Posted by Tina
Question: Was Ryan lying in his speech at the RNC Convention in Tampa?
No…Paul Ryan was not lying when he spoke about the sweeping vision of change that Barack Obama was selling to crowds during the 2008 primaries…including to his neighbors and friends in Janesville. Sweeping change and a better tomorrow were the very essence of the Obama hope and change campaign…remember:
Obama made a lot of wild promises during his campaign in ’08. He said he would create seven million jobs…seven times! Swooning crowds and shouts of, “O Ba Ma” and “Yes we can!” are now testaments to the fact that millions of people believed in this man’s hopeful message of a brighter future!
Of course the people of Janesville put their hopes in Barack Obama, the man who said he wanted their GM plant to be there “for another 100 years”.
Barack Obama went to Janesville specifically to seek support from the citizens and to ask that they place their trust in him. He was saying, in essence, “Vote for me and I will see to it that your jobs are saved…we will make it happen if my policies are put in place.”
Are we now to believe that in 2008 those GM workers thought Obama was talking about other peoples’ jobs being saved but not theirs? When he said he wanted their plant to be there for 100 years were they supposed to think he didn’t really mean it? Coming at it from this perspective makes it easy to see how absurd the claim is that Paul Ryan was lying.
Paul Ryan framed Obama’s remarks in Janesville during the campaign of ’08 in the larger context of Obama’s failed vision:
When he talked about change, many people liked the sound of it, especially in Janesville, where we were about to lose a major factory.
A lot of guys I went to high school with worked at that GM plant. Right there at that plant, candidate Obama said: “I believe that if our government is there to support you this plant will be here for another hundred years.”
That’s what he said in 2008. Well, as it turned out, that plant didn’t last another year. It is locked up and empty to this day. And that’s how it is in so many towns today, where the recovery that was promised is nowhere in sight.
Paul Ryan captured both the promise of the Obama campaign and the failure of his vision but did he capture the mood of the crowd in Janesville accurately?
To find out let’s look back to see how Obama’s remarks were described on the day that candidate Obama delivered those hopeful words about the future. The following excerpts are taken from a newspaper report out of Janesville dated Wednesday, February 13, 2008 in Gazette Xtra.com. I have highlighted Obama’s exact words:
JANESVILLE — Riding a wave of momentum, Sen. Barack Obama directed his presidential campaign and an economic policy proposal at GM employees in Janesville late this morning.
The Illinois Democrat proposed spending $60 billion on U.S. infrastructure over 10 years and paying for the work by ending the Iraq War.
Obama personalized his message to his audience:
“I know that General Motors received some bad news yesterday, and I know how hard your governor has fought to keep jobs in this plant. But I also know how much progress you’ve made–how many hybrids and fuel-efficient vehicles you’re churning out.
“And I believe that if our government is there to support you and give you the assistance you need to re-tool and make this transition, that this plant will be here for another 100 years,” he said.
Hmmm! There’s a bit more information here. He said as long as,”…our government is there to support you”….and…”give you the assistance you need”…”to re-tool and make this transition…”…”this plant will be here for another 100 years”.
Obama hedged a bit. He said he believed they’d be around if the government gave them support to retool for green energy production…and then proceeded to tell them what his plan was. It sounds quite personal to me! Why wouldn’t the workers in the Janesville plant believe that Barack Obama intended to save their jobs?
To add fuel to the hopeful feeling he also said he wanted to invest $150 billion over 10 years to establish a green energy sector. He expected it to create up to 5 million good-paying new jobs in 20 years and then he said:
“The question is not whether a clean energy economy is in our future; it’s where it will thrive,” Obama said. “I want it to thrive right here in the United States of America–right here in Wisconsin–and that’s the future I’ll fight for as your president.”
Obama is asking these GM workers to put their faith behind him and his vision of a future with green energy cars that they would build. He’s asking them to give him their votes…vote for me and “we” will build green energy cars…right here in Wisconsin!
Paul Ryan did not say President Obama promised to save the Janesville plant.
Paul Ryan did describe exactly what happened in Janesville during the campaign. Paul Ryan described what has happened all over America in the aftermath of the soaring rhetoric, and election, of the hope and change president.
This is the big story behind the Janesville flap, the story that Democrats would love to sweep under the rug:
Americans now know that Obama’s vision did not translate to good jobs…not in Janesville…and not across the nation. The result of President Obama’s big government spending is a lot of debt, continuing high unemployment, and businesses that have shut down and closed their doors. It is graduate college students that cannot find work in their field. It is high numbers of Americans on food stamps and living at the poverty level. The cheerleaders for Obama will continue to incite silly arguments. They will continue to make outrageous accusations like this one because Obama’s soaring rhetoric has crashed and burned in the ashes of his failed promises. Ryan’s sin was that he graciously pointed out the obvious.
