The Year 2011 Was The Year That Anti-American Conservative Talking Points About Obama's Foreign Policy Crumbled

The Year 2011 Was The Year That Anti-American Conservative Talking Points About Obama's Foreign Policy Crumbled

Since President Obama took office, right-wing (conservative) media have argued that his foreign policy is making the United States less safe and is bent on attacking Israel. Those attacks have continued in 2011, even as the Obama administration has overseen the death of Al Qaeda leaders Osama bin Laden and Anwar Al-Awlaki, repeatedly supported Israel, and been praised by Israeli leaders.

RIGHT-WING MEDIA CLAIM: Obama Is Making The U.S. Less Safe

RIGHT-WING MEDIA CLAIM: Obama's Actions In Libya Were Incoherent And Dangerous For Israel

RIGHT-WING MEDIA CLAIM: Obama Is Anti-Israel And His Administration Is Anti-Semitic

RIGHT-WING MEDIA CLAIM: Obama's Speech On Israeli-Palestinian Peace Based On '67 Borders With Agreed Swaps Condoned "Potential Genocide"

RIGHT-WING MEDIA CLAIM: Obama Is Supporting "Intifada" Against Israel By Restating U.S. Policy Regarding Settlements
RIGHT-WING MEDIA CLAIM: Obama Is Making The U.S. Less Safe

Since Obama Took Office, Right-Wing Media Have Repeatedly Suggested That He Is Weak On Terror And Not Serious About Defending America From Terrorism Threats.

REALITY: Obama Administration Oversaw The Killing Of Osama Bin Laden And Other Terrorist Leaders

    [The New York Times, 5/2/11]

Obama Authorized The Operation That Resulted In The Death Of Osama Bin Laden. Following the killing of Osama bin Laden, The Washington Post reported that the "surgical" special forces operation that resulted in the terrorist leader's death was authorized by President Obama on Friday, April 29 after months of intelligence gathering, and was carried out early the following Monday morning (local time) as a small force of elite American troops descended on bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. According to the Post, the U.S. "did not share any intelligence with foreign governments, including Pakistan's."

Obama Ordered Drone Strike That Killed Anwar Al-Awlaki, An American-Born Al Qaeda Leader. Reuters reported on September 30:

    The killing of Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen on Friday by a U.S. drone strike is the culmination of two years of extensive U.S. efforts to track down the American-born member of al Qaeda and put him out of action.

Under Obama, FBI And DEA Agents Foiled Alleged Iranian Plot To Assassinate Saudi Ambassador To The U.S. ABC News reported on October 11:

    FBI and DEA agents have disrupted a plot to commit a "significant terrorist act in the United States" tied to Iran, federal officials told ABC News today.


Numerous Other Terrorist Leaders Have Been Killed During Obama's Presidency. In a September 30 blog post, ABC's Jake Tapper compiled a list of senior terrorist leaders killed during Obama's presidency. From Tapper's post:

    Earlier this month officials confirmed that al Qaeda's chief of Pakistan operations, Abu Hafs al-Shahri, was killed in Waziristan, Pakistan.

    In August, 'Atiyah 'Abd al-Rahman,  the deputy leader of al Qaeda was killed.

    In June, one of the group's most dangerous commanders, Ilyas Kashmiri,  was killed in Pakistan. In Yemen that same month, AQAP senior operatives Ammar al-Wa'ili, Abu Ali al-Harithi, and Ali Saleh Farhan were killed. In Somalia, Al-Qa'ida in East Africa (AQEA) senior leader Harun Fazul was killed.

    Administration officials also herald the recent U.S./Pakistani joint arrest of Younis al-Mauritani  in Quetta.

    Going back to August 2009, Tehrik e-Taliban Pakistan leader Baitullah Mahsud was killed in Pakistan.

    In September of that month, Jemayah Islamiya operational planner Noordin Muhammad Top was killed in Indonesia, and AQEA planner Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan was killed in Somalia.

    Then in December 2009 in Pakistan, al Qaeda operational commanders Saleh al-Somali and 'Abdallah Sa'id were killed.

    In February 2010, in Pakistan,  Taliban deputy and military commander Abdul Ghani Beradar was captured; Haqqani network commander Muhammad Haqqani was killed; and Lashkar-e Jhangvi leader Qari Zafar was killed.

