Baffling Benghazi Claims
The deadly terrorist attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, spawned some baffling claims by both candidates.
Immediately after the attack in September on U.S. embassies in Libya and Egypt, Romney wrongly claimed that the Obama administration had issued an “apology for American values” after the attacks. Romney referred to a statement issued in response to an anti-Muslim video and before mobs attacked either embassy, and the statement doesn’t contain the word “sorry” or “apology.” Instead, the U.S. embassy in Cairo put out a statement several hours before the attack. It said that the embassy “condemns the continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims – as we condemn efforts to offend believers of all religions. … Respect for religious beliefs is a cornerstone of American democracy. We firmly reject the actions by those who abuse the universal right of free speech to hurt the religious beliefs of others.” That was a reference to an anti-Islamic movie that was garnering attention in the Middle East.
For its part, the Obama administration initially rejected and then played down the notion that it was a premeditated terrorist attack. Instead, it focused on the anti-Muslim video as the root cause, claiming extremists took advantage of a spontaneous protest to the film in Benghazi to attack the consulate. Libyan President Mohamed Magariaf said on Sept. 16 — five days after the attack — that the idea that the Benghazi attack was a “spontaneous protest that just spun out of control is completely unfounded and preposterous.” Yet, Obama and others continued to describe the incident in exactly those terms — including during the president’s Sept. 18 appearance on the “Late Show with David Letterman.” The next day, Matt Olsen, director of the National Counterterrorism Center, called it “a terrorist attack” at a congressional hearing — becoming the first administration official to do so. On Oct. 9, nearly a month after the attack, the State Department disclosed that there weren’t any protesters in Benghazi before the terrorist attack.
Romney Gets It Backward, Sept. 12
Benghazi Timeline, Oct. 26
Obama: Romney Shipped Jobs Overseas
The Obama campaign launched various attacks on Romney for how he became wealthy at the venture-capital firm Bain Capital. Television ads claimed that Romney was a “corporate raider” who “shipped jobs to China and Mexico.”
Obama campaign TV ad, June: [A]s a corporate raider, [Romney] shipped jobs to China and Mexico.
Obama campaign TV ad, June: Romney’s never stood up to China. All he’s ever done is send them our jobs.
Bain Capital did invest in companies that outsourced work to others, both overseas and here in the U.S, and in companies that manufactured goods abroad. But the Obama campaign has failed to show that Romney was in charge of Bain when outsourcing decisions were made. The Obama camp’s examples pertain to companies in which Bain invested after Romney left the company in February 1999 to run the 2002 Winter Olympics. Official filings and contemporary news accounts show Romney was in charge in name only and never returned to Bain while he negotiated the financial terms of his severance.
It’s also false to call Romney a “corporate raider.” Bain Capital did make money while loading some companies with debt. But a corporate raider is “one who mounts an unwelcome takeover bid by buying up shares (usu. discreetly) on the stock market.” Bain didn’t engage in hostile takeovers under Romney. Rather, it invested in new companies or in struggling businesses that it attempted to turn around and sell at a profit, with mixed success.
Obama’s ‘Outsourcer’ Overreach, June 29
FactCheck.org to Obama Camp: Your Complaint is All Wet, July 2
Romney’s Bain Years: New Evidence, Same Conclusion, July 12
Beyond Bain-Bashing
A pro-Obama super PAC made the shocking implication that Romney is responsible for the death of a steelworker’s wife, who had cancer.
The Priorities USA Action TV spot — which aired only twice on Aug. 14 but garnered plenty of media attention — features Joe Soptic, who says his wife died of cancer “a short time after” Romney closed the steel plant where he worked and left him, and his wife, without health insurance. But that’s misleading. Soptic’s wife, Ranae, died five years after the plant closed. She also still had her own employer-sponsored insurance through a job at a thrift store for a year or two longer after the plant shut down, Soptic told CNN.
Joe Soptic in Priorities USA ad: When Mitt Romney and Bain closed the plant, I lost my health care, and my family lost their health care. And a short time after that my wife became ill. … And then one day she became ill and I took her up to the Jackson County Hospital and admitted her for pneumonia. … And she passed away in 22 days. I do not think Mitt Romney realizes what he’s done to anyone, and furthermore I do not think Mitt Romney is concerned.
It’s fair to argue that Romney bears some responsibility for the plant shutting down. Bain Capital did buy it and saddle it with debt while Romney was head of Bain. But Romney was running the 2002 Winter Olympics when the plant actually shut down.
Priorities USA Action claimed that it would be “overstating the point of the ad” to suggest that the steelworker was blaming Romney for his wife’s death. But we disagree. Soptic says in the ad, “I do not think Mitt Romney realizes what he’s done to anyone, and furthermore I do not think Mitt Romney is concerned.”
Is Romney to Blame for Cancer Death? Aug. 8
Romney: Obama Went on an Apology Tour
Romney has repeatedly claimed that Obama embarked on an “apology tour” after he became president. But we have found no evidence of that.
Romney, Oct. 22: And then the president began what I’ve called an apology tour of going to — to various nations in the Middle East and — and criticizing America.
Romney, Aug. 30: I will begin my presidency with a jobs tour. President Obama began with an apology tour.
We went through Obama’s speeches that Romney points to in his book “No Apology,” and we didn’t see anything that rose to the level of an apology.
For instance, Romney points to Obama’s June 4, 2009, speech in Cairo, Egypt. But there’s no apology there. Instead, Obama talked about “tension” between the U.S. and the Muslim world and called for a “new beginning.”
