Washington to the Taliban in describing his frustration.
They go on to falsely accuse Ryan in this matter when he stated, correctly, that there were marines at the Paris embassy and should have been marines in Libya. They say this isn’t true but admit it is. Their excuse is that the marines aren’t there to protect the ambassador – but do you really think with an angry mob bearing down the marines would not also serve in that function? We all know they would!
Biden: Now, with regard to Bibi, who’s been my friend 39 years, the president has met with Bibi a dozen times. He’s spoken to Bibi Netanyahu as much as he’s spoken to anybody.
Sunlen Miller has the facts:
Obama and Benjamin Netanyahu only met nine times face-to-face since Obama took the White House. But the two leaders have had over 20 phone calls in addition to these meetings. It’s not clear if by “anyone” Biden is referring to heads of state, but that’s the way we’ll take it.
Because we all know Obama has met with socialists and terrorists way more than he’s met with Bibi.
And the fact Ryan brought up how Obamacare is attempting to slip abortion in the back door, WHICH IS TRUE, was characterized as a lie.
This is one of the major parts of the fictional “war on women” in fact.
On the Obamacare Death Panels, it appears that what Ryan has done is that he has revealed they’re a bunch of people who will have high paid positions in government but not actually do anything worth it:
If Medicare spending exceeds its target growth rate, IPAB is charged with making suggestions—for Congress’s approval on fast-track status—to lower costs. However, according to the independent Kaiser Family Foundation, the law bars the board from suggesting cuts to benefits.
IPAB cannot ration care, cut benefits, raise premiums, or change eligibility.
Then what exactly can they recommend that will reduce costs? The answer: NOTHING!
They cannot do their job. The law specifically bars them from suggesting anything that will cut costs.
Biden: Folks. Use your common sense. Who do you trust on this? A man who introduced a bill that would raise it – forty — $6400 a year, knowing it and passing it and Romney saying he’d sign it or me and the President. (14) Ryan: That statistic was completely misleading but more importantly -Biden: So those are the facts. Ryan -this is what politicians do when they don’t have a record to run on.
This figure is based on an outdated analysis of Ryan’s Medicare-reform plan.
In other words, OOPS, we were wrong in our rush to condemn Ryan’s plan and we made several obvious mistakes.
Ryan has made some changes to his plan, removing a cap on “premium-support payments” and including a traditional-Medicare, government-paid health plan as an alternative to private plans, from which seniors would choose on an exchange.
ABC, trying to make Ryan look bad, ends by repeating that the number does not apply to the current plan but may in fact be accurate if you consider and outdated and clearly incorrect analysis of a previous plan no longer being proposed.
Desperate to make sure Ryan is cast as a liar along with Biden, they are!
Ryan: You know what the unemployment rate in Scranton is today? Biden: Sure do. Ryan: It’s 10 percent. Biden: Yeah. Ryan: You know what it was the day you guys came in? 8.5 percent. Biden: Yeah. Ryan: That’s how it’s going all around America.
Again they admit Biden was wrong and apparently Ryan was a tiny bit off (maybe he rounded the number) but essentially correct. Then they go on and misstate what Ryan said to try and claim he was wrong about overall unemployment nationwide. Ryan was saying it is worse, significantly worse, than it was when Obama/Biden were elected and that is solid truth. They moved the goal posts, stating that it is down from the high caused by Obama and the Democrats’ policies, which is true, but it was not what Ryan was talking about. Ryan was pointing out that, nationwide, unemployment is higher than it was when Obama/Biden were elected and THAT IS THE TRUTH!
Further, they are using the wrong figures to claim recent improvement, ignoring the vast number of people who’ve simply given up looking for work and thus are not included in that number.
Further there is growing evidence even those numbers are being deliberately falsified by sympathetic moonbats desperate to save Obama/Biden from defeat in November.
They go on to try to spin Ryan’s discussion of the 3/4 trillion Obamacare cuts to Medicare as anything but what they really are.
Ironic since one false argument Obama/Biden got traction with was claims that Romney/Ryan would try to cut Medicare when in fact THAT’S EXACTLY WHAT THEY ALREADY DID!
They reference factcheck.org, a liberal moonbat source, for their “facts” and arguments.
Biden: “The Congressman here cut embassy security in his budget by $300 million below what we asked for.”
John Parkinson has the facts:
The key here is that Biden takes his claim from the Ryan budget, not the spending bills passed by Congress that actually slashed funding for embassy security.
Biden’s charge comes from assuming that non-defense discretionary spending proposed by Ryan in his budget would make cuts off the top of each program. Ryan’s budget called for a 19 percent across-the-board cut to non-defense discretionary spending in the year 2014. Assuming an across-the-board distribution of cuts, his proposal would cut $298 million for Embassy Security, Construction, and Maintenance, and it’d slash Protection of Foreign Missions and Officials by $5 million, for a total of $303 million. Still, that number also includes money that’s used for construction and maintenance.
Biden suggests this cut that has already been realized as a result of the Ryan Budget, but in his budget there are no spending levels enumerated for something as specific as Worldwide Security Protection. Funding for that comes from the State/Foreign Ops bill or the Site Security Team (SST – what actually provided security in Benghazi), which comes from Department of Defense’s budget.
Plus, the Ryan Budget never became law.
Biden: On Iraq, the president said he would end the war, Gov. Romney said that was a tragic mistake, he ended it. Gov. Romney said we should have left 30,000 troops there.
That is not what Romney said. Another clear Biden lie.
“How would Mitt Romney handle the situation if he were president? Let’s ask him. Former Governor of Massachusetts and republican presidential candidate joins us again. So Governor, if Mitt Romney were president today what, would you do about Iraq?” the Fox News anchor asked.