    In March 2010, al Qaeda operative Hussein al-Yemeni was killed in Pakistan, while senior Jemayah Islamiya operative Dulmatin -- accused of being the mastermind behind the 2002 Bali bombings -- was killed during a raid in Indonesia.

    In April 2010, al Qaeda in Iraq leaders Abu Ayyub al-Masri and Abu Omar al-Baghdadi were killed.

    In May, al Qaeda's number three commander, Sheik Saeed al-Masri was killed.

    In June 2010 in Pakistan, al Qaeda commander Hamza al-Jawfi was killed. [Political Punch, 9/30/11, via ABCNews.com]

RIGHT-WING MEDIA CLAIM: Obama's Actions In Libya Were Incoherent And Dangerous For Israel

REALITY: With U.S., NATO Support, Libyans Overthrew Gadhafi      

Wash. Post: Libyan Rebels Captured, Killed Gadhafi Following "Unprecedented NATO Air Campaign." The Washington Post reported on October 20:

    Former Libyan dictator Moammar Gaddafi was killed Thursday after being seized in a sewage tunnel in his home town -- the final triumph for pro-democracy fighters who have struggled for eight months to take control of the country.

    Gaddafi's death came on a day of intense military activity in Sirte, the last loyalist holdout in Libya, where his supporters had fended off better-armed revolutionaries for weeks. Before his capture, a U.S. drone and French fighter jets fired on a large, disorganized convoy leaving the city that he appears to have been in. It was not clear whether the airstrikes hit Gaddafi's vehicles, NATO officials said.


RIGHT-WING CONSERVATIVE MEDIA CLAIM: Obama Is Anti-Israel And His Administration Is Anti-Semitic

REALITY: Obama Has Stood By Israel And Lobbied Against Palestinian Statehood At The UN

    [WhiteHouse.gov, 9/21/11]

Obama Declared His Opposition To Palestinian Statehood Bid At The UN

Obama: "Peace Will Not Come Through Statements And Resolutions At The U.N." The New York Times reported on September 21:

    President Obama declared his opposition to the Palestinian Authority's bid for statehood through the Security Council on Wednesday, throwing the weight of the United States directly in the path of the Arab democracy movement even as he hailed what he called the democratic aspirations that have taken hold throughout the Middle East and North Africa.

Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu Has Repeatedly Praised Obama

Netanyahu On Obama's Opposition To A Unilaterally-Declared Palestinian State: "I Think This Is A Badge Of Honor And I Want To Thank You For Wearing That Badge Of Honor." From a statement by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu:

Netanyahu  "Offered A Special Thank You" To Obama For Helping To Free Israelis Detained In Cairo. From a Jerusalem Post article:

    Israel will continue to adhere to the peace treaty with Egypt, which serves the interest of both countries, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said on Saturday night, at the end of a dramatic 24-hours during which an Egyptian mob laid siege to Israel's embassy in Cairo.

    All of Israel's emissaries to Cairo -- including six security guards who were holed up behind a metal door in the embassy and extracted by Egyptian commandos -- returned to Israel on Saturday, with the exception of one diplomat who will remain to represent Israel in the Egyptian capital.

    Netanyahu, in a televised announcement on Saturday night, offered a special thank you to US President Barack Obama who "said he would do everything he could" to extricate the six security guards, "and did.

Netanyahu "Expressed His Deep Appreciation" For U.S. Funding For Missile Defense System For Israel. From an April 18 Agence France-Presse article:

Former Israeli Prime Minister And Current Defense Minister Ehud Barak: "I Can Hardly Remember A Better Period Of ... American Support" For Israel Than "Right Now." From the August 3 edition of Fox News' On the Record with Greta Van Susteren:


A Majority Of Jewish Israelis Have A Favorable View Of Obama

Brookings: "A Majority (54%) Of Israeli Jews Polled In 2011 Expressed A Favorable View Of [Obama]." A "2011 Public Opinion Poll of Jewish and Arab Citizens of Israel" by the Brookings Institution's Saban Center for Middle East Policy found that a "majority" of Israeli Jews support Obama:

Just another year in which the deeply anti-American movement known as conservatism has the nerve to wrap its lies and Anti-American agenda in the flag and the Bible to deceive and mislead the American people. It is time for real Americans to stand up and push back at this dangerous anti-democracy political radicals known as conservative Republicans.

