Obama's and Biden's convention speeches as works of fiction

Well, Mr. Obama did get one thing right the other night: the two campaigns represent two distinct choices of futures for Americans. He simply misidentified those choices.

On one hand is a fighting chance to return to prosperity and full employment, and a nation which does its best for the elderly and disadvantaged while recognizing that entitlements will have to be reduced to some extent if we are going to avoid becoming another Greece, while striving to ensure that better thought out programs and greater revenues available due to economic growth both reduces the need for such programs, and the revenue required to better fund them where warranted.

That is Mr. Romney's future.

Mr. Obama's is to spend ourselves silly, punish the very people whose prosperity is a precondition for economic growth, pander to the elderly and minorities- and end up in a situation in which we can no longer afford social security and other such programs at all.

Seems to me to be a pretty stark choice- and not a difficult one for anybody who has a taste for reality.

On the other hand, there was plenty of sheer baloney in the preident's and vice-president's speeches.

Since the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were paid for by largely borrowing, Mr. Obama's promise to spend money saved by ending them to build highways, schools and bridges was utter nonsense.

FactCheck points out that contrary to the president's statement, America's auto makers are not "back on top." Toyota leads the world in sales, and General Motors- while currently second- is rapidly slipping into third place, beyond Volkswagen.

Mr. Obama's claim that "independent experts" found that his plan would reduce the deficit by $4 trillion over ten years ignored the fact that at least one such expert has called a key aspect of that plan a "gimmick."

Mr. Biden repeated the standard lie that Mitt Romney would increase taxes on the middle class, even citing the customary figure of $2000 each per year. In fact, not only did the vice-president misquote the Republican nominee, who has promised not to raise taxes on the middle class. The vice-president's claim, repeated ad nauseum by those ads citing partisan "fact checkers" using cooked numbers to suggest that Romney's policies would have that result and- worse still- imply that therefore he must somehow intend and is therefore unsympathetic to the interests of the middle class, have been refuted by other, more objective fact checkers before. It just ain't so.

The Associated Press points out that contrary to Biden's claim- often repeated by the Obama campaign and Democrats generally- that the administration's policies have created 4.5 million jobs credits the Obama administration withjobs added during the Bush administration and excludes jobs lost early in the Obama administration.

To be sure, the Romney and Ryan acceptance speeches contained spinning and exaggeration as well. Such speeches usually do. But at Charlotte, we essentially had a failed administration which can't run on its record essentially making up a fictional one to run on instead.

I hope the Romney campaign hits those claims hard. The lie about Romney increasing middle class taxes- a feature of an Obama ad getting a lot of play in the swing states- is doing some damage, and the Republicans must get a rebuttal ad pointing out the deception on the air fast if the prospects of the Romney-Ryan ticket aren't going to be badly hurt by them.

HT: Drudge