POWIP Piece of Work In Progress

President Gutsy McKickazz rides lies again

YOU LIE!

And since as we are all aware Mr. Obama likes to "go big", these are some real whoppers.  In the words of Ronald Reagan, "There you go again":

CBS’ Mark Knoller, covering a town hall on the economy with the president this morning, reports: “President Obama blames high unemployment rate on ‘huge layoffs of government workers’ at federal, state and local levels.”

From the CBS news story:

“The reason the unemployment rate is still as high as it is, in part, is because there have been huge layoffs of government workers at the federal level, at the state level, at the local level,” he said. “Teachers, police officers, firefighters, social workers– they have really taken it in the chin over the last several months. And so, what we’re trying to do is to see if we can stabilize the budget.”

Of course, to statists like Mr. Obama, government jobs are really the most vital of all:

OBAMA: Let me just first of all say that workers like you, for the federal, state, and local governments, are so important for our vital services. And it frustrates me sometimes when people talk about ‘government jobs’ as if somehow those are worth less than private sector jobs. I think there is nothing more important than working on behalf of the American people.

FEDERAL WORKER: I thought I would be more important and secure.

OBAMA: I agree with you.

Sure they are...Much more vital than private sector jobs...The kind that the President didn't have any trouble calling on private industry to create more of; despite his administration's hostile attitude towards American business. The same attitude evidenced by his deafening silence in the matter of the NLRB's gratuitous, over-reaching, lawsuit against Boeing to halt their new plant in South Carolina from going into operation. A move, Boeing's attorneys argue, will directly cost that state thousands of jobs, and may lead to much greater job losses nationwide.

Anyway, Jim Geraghty at the corner looks into this claim more closely and, well, finds the facts to be at odds with the President's desired narrative™ .  Here's the figures he got from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Stubborn facts and inconvenient truths(click to enlarge)

He also puts up the figures on state and local government employment levels, and notes:

As you can see, in terms of total number of Americans employed in government, there has been no real discernible recession. In fact, the number has increased slightly.

Obama is not even a little bit right. Will anyone call him out on this?

That, Jim, is the 64,000 dollar question we'd all like to know the answer to.  My gut instinct is "No".  And our old pal Jeff Goldstein at Protein Wisdom wonders as well,  in a post where he unloads on the Make-Believe-Media, the Obama administration, and the progressive left:

The mainstream press, like many other supposedly “neutral” institutions (education, environmental protection, energy dept, etc), has been taken over by leftist activists who at their very core believe that the ends justify the means, and that whatever falsehoods or manipulations of fact they engage are morally justifiable — that is, that every lie they peddle to the proles has as its intent the bringing to fruition of a greater good that only they can see — and so is a necessary component of governing under the guise of social justice.

We are witnessing the apotheosis of leftist governance: power sought and reinforced through narrative manipulation; lies repeated, even after they’ve been corrected or debunked, as a function of turning them into received / perceived truths; demonization of the “enemy” (be he the farmer, the oil rig worker, the coal miner, the middle class tax payer, the small business owner, or the corporate exec working for a company not favored by the administration) who is then labeled generically as being on the other side, or an extremist, or a racist, or a xenophobe, etc.; class warfare resulting from demonization; and an ever-growing, ever-expanding redistributive welfare state model wherein the federal Leviathan solves every crisis and corrects every instance “unfairness”.

Jeff goes on to wonder aloud whether the GOP nominate a candidate who is willing to say these same things to the public; as they say, read the whole thing.

We all feel for folks like Karin Gallo, who are suffering because of the economic straights we're in as a nation.  And, I wouldn't be too surprised if Mr. Obama was able to work something out on her behalf; to be trotted out at a campaign stop in the future, of course.  Our prayers go out to her and all Americans seeking employment and worrying about the days ahead.

But they also go out to the President and the MBM as well.  I pray they start telling the truth instead of shamelessly distorting reality and engaging in demagoguery.  Because in these times we need a leader to be straight with us all, and to have a press committed to objectivity, fairness, and getting all of the facts out to the citizens in our democratic republic so that they can make their decisions based on truth and not partisan fantasies.

( H/T Protein Wisdom, ACE, and Drudge ; image courtesy of Shoal Haven post )

Rocketman