Congressman Paul Ryan, Republican from Wisconsin, is to be Mitt Romney’s pick for the next Vice President of The United States.
What are we to think of this selection? He’s not a graduate of Columbia University . He’s not a graduate of Harvard. He wasn’t selected as the President of the Harvard Law Review. He didn’t get a special free quota scholarship ride to any prestigious university and, instead, had to work his way through Miami University of Ohio. For God’s sake the man drove the Oscar Mayer Wiener Truck one summer and waited tables another!
One morning when Paul Ryan was sixteen years old he went in to wake his father up and found him dead of a heart attack. He didn’t write two books about that experience. Instead, he assumed the role of adult at an early age, never having the luxury to pursue youthful drug use and the art of socialist revolution.
Instead, Paul Ryan and his mother took his grandmother, suffering from Alzheimer’s, into the household and served as the primary care provider for his grandma. His grandma wasn’t the Vice President of the Bank of Hawaii so she could offer nothing in return, except the element of “need”.
Once Paul Ryan got his BA in Economics from Miami University of Ohio he was hired as a staff economist in Wisconsin Senator Kastin’s office. The job must have not paid well because young Ryan moonlighted as a waiter and fitness trainer. No one offered him a “token honor” position at the University of Chicago and a $200,000 dollar a year salary.
When a still young Paul Ryan returned to Wisconsin to run for Congress he didn’t demonize his opponent and dig up dirt to shovel against him. He waited until the standing Congressman vacated the office before seeking the office. In Janesville , Wisconsin they don’t have a big political machine to promote you, to criminalize your opponent; instead Paul Ryan had to go door to door and sit at kitchen tables and listen to his future constituents.
After getting elected to Congress Paul Ryan didn’t triumphantly march into Washington , buy himself a Georgetown townhouse and proceed over to K Street to rub elbows with lobbyists. He bunked in his Congressional office and used the house gym for showers and a fresh change of clothes.
Paul Ryan then married and took his bride back to Janesville . He lives on the same street he lived on as a kid and shares the neighborhood with eight other members of the Ryan clan. He hunts with the local Janesville hunt club and attends PTA meetings and other civic functions.
For those who can’t make those public functions, Paul Ryan bought an old bread truck, converted it into a “mobile constituent office” and drives around to meet with those who need his help and attention.
No, I don’t know if we can vote for a guy like this. He doesn’t have a regal pedigree; he’s Irish for God’s sake! No one awarded him a Nobel Peace Prize two months after getting elected. No one threw flowers or got “chills down their leg” as a he took his seat in Congress.
What is most despicable about Paul Ryan is that he has had the nerve to write the House Budget for three years in a row. He’s is brazen and heartless in advocating in that budget for a $5 trillion dollar reduction in federal spending over the next ten years! The House passed his budget three years in a row and three years in a row the Democratically controlled Senate has let it die in the upper house, without ever proposing a budget of their own. What is wrong with this guy? If Congress were to cut $5 trillion dollars from the budget where would the President get the money to give $500 million dollars to a bankrupt Solyndra? Or $200 million dollars for bankrupt Energy 1? Or $11 billion dollars to illegal aliens filing INIT, non-resident tax returns to claim $11 billion big ones in child tax credits, even for their children living in Mexico ?
I don’t know. Paul Ryan seems heartless to me. He keeps wanting to cut government waste, he keeps wanting to put a halt to those big GSA conventions in Vegas and, worse, he keeps trying to make people look at that $16.7 trillion dollar deficit! The guy’s no fun at all!
Who wants a numbers cruncher? Who wants someone spoiling the party by showing folks the bill? Nothing will spoil a party quicker than sending the host the bill before the party’s over.
Obama in his efforts to protect his union base at GM, he had to close plants and dissolve dealerships. All this effort and all that money squandered for nothing.
Obama failed miserably attempting to do what Romney and Bain Capital have done masterfully on numerous occasions. That is to make the tough choices and restructure companies so they will survive and grow into profitable, productive companies once again.
Am I the only one who finds this ironic and sick? Obama gets another pass for being incompetent. Romney gets vilified for being successful.
Tina: “Paul Ryan did not say President Obama promised to save the Janesville plant.”
Yes, he did.
