When the facts are against you, and you are unwilling to concede reality, you have to work that much harder to confuse your readers.
Greg Oerter did this in his letter in last week’s County Post, trying to protect Rep. Paul Ryan’s fib about the closing of the Janesville GM plant.
According to my sources (one of those fact-checking places Republicans won’t base their campaigns on), President Barack Obama said “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 hundred years.”
That’s a statement of belief that, with government help, the Janesville plant could remain open – but not a promise to keep it open.
On Aug. 16, 2012, attacking Obama during a campaign speech in Ohio, Ryan said, “I remember President Obama visiting it when he was first running, saying he’ll keep that plant open. One more broken promise.”
He made the same point Aug. 29 during his speech to the Republican National Convention in Tampa:
“My home state voted for President Obama,” he said. “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.”
My source says, “The plant was effectively shut down on Dec. 23, 2008, when GM ceased production of SUVs there and laid off 1,200 workers. (Several dozen workers stayed on another four months to finish an order of small- to medium-duty trucks for Isuzu Motors.)”
So, for all practical purposes, the plant closed while Bush was still in office, before Obama was inaugurated.
Please, Mr. Oerter, and all you other Republican supporters out there, try to win over voters with the truth, not misleading statements or outright lies.
A family, a government, a nation, built on lies cannot prosper.