Obama, June 4, 2009: Violent extremists have exploited these tensions in a small but potent minority of Muslims. The attacks of September 11, 2001, and the continued efforts of these extremists to engage in violence against civilians has led some in my country to view Islam as inevitably hostile not only to America and Western countries, but also to human rights. All this has bred more fear and more mistrust.
So long as our relationship is defined by our differences, we will empower those who sow hatred rather than peace, those who promote conflict rather than the cooperation that can help all of our people achieve justice and prosperity. And this cycle of suspicion and discord must end.
I’ve come here to Cairo to seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world, one based on mutual interest and mutual respect, and one based upon the truth that America and Islam are not exclusive and need not be in competition.
False Claims in Final Debate, Oct. 23
Romney’s Sorry ‘Apology’ Dig, Aug. 31
Romney: Stimulus Rife With Cronyism and Waste
The Romney campaign has claimed the stimulus program was filled with cronyism and waste, and even spent money in Finland.
Romney campaign TV ad, May: More than $16 billion have gone to companies like Solyndra that are linked to big Obama and Democrat donors. The inspector general said contracts were steered to “friends and family.”
Ryan, Oct. 11: Was it a good idea to spend taxpayer dollars on electric cars in Finland … ?
Gregory Friedman, the inspector general for the Department of Energy, did not say that contracts were “steered to ‘friends and family.’ ” He said the office was investigating that, but no charges have been made.
And it’s not true that stimulus money went for “electric cars in Finland,” as Ryan said at the vice presidential debate. Fisker Automotive, which received about $500 million in government-backed loans, does build cars in Finland. But the loan money went for engineering, sales, and design and marketing in the U.S. “All of the DOE loan money that we got for the Karma project [the first line of cars] had to be spent in America,” Fisker spokesman Roger Ormisher told us back in May.
Most of the $840 billion in stimulus funds went for tax credits to individuals (a total of $236 billion) and grants to states for Medicare, Medicaid and education. Furthermore, 80 percent of economic experts surveyed by the University of Chicago Booth School of Business agreed that the unemployment rate was lower at the end of 2010 than it would have been without the stimulus, while only 4 percent disagreed.
Romney’s Solar Flareout, June 1
Veep Debate Violations, Oct. 12
And There’s More
We also found whoppers on popular topics such as the federal health care law, jobs and the debt:
- Romney has repeatedly claimed that health insurance premiums have gone up $2,500 under Obama. That’s wrong. Family premiums for employer-sponsored insurance have gone up $1,975 from 2010 to 2012. That’s the total paid by employer and employee, and the reports on this from the Kaiser Family Foundation said the amount paid by employees hadn’t gone up much. Besides, experts told us the federal health care law was responsible for a 1 percent to 3 percent increase, due to more generous coverage requirements.
- Obama said his policies were responsible for “about 10 percent” of the deficits “over the last four years.” But two of the laws he signed, the stimulus and 2010 tax cut, account for nearly a third of the cumulative four-year deficit of $5.2 trillion. Obama was referring to a Treasury analysis covering 2002 to 2011, including all eight years of the Bush administration but excluding the 2012 fiscal year that just ended Sept. 30. He also was referring not to cumulative deficits but to the difference between the Congressional Budget Office’s projected surpluses and the deficits that actually happened.
- An ad in Florida from the conservative American Crossroads reminded us of the notorious “death panel” falsehood. The ad said Medicare benefits could be “rationed” and seniors denied treatment by the new health care law. But the law specifically forbids rationing or a cut in benefits.
- Obama has said that he would return the top two tax rates to the “same rate we had when Bill Clinton was president.” But that’s not right. While Obama does want to let the Bush tax cuts expire for those earning more than $200,000 a year ($250,000 for couples) — which would put the top marginal rates back to where they were under Clinton — the Affordable Care Act put additional taxes on these earners. Next year, they’ll face an additional 0.9 percent Medicare payroll tax, and a 3.8 percent tax on investment income.
- A Romney ad wrongly claimed that “your share of Obama’s debt is over $50,000.” That’s attributing all of the $16 trillion total federal debt, most of which was accumulated under previous presidents. The total public debt was $10.6 trillion when Obama took office; plus, he inherited a deficit that was already running at $1 trillion-plus on the day he took office.
- Obama has tried to make job growth in his term look better than it actually is by saying that “this country has created over half a million new manufacturing jobs in the last two-and-a-half years,” and claiming that he has added 5.2 million new jobs. Manufacturing jobs have rebounded by 512,000 since hitting a low point a year after Obama was inaugurated. But all told, there are still 582,000 fewer manufacturing jobs than there were when Obama took office. As for the 5.2 million new jobs claim, those are private-sector jobs only, and growth only since February 2010. Total jobs — private and government jobs — are up about 325,000 since Obama’s inauguration.
- Romney, too, puffed up his record on jobs as governor of Massachusetts. A campaign ad said he “reduced unemployment to just 4.7 percent.” That’s true — Massachusetts’ unemployment rate declined from 5.6 percent to 4.6 percent — but the state’s rate was lower than the national rate when Romney took office and about the same when he left.
- Romney was wrong when he said 47 percent of Americans pay no federal income taxes and are “dependent on the government.” The true figure is 46.4 percent. More important, most of those Americans work, but don’t make much money. Twenty-two percent are seniors, and 15.2 percent receive tax credits for children and the working poor that bring their income tax liability to zero.
– Lori Robertson
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