Paul Ryan said: “I remember President Obama visiting it when he was first running, saying he’ll keep that plant open. One more broken promise.”
http://www.politifact.com/wisconsin/statements/2012/aug/29/paul-ryan/did-barack-obama-break-promise-keep-gm-plant-open/
It’s really funny how you try to put words in the mouth of politicians you don’t like, while taking away words from the mouths of those you do. Why can’t you argue based on what actually happens in the world?
“Are we now to believe that in 2008 those GM workers thought Obama was talking about other peoples’ jobs being saved but not theirs? When he said he wanted their plant to be there for 100 years were they supposed to think he didn’t really mean it? Coming at it from this perspective makes it easy to see how absurd the claim is that Paul Ryan was lying.”
Now you’re attributing opinions to the Janesville plant workers, even though I have already linked to an opinion from a Janesville worker who said the exact opposite of what you’re saying now. You ignored that article. Apparently, hypothetical Janesville workers are more reliable to you than real ones.
Here it is again:
“A former employee of the General Motors plant in Janesville, Wisconsin said Paul Ryan “should be ashamed of himself” for his misleading claim about the plant’s shutdown.
During his speech at the Republican National Convention on Wednesday, Ryan blamed President Obama for the plant’s closing.
“Right there at that plant, candidate Obama said, ‘I believe that if our government is there to support you this plant will be here for another hundred years.’ Thats what he said in 2008,” Ryan had said. “Well, as it turned out, that plant didn’t last another year.”
Brad Dutcher, the former GM employee, told MSNBC’s Ed Schultz on Friday that he was at the Janesville plant during Obama’s visit and that Ryan had told an “outright lie” by implying that Obama had been responsible for the plant’s closure.
Dutcher said that Obama “had nothing to do with the decision to close our factory.” He added that “there was never a promise made…to keep our plant open. That is completely false.”
Dutcher’s comments come on the heels of widespread criticism from Democrats and the media. A progressive Fox News columnist called the speech “apparent attempt to set the world record for the greatest number of blatant lies and misrepresentations slipped into a single political speech.” The Washington Post called it “breathtakingly dishonest.” Stephanie Cutter, Obama’s deputy campaign manager, told the LA Times that “Paul Ryan lied.”
As Schultz pointed out, the plant shut down in December 2008, when George W. Bush was still in office. The plant’s shutdown had been announced months earlier.
Dutcher said that Ryan should be “ashamed of himself” for his misleading claim.
“To turn this plant closing into a political football is shameful,” he said. “We still have families that are separated, we have moms and dads that drive 4, 5 states away that come home on the weekends to see their families,” because of the plant’s closing.
Ryan’s campaign has pushed back against criticisms, arguing that “whenever the plant may have closed, it has yet to re-open under Obama, and is therefore a symbol of a failed recovery.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/01/brad-dutcher-paul-ryan-janesville-gm-plant_n_1848928.html
There are words Chris and there are the intentions behind the words. I think our readers are capable of deciding what President Obama was doing when he spoke the words I have posted above at the Janesville plant. Paul Ryan and many of his neighbors believe that the President was sincere (making a promise) when he claimed his policies would support the plant remaining open for 100 years.
You are free, as are Politico and others, to think Obama was lying when he said:
Harold!!! Absolutely outstanding!!!
Here is more proof Obama’s jobs plan or lack of one is failing. Labor day is supposed to be for honoring labor not announcing more layoffs.
No Toby, you are not alone. There are many who can read a P&L sheet and understand the losses exceed the profits.
Just heard Ryan speaking about Obama’s losses compared to Carter’s. They are huge! And we all remember what happened to Carter.
Have to get the voters out to make sure we get rid of this incompetent….
Have to guarantee NO voter fraud. (Poll watchers needed.)
Have to get ballots out to the military by states deadlines. (No repeat of 2010s failures.)
Have to win big enough to not result in litigation by liberal judges. NO LAWSUITS!
Tina: “There are words Chris and there are the intentions behind the words.”
If backtracking were an Olympic event, you’d win the gold. You said, “Paul Ryan did not say President Obama promised to save the Janesville plant.” You apparently thought this was so important that it was worth putting in bold. But Ryan said exactly that. The classy thing at this point would be to admit that you were wrong.
“Paul Ryan and many of his neighbors believe that the President was sincere (making a promise) when he claimed his policies would support the plant remaining open for 100 years.”
If you have to constantly change your argument to support your position, then your position isn’t very strong. Earlier you said that Ryan never said that Obama made a promise. Now you are saying that Ryan does believe Obama was making a promise. Which is it?
“You are free, as are Politico and others, to think Obama was lying when he said:”
Oh please. Obama was not lying when he said that. Again, he made a conditional statement: “If our government is there to support you…this plant will be here for another 100 years.”