“Well, first of all if I were president, I would have carried out the status of forces agreement that was long anticipated that actually Secretary Panetta, President Obama’s Secretary of Defense indicated he wanted to have as well, which would have allowed to us have somewhere between 10 and 30,000 troops in Iraq,” Romney responded.
The Obama administration, which touted it’s plan to “talk” to friend and foe alike, was in the process of trying to negotiate to do EXACTLY WHAT ROMNEY WAS TALKING ABOUT but, due to their incompetence, they were unable to reach an agreement with Iraq, all our forces left and now we see Iraq becoming even worse than it ever was thanks to Obama and the Democrats. It is a relatively sure bet that Obama deliberately sabotaged the talks to appease his base – they wanted us out of Iraq and out of Afghanistan and that is the goal he is claiming he is achieving, at the expense of everything we’ve gained in both those places.
“It is my view that the withdrawal of all of our troops from Iraq by the end of this year is an enormous mistake, and failing by the Obama administration,” Romney said on Veterans Day in 2011 at a roundtable with veterans in South Carolina. “The precipitous withdrawal is unfortunate — it’s more than unfortunate, I think it’s tragic. It puts at risk many of the victories that were hard won by the men and women who served there.”
I agree 100% – it’s tragic we had to go in those places in the first place, but what’s worse is NOW, THANKS TO OBAMA AND THE DEMOCRATS, WE’RE GOING TO HAVE TO DO IT ALL OVER AGAIN AND THIS TIME IT’S GOING TO BE HARDER/WORSE!
ON THE ACCURACY AND HONESTY OF MOONBAT “FACT CHECK” SITES:
Let’s pick a few from this list, shall we?
Q: Do companies get a tax break for shipping U.S. jobs overseas?
A: Not specifically for that reason. But companies can deduct business expenses, including the cost of moving a job to another state or even out of the country.
What they don’t tell you is that there are valid and specific reasons that companies ship jobs overseas. Top among these are:
1) Excessive taxation
2) Excessive regulation
3) Excessive union demands
These are all things that get worse under Democrats.
Q: Has President Barack Obama signed 900 executive orders, some of which create martial law?
A: No. Obama’s executive orders do not create martial law. And so far he has signed 139 executive orders — not 900.
Part true – the 900 figure was incorrect and I was one of those who got bit by that falsehood due to incomplete fact checking myself, admittedly. But the other, more important part is deliberately incorrectly stated – for it is a fact, from what I’ve read, that Obama’s orders are clearly intended to give him and his minions powers to suspend our Constitutional rights in illegal ways. Again if someone feels I’m overstating this, we can talk about it. If I’m wrong I do want to know it.
One of the key things Obama does to deflect criticism of is orders, and to attempt to give liberal apologists an ability to reduce the number of orders he’s signed, is he “updates” previous orders, which are apparently then not counted against his total perhaps as they were originally issued by someone else. Plus when you bring up that order the moonbats shut off all discussion by saying, “But that order was issued by President [insert name here], not Obama. True, but the CHANGES are what is significant.
And this may in fact be where the “900″ number came from, as it is likely Obama is being held accountable for each previous order that he has modified, sometimes using a single new order to modify several old ones.
I’m still trying to run it down – anyone who wants to correct or update me on this I welcome it!
I have limited time and, until today, had some real bad internet issues due to poor customer service at my ISP.
Even factcheck.org admits:
It’s true, however, that Obama is employing his executive powers now more than ever before during his presidency.
Obama has been sidestepping Congress through his “We Can’t Wait” initiative, a series of executive actions that he claims benefit the middle class through infrastructure projects and economic policy changes.
He also skirted Senate approval in January when he appointed nominees to the National Labor Relations Board and to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The appointments were unprecedented because he made them when the Senate was technically not in recess, prompting legal challenges from conservative groups.
In June, the president halted deportations of illegal immigrants who entered the United States when they were children and met certain requirements, such as the lack of a criminal record. The change mirrored provisions of the DREAM Act — failed legislation that Obama supported and Senate Republicans blocked in 2010.
And in July, Obama changed welfare policy to allow states to modify work requirements if they test new approaches to increasing employment. Obama did not submit the policy change to Congress for review, which the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office concluded he should have done.
And, as we saw with his moving several meetings with undesirables from the White House to a hotel nearby, to keep the names and details off the White House logs:
Q: Is the Democratic National Convention hosting a Muslim “Jumah” prayer service after rejecting a Catholic cardinal’s offer to lead a prayer?
A: No. A Muslim group scheduled an event that was independent of the convention at a city park. The cardinal is leading the convention’s closing prayer.
This was listed, I believe, as an official convention event but by doing it this way Obama had deniability.
But we knew.
Q: Would a “list of Republican budget cuts” by the “new Republican House” slash $2.5 trillion from federal spending over 10 years?
A: The list is real. But so far, there has been no action on the bill, which was sponsored by 33 conservative GOP House members.
They leave out that the reason there is no action on the bill is that, under Harry Reid, the Democrats have become “The Party of NO!”. Reid won’t allow the bill to come up for action but the claim is false because the bill WAS brought up in the House, I believe.
In that last there is the word “is” that does not make sense… it was supposed to be “his”. That’s the only typo I caught so far.
apparently his debate study consisted mostly of Kim Jong (mentally) Ill
Remember when the regressives said they hated how “arrogant” Americans are? Care to comment, trolls?
Yeah, I didn’t think so.
Per Dana Loesch: Ryan’s job was to set up for Romney’s next debate, Biden’s job was to clean up after Obama’s last debate.
Nowadays if you want American news you have to read a British newspaper.
I watched and thought…and THIS buffoon (in an emergency situation) might have to take over for the President one day???? OH MY! That alone would make me vote for Romney.
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