Andrew Sullivan, a rational conservative, live blogs. Some highlights:
9.34 pm. Santorum is saying that Obama has "waived the work requirement for welfare". This is a lie - spoken by the runner-up for the nomination. It is a lie. The waivers have been routine for state experimentation. Many were sought by Republican governors. They were designed to ensure more efficient ways to get work as part of the welfare requirement.
Santorum is a devout Catholic. So why is he lying out loud on national television? And why is he stirring up racial division by lying? If you ever thought the guy had some integrity, you now know he doesn't.
9.38 pm. The fact-checking of Boehner's speech is brutal as well. This is a convention based on lies, it appears. Kessler:
House Speaker John Boehner’s speech starts out with just about every out-of-context quote used by Republicans to bash President Obama. Two of his examples were featured in our Gaffe-check videos: “The private sector is doing fine” and “If you’ve got a business, “you didn’t build that.”
Such gaffes are effective when they reinforce an existing stereotype—in this case, the notion that Obama is hostile to private enterprise. But
as our videos show, both of these quotes were taken out of context.
This seems a natural next step for a fundamentalist party, inventing its own reality, insisting on its own truths, and simply refusing to acknowledge reality. There is a case to be made against Obama; but what we have been hearing so far is an attack on a president who exists entirely in the imagination of the GOP base.
etc etc etc
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