The “if” didn’t happen. The federal government (run by George Bush at the time) did not give enough support to the Janesville plant to keep it from closing. Blaming Obama for this, or claiming he retracted a promise, is ridiculous, as the former Janesville employee confirms.
Chris it’s understandable that you are upset and unreasonable, your guy has disappointed and failed the country and in record time. He has not kept his promises. He has played golf, entertained big stars from movies, music, and sports with lavish dinners…he even had time to practice his bowling…but he hasn’t done jack for the average American looking for work.
The original discussion about what Ryan said concerned his remarks at the RNC Convention. Those words are the words I am defending. By introducing OBAMA’S OWN WORDS from 2008 I have expanded that defense to include not only his words but what I believe was his intent when he said them. That is not backtracking.
I continue to maintain that Obama wanted those people in Janesville to think their jobs would be saved because he wanted their votes. He was fishing for their votes with bait. Ryan described what happened in Janesville at in his remarks at the convention to perfection…and he did it without being snarky!
Ryan did not use the word promise. Left Democrat jerks, apologists, and Alinsky deflectors use that word to create a straw man argument that Ryan “lied”…its a bogus charge! They do it so that don’t have to face or address the real truth of the matter…OBAMA CANNOT BE TRUSTED! Obama is good at deceptive tactics. Look what he managed to do with “hope” and “change”…two words that can’t tie his butt to any promise…what a coward.
Obama made a conditional statement because he will not put his tiny little butt on the line…ever. He is the don’t blame me president. He is the blame everyone else president. He is the adolescent who pretends to be president…and it shows.
“The federal government (run by George Bush at the time) did not give enough support to the Janesville plant to keep it from closing”
And you are being equally adolescent! The plant closed in June of 2009…four months into the Obama administration and this plant had what could be called “green energy workers” ready to do their part with shovel ready green jobs to be saved!
Our readers can watch Obama bait the hook with the Jainesville employees in the video posted at Hot Air:
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/09/03/video-obama-promises-janesville-that-plant-will-thrive-will-be-here-for-another-100-years/
“that’s our priority…I want “it” to thrive right here in Janesville, Wisconsin”!!!!!!!!
Go on pretend he didn’t try to reel in those votes with this language! Pretend it wasn’t a (empty) promise.
This site reveals more information not yet reported at PS:
http://www.freep.com/article/20120830/NEWS15/120830035
He77…why did he talk about re-tooling if he did not intend to help them…and why didn’t he offer them money (like he did Solyndra) to re-tool as part of his green energy program? What about just directing some of that stimulus their way?
Scream, fuss, throw a fitChris…I don’t care. I’m done! And hopefully so is this dishonest, shape shifting, con artist of a president.
Tina: “Ryan did not use the word promise.”
You didn’t even read my first comment on this article, did you? The first thing I did was quote Paul Ryan using the word “promise.” Here it is again:
“I remember President Obama visiting it when he was first running, saying he’ll keep that plant open. One more broken promise.”
You were wrong when you said, “Paul Ryan did not say President Obama promised to save the Janesville plant.” That is exactly what Paul Ryan said.
Do you see now how you were wrong?
“The plant closed in June of 2009”
No. Here is a “final photo” from the plant on December 23, 2008. The caption reads, “GM has closed the facility…”
http://gazettextra.com/photos/galleries/last-day-gm/
Here is a full timeline of the plant closure, from the Washington Post:
“Last night Paul Ryan said that Obama failed to save a GM plant in Janesville, Wis. Many outlets including Wonkblog said that was a lie. But some conservatives have tried to salvage the claim. Jonathan Adler of the National Review asks, What was false in Ryans statement? Was Janesvile about to lose the factory at the time of the election? Yes. Did Obama fail to prevent this as he had promised? Yes.
Lets break down, then, the exact chronology of the Janesville plant closing; Conn Carroll of the Washington Examiner has helpfully posted one here, which I add to below. The basic takeaway, however, is this: by December 2008, the plant had reached a point of no return where the plant would be shut down regardless of federal action. Ryan was faulting Obama for an that was event that was inevitable over a month before he took office.
February 2008: At a campaign stop in Janesville, Obama says, I believe that if our government is there to support you, and give you the assistance you need to re-tool and make this transition, that this plant will be here for another hundred years. As Politifact writes, Thats a statement of belief that, with government help, the Janesville plant could remain open but not a promise to keep it open.