Is It True That Obama Went on a Big Spending Spree

Don't believe the Obama big spender hype - The GOP just can't handle the truth: Tax cuts, war and the financial crisis created our huge deficits

How many outright errors of fact can you spot in the following paragraph from an op-ed by Mitt Romney published this Monday?

[Barack Obama's] approach has been to engage in one of the biggest peacetime spending binges in American history. With its failed stimulus package, its grandiose new social programs, its fervor for more taxes and government regulations, and its hostility toward business, the administration has made the debt problem worse, hindered economic recovery and needlessly cost American workers countless jobs.

Let's see. We're at war in Afghanistan, so "peacetime" is dubious. Obama has cut taxes -- income taxes, payroll taxes, taxes for small businesses. Private sector economic forecasters say the stimulus increased GDP growth and kept the unemployment rate from rising higher. We could even range into the subjective, and argue that from the left side of the political aisle, Obama has been anything but hostile to business and hasn't done nearly enough to regulate the financial sector. And we could note, just for fun, that Obama's "grandiose" social program is modeled explicitly after the healthcare reform enacted by none other than Mitt Romney in Massachusetts. (And this guy, most political analysts think, poses the biggest threat to Obama's reelection!)

But nothing is more ridiculous than the notion that Obama is a "binge" spender. Paul Krugman rightfully calls this scurrilous accusation a "zombie lie." No matter how many times you kill it, whether by decapitation, a spike through the heart or immolation -- it just keeps coming back. It's enough to make you despair -- particularly when you consider how many more times we're going to hear this nonsense from Romney and the rest of the Republican presidential candidates from now until the last precinct closes on Election Day 2012.

But as long as the undead keep coming, we have no choice but to fight hellspawn with our own holy fire. So let's review the facts.

The current budget deficit is predominantly an outgrowth of the Bush tax cuts, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, Medicare Part D and the financial crisis.

Here's the first thing to understand. Before Obama took office, before he was able to spend a single dime as president, the Congressional Budget Office predicted that the 2009 deficit would be $1 trillion dollars. According to an analysis published by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities in June 2010, about half of that total -- $500 billion -- can be attributed to the Bush tax cuts and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Another $400 billion was a direct result of the "changed economic outlook" -- the collapse of "tax revenues and swelling outlays for unemployment insurance, food stamps and other safety-net programs."

In the summer of 2009, the New York Times's David Leonhardt (recently awarded a Pulitzer prize for his economic coverage) conducted an indispensable analysis of the budget deficit for 2009. (By that point it was projected to hit $1.2 trillion; ultimately it reached $1.4 trillion -- in part because of stimulus spending and in part because the economy continued to get worse.) Leonhardt observed that since 2000, the year that Bill Clinton bequeathed George Bush with an $800 billion surplus, there had been a negative $2 trillion swing in the health of the government's finances. Crunching the numbers from a decade's worth of CBO reports, Leonhardt discovered:

The 2001 and 2007-2009 recessions accounted for 37 percent of the swing -- again, because of decreased tax revenue and automatically higher spending on social welfare.
Legislation signed by George Bush accounted for another 33 percent -- the tax cuts and Medicare Part D.

"Mr. Obama's main contribution to the deficit is his extension of several Bush policies, like the Iraq war and tax cuts for households making less than $250,000. Such policies -- together with the Wall Street bailout, which was signed by Mr. Bush and supported by Mr. Obama -- account for 20 percent of the swing."

"About 7 percent comes from the stimulus bill that Mr. Obama signed in February. And only 3 percent comes from Mr. Obama's agenda on health care, education, energy and other areas."

The CBPP includes a neat little chart in its analysis that brings home the long-term consequences of the decisions made by Bush and Obama. Yes, the stimulus added to the budget deficit in the short term, but over the next 10 years, its contribution to the ongoing deficit -- along with TARP and the Fannie-Freddie rescue -- is minimal. The real drivers of the deficit will continue to be the Bush tax cuts and the wars -- if both continue. The tax cuts alone will account for some $7 trillion of the additional national debt over the next 10 years. And the interest payments on the debt accrued simply to pay for the automatic safety-net response to the Great Recession will also continue making a meaningful impact for years to come, long after a full recovery.

Fiscal Chart - see above.

Obama, of course, bears some responsibility for continuing the Bush tax cuts and the Bush wars -- but so do nearly every Republican legislator, and it's very difficult to imagine that Mitt Romney as president would have done anything differently. In fact, it's quite