More Like This, Please

I'm hoping that the media runs more stories like this as the election kicks into high gear this year. While I know that nearly all of the base will always believe whatever their leaders tell them, the swing voters need to see the facts and make a more informed decision. The first example is precisely what I am talking about.

ROMNEY: "The president's attention, it was elsewhere, like a government takeover of health care and apologizing for America abroad." 

THE FACTS: Obama's law keeps the private insurance industry at the heart of the health care system and avoids a single-payer government system like Canada's. It seeks to achieve universal coverage by requiring insurers to accept people regardless of medical history, subsidizing costs for many in the middle class as well as the poor, establishing new markets for those who don't get insurance at work and requiring most Americans to obtain coverage, with penalties if they don't. 

That's precisely what Romney did, first, as Massachusetts governor. 

Romney argues that states have the right to establish an individual insurance mandate and Washington doesn't — a question the Supreme Court is deciding. But whether the federal law is found constitutional or not, it does not add up to a government takeover. 

Even when fully implemented, if the court allows that, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that 58 percent of working-age Americans and their families will be covered through employer plans — about the same as now. 

In his world travels, Obama has said at times that the U.S. acted "contrary to our traditions and ideals" in its treatment of terrorist suspects, that "America has too often been selective in its promotion of democracy," that the U.S. "certainly shares blame" for international economic turmoil and has sometimes shown arrogance toward allies. 

Obama's statements that America is not beyond reproach in its history usually come balanced with praise, and he is hardly alone among presidents in acknowledging the nation's past imperfections. But these were not apologies, formal or informal.

This last bit I will never understand. President Obama has not gone around the world apologizing for the United States. It's just an absolute lie.  I wonder how today's GOP would react to Ronald Reagan formally apologizing to the Japanese-Americans interred during World War II. One more example of how he would be labeled a commie traitor today.

Of course, the president is not above criticism either. As the article notes, SOME Republicans (not all) supported the idea of a mandate. And the president himself was against it as a candidate, although that was because he wanted a public option at the time.

Take note of the contrast here. Romney, a Republican? Out and out lying. The president? Spinning and not telling the full story. This is a great example of what I mean when I say that, while the Democrats are not above fault, they certainly do not engage in absolute fabrication with the intent to magnify hate, anger, and fear.