June 3, 2008 GM decides to close the Janesville plant, announcing that production will end by 2010, after months of rumors it might close. The press release declares, Janesville, Wisconsin, will cease production of medium-duty trucks by the end of 2009, and of the Tahoe, Suburban and Yukon in 2010, or sooner. Senators Herb Kohl and Russ Feingold, both Democrats, and Paul Ryan, whose House district includes Janesville, write the company urging it to reverse the decision.
September 2008 Paul Ryan flies to Detroit to urge GM to reconsider its decision to close the plant. According to the Los Angeles Times, he pitched a $224-million proposal that included roughly $50 million in state enterprise zone tax credits, local government grants worth $22 million and major contract concessions from the United Auto Workers union local. Throughout, Ryan frequently speaks with GM chief Rick Wagoner.
Oct. 11, 2008 Barack Obama comments on the Janesville closing. He does not promise to prevent the closing-in-progress, but instead declares he will retool plants like the GM facility in Janesville (emphasis mine) as president. Regardless of ones views of the auto bailout, it has saved facilities like the Janesville one, if not the Janesville one in particular.
November/December 2008 Congress weighs a bailout of GM and other automakers. One proposal, backed by Ryan and 31 other House Republicans, but not Mitt Romney, would have provided $15 billion in bridge loans. The bill passed the house but was not picked up by the Senate. The Bush administration declines to use TARP funds to rescue automakers, but approves a bridge loan on Dec.19, too late to save the Janesville plant.
Dec. 23, 2008 Lacking a bailout, the plant closes. The plant holds a final goodbye ceremony as it builds its last SUV. In a statement to MSNBC, GM confirmed that the plant was idled in December. But and this is where it gets confusing winding down a plant takes time.
April 21, 2009 The Janesville plant builds its last medium-duty truck and shuts down its last assembly line, completing the shutdown process started in June 2008.
In short, the Janesville shutdown commenced in June 2008. Once it was clear that aid wasnt forthcoming in November, actual assembly lines were being shut down by December. It is true that Paul Ryan tried to get the Obama administration to save another plant, in Kenosha, which the Obama administration failed to do. Attacking Obama for that is fair. But hitting him for Janesville is dishonest. The first assembly line stopped rolling in December 2008. Workers unfurled banners declaring the Last Vehicles Off the Janesville Line at a final goodbye ceremony, The plant was closing regardless of what Obama did.
This is a very strange dispute, in a way. Mitt Romney wrote an op-ed in the New York Times under the title Let Detroit Go Bankrupt, and now his campaign is trying hard to fault Obama for not bailing out automakers aggressively enough. Not only that, but after the campaigns repeated denunciation of the Obama administration for picking winners, Ryan is faulting Obama for not picking a winner not just among companies, but among plants. Hes attacking Obama for not using the government to micromanage GMs affairs.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/08/30/obama-could-not-have-saved-janesville-gm-plant-it-closed-before-he-took-office/
Ryan believes it was a promise…it goes to Obama’s intention in saying he wanted the plant to be there for 100 years…saying that with government help the plant could re-tool with references to his interest in promoting green technology jobs. I believe it was a promise for the same reasons…BUT not once did Ryan say that Obama “promised” to keep it open and I have never said that he said he “promised” to keep it open.
You do not acknowledge the soaring rhetoric (deception and lies) that Obama used to get elected…that he used in Janesville to get votes. In fact you continue to defend the deception.
I stand by the information I have posted.
Mitt Romney and others know that GM could have gone through ordinary bankruptcy and restructuring. The problem with that is that union workers would have had to back off on their unfunded healthcare and pension promises.
So Obama stepped in, spent a bunch of taxpayer money, screwed the bond holders and private investors, and handed a big chunk of ownership to the unions. The taxpayer investment is so far losing money. The stock hovers around $22 buck a share. It needs to get to around $55 a share for the taxpayers to just break even! The non-recovery will not accomplish higher car sales. We need leadership that knows how to get the economy going again…Mit Romney has Obama beat hands down.
http://heritageaction.com/2012/08/general-motors-may-still-going-bankrupt/
http://www.forbes.com/sites/louiswoodhill/2012/08/15/general-motors-is-headed-for-bankruptcy-again/
Tina: “BUT not once did Ryan say that Obama “promised” to keep it open and I have never said that he said he “promised” to keep it open.”
Please try and read my comments before replying to them.
I have already posted this direct quote from Paul Ryan twice. This will be the third time.
“I remember President Obama visiting it when he was first running, saying he’ll keep that plant open. One more broken promise.” –Paul Ryan
Paul Ryan did falsely claim that Obama promised to keep the plant open. There is no way you can possibly spin this to avoid admitting you were wrong this time. Is there?