Our good friend, Charles Lemos, has done some work on the facts as presented by Senator Obama in that now famous talk to his millionaire friends. And I want to share what he’s done with everyone:
I am still fuming that no one in the media is calling Obama on his mistatement in San Francisco.
Obama needs to be taken to task over the inaccuracies of his comments:“And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. So it’s not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”
Jobs did not fall during the Clinton Administration. I went and looked at the BLS for the top 100 US markets under Bush 41, Clinton and Bush 43. Bush 41 led in 12 (Gary, Honolulu, Des Moines, El Paso, Little Rock, Fresno, Seattle, Witcha, Riverside/San Bernardino, Tacoma, Raleigh/Durham, Madison). Clinton led in all the rest or 88. None for GWBush.
Here are numbers for Pennslyvania markets:
GHW Bush Clinton GW Bush Allentown 0.59% 1.72% 0.00% Harrisburg 1.18% 1.73% 0.31% Philadelphia -0.95% 1.51% 0.14% Pittsburgh 1.10% 1.24% -0.51% Scranton 0.42% 1.10% -0.75% Someone needs to point this out and soon.
The data is from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. If I can get it and I’m in Colombia right now, the US media can surely do a better job of vetting the very junior Senator from Illinois.
Obama got SO many things wrong in his little San Francisco talk — my head reels from the arguments floating around in my head. But Charles is absolutely right about this one.
Things were much better for all of us during the Clinton years. And Obama’s a lying liar. And he has no right to lie about it.
(Also, I can’t help but be curious, what does Obama mean by this, “the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration” — what successive administrations is he talking about?)
[Update] I meant to add this link to more Obama rebuttals: Obama mocks Hillary.
Filed under: Barack Obama, Presidential Election 2008 | Tagged: Clinton Jobs, Obama, San Francisco Fundraiser |
The Confluence 
Absolutely. What is this doublespeak about the Clintpon years being bad? I didn’t like the conspicuous consumption that many people engaged in, but they were certainly years of prosperity and as president he did amazing things with a very hostile congress.
Since, if elected, his would be the successive administration, I’d say that’s a declaration of how he intends to run the country.
For a college professor, he’s pretty loose with his facts and totally lacking in citations. I wonder what the Harvard Law Review was like during his years?
I keep telling my friend–a former Obama supporter–that its pretty shocking how Obama can lie with impunity.
Accomplishments of Clinton/Gore in Pennsylvania:
Not only did Obama denigrate working class voters with sweeping stereotypes, and disparage their cultural values, Obama also intentionally lied in order to denigrate a former Democratic Party two-term President!
http://clinton3.nara.gov/WH/Accomplishments/states/Pennsylvania.html
Since when have facts mattered much in this election season?
But, you are right. It would be nice if the media tracked the factual correctness of BO’s comments. But, then that might reveal how full of double speak he is, and we can’t have that.
His volume of the Harvard Review (vol. 104) is the least cited of all HLRs in the last 20 years. While many HLRs are cited 400 times his was cited only 173 times.
Moreover, he was in law school from 1988 to 1991. In the period from 1988-1992, Harvard Law came under fire for its sexism, esp. in 1992 (so after Obama was gone, just to be fair to him) for making fun of a recently murdered feminist scholar named Mary Jo Frug. Members of the HLR placed on her husband’s dinner plate (he taught at Harvard Law) a parody of her scholarship.
Should have said 30 years on the citations. Sorry.
There’s a poll on Lou Dobbs: Do BO’s comments reveal his elitist attitude towards hardworking Americans?:
http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/lou.dobbs.tonight/
here is a short video of obama in san fran were there were no video ya right i wonder were the rest is http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0408/Video_from_San_Francisco.html
i wish i knew how to get this into the media but i dont know how i am getting sick of obama supporters saying that hillary brings up race all the time when its him i have sent this about a thousand times to all media emails but no one is saying anything about it http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0408/Video_from_San_Francisco.html
riverdaughter, I agree that things were much better during the peace and prosperity of the Clinton years. There is certainly no doubt about that. I am wondering, do you know if the jobs that were produced during the Clinton years were lower-paying jobs than those that disappeared due to NAFTA?
I am just wondering if there are any statistics regarding the types of jobs, not just the number of jobs.
Either way, BO lied about President Clinton’s record. There has been much talk about the loss of manufacturing jobs, and I am just wondering if those jobs were replaced with lower-paying jobs, perhaps service industry jobs. That is not what BO was saying, I know, but I am just curious for my own edification.
Doesn’t surprise me in the least about his volume of the HLR – he doesn’t devote himself to anything but himself.
Hillary 08
Yeah, Kbird! Great post. Does Charles need an invitation to post? Let us know.
water, you can easily check the BLS numbers yourself instead of trying to subtly imply that incomes were down. You might also want to look at the statistics on minority (hispanic/african-american) savings/net worth.
You may also want to take a look at college enrollment and crime statistics. You know, since you seem so concerned.
Also, BLS and other government sites have wonderful charts and graphs and tables with all sorts of wonderful information beyond just media wages and number of jobs. You can find out what types of jobs there are and projections for the future. Great stuff there.
You know, since you are so concerned.
Great diary over at the HillarysBloggers:
Six-Shooter in a Duck Blind
Obama said:
Here is the perfect youtube video for it. Give it a look:
Annie Get Your Gun – Anything You Can Do (Yes, I can. Yes, I can. Yes, I can.)
It a perfect montage for Hillary and Barack.
Is Obama lying or just sloppy and uninformed? In any case, his supporters dont care if he is right and he knows the GOP is unlikely to correct him.
I dont think Hillary did him any favors by being restrained in this primary – if he gets the nod, he is going to have so much crap out there that the GOP will have a field day with.
We should get W.O.R.M. 1.0 sometime today from the Obama campaign.
“Senator Obama did not mean to imply that people hunt ducks with six-shooters.”
He was at least careful enough to remember he doesn’t take money from, um, “Federal” lobbyists.
I didn’t see the whole thing, couldn’t watch.
Here’s the deal: Obama opens his mouth, and nonsense tumbles out, and people stand in awe of his cadences.
Read the same speeches in black and white. All nonsense. All infantile logic, unfinished propositions, false choices, strawmen opponents, flatly false claims of fact, and unsupported extraordinary claims of theory. (Tweaking some lobbyist contribution rules will transform politics and government? I’d like to see somebody detail that argument. … but it scores big with the same kind of people who believe we spend half their tax dollars on foreign aid.)
Have anyone else do his material live. *THUD!* (Remember Gov. Sebelius after the State of the Union?)
How does he get away with it? Is it all just the soft bigotry of low expectations?
Bwahahahahah…
Six Shooter in a Duck Blind.
http://politwix.com/2008/04/13/six-shooter-in-a-duck-blind-2/
h/t to Hillarys Bloggers for the link.
If he does secure the nomination I am going to have a lot of difficulty working up any enthusiasm for him. I have been a solid Democrat for years, and though I would never vote for McCain, I may just leave the top of the ticket unchecked because this guy is an empty suit with little regard for the Hillary supporters whom he will need in November. The Obamobots are reckless, rude, and play with the facts and take pleasure in shouting down all other viewpoints. He could say anything and they will applaud. And the MSM are their chorus.
ronk:
I’m one of those people who just don’t get Obama. I’ll watch a speech and feel underwhelmed, then I’ll see rave reviews from the Boiz.
After Obama’s Big Race Speech, the Boiz had third degree thigh sweats about how wonderful it was. I kid you not, at least two commenters claimed to have been moved to tears just from reading the transcript.
The only thing I remember from it was something about throwing his grandma under the bus.
I got nothing – keep thinking of comments to post and then continue reading to find one of you has already articulated my thought in some well-stated and often hilarious manner – you folks are the best!
It’s OK if you love Barack, I guess, to look the other way when he comes up with this stuff. The social issues are going to kill him in states like MO, OH, TN…and he’s out there lying about his voting record, and other completely verifiable information?
Ay carumba. Are we screwed if he wins this!!
What can you expect from Osbama Bin Lying but lying all the time. He is the biggest political fraud I’ve ever known. That he has gone this far is obviously a logical outcome of a vast corporate/right-wing conspiracy to perpetuate the Reagan/Bush regime by promoting through the MSM (republican propaganda machine) the candidacy of the weakest Democratic candidate, a DL (Designated Loser) — Barack “Saddam-of-aGun” Hussein Osbama. Why do you think he gets all those media adoration and truckloads of money? From dealers in the hood, Bloods and Crips, even though they may have been inspired by the audacity of his con game? No, from the Wall Street subprime and War Profiteers, of course! So fellow Democrats, wake and throw this bum out or we will be grabbing defeat from the jaws of victory (to paraphrase John Nichols of the Nation, a Koolaide drinker himself)!
Larry over at No Quarter has a great piece up detailing the ACTUAL economic FACTS of the Clinton years! Good stuff, excellent for rebuttals of the A***
Well, I can’t remember where I got this. It was after skimming thru a number of blogs and then getting up and about to do other things. And then, hmmm.
But someone somewhere on a blog comment supposed that Obama has been trying to call out Bill Clinton, enticing him into a competition Does not sound far off to me… dissing the Clinton performance on the economy by Obama has been going on since NV (that df to the Reagans) and now a diss on Clinton in PA. BO has been insulting, not just to Hillary but also to Bill and the millions of dems who supported Bill.
Not sure what to make of this, other than BO would rather do a guy-on-guy thing than guy-on-girl.
Your thoughts? anyone?
I wonder what the Harvard Law Review was like during his years?
Katiebird,
It’s late getting this info to you, but an interesting tale from Vanity Fair.
He became the president of the Harvard Law Review not because he had the best grades (though he had good ones) but because he won the trust of both conservative and liberal factions in an arena in which the arguments were passionate because the stakes were so small.
And…
In his second year, he ran for president of the Law Review, and after a marathon voting session was elected on the 19th ballot, as an overt compromise candidate.
Nancy McCullough, an entertainment lawyer in Los Angeles, was a year behind Obama at Harvard and recalls him as “someone who wanted the group decisions to reflect the group’s intent, not Barack’s intent. One of the reasons people were comfortable putting him in the presidency was because he was going to listen closely enough that, whatever decisions had been made, people would know that he had [listened]. He was masterful in how he facilitated people’s talking.
“I actually would have been happier for him to say sometimes, ‘This is how we’re doing this, and shut up!’ ”
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