Not only do many within Virginia’s Republican Party like to
ignore the facts, they’ve made it a profession to demonize those who do not
agree with their warped policy positions. The most notorious example is perhaps
Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli. Now, Virginia’s Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling
has stepped into the ring to contend with other VA GOP members for the most
asinine statements.
In an interview on Saturday with the Daily Press, Bolling commented that if Virginians believe that
President Obama has done well so far as president then they should vote for him
and then “check themselves into a mental hospital.”[1]
It would appear to Bolling then that a great many Virginians are mentally ill.
Bolling was focusing on “how the economy works” when he made
this statement, essentially dismissing President Obama’s economic policies. But
while Bolling was eager to call President Obama out, he was, like many of his
VA GOP colleagues, short on facts.
In point of fact, President Obama’s economic policies helped
to drop the bleeding job loss figures that the last President Bush left behind
at the end of his second term.[2]
For instance, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that without the
Recovery Act, unemployment would have been over 1 percent higher in2010.
The point is, Virginia’s Republicans have become comfortable
throwing out the big lie without being pressed or feeling pressed to justify
their policy assertions.
Yes, Ronald Reagan did raise taxes.[3]
Yes, President Obama has thrown his support behind sustaining the Bush tax
cuts.[4]
While these are plain truths, these and many others are
consistently ignored for political ends that do little else than darken the air
for factual democratic debate.
For the sake of our democracy, nothing should stand in the way
of the truth. But for many Republicans in Virginia, truth is just another bit
of information to be molded to reach
one’s political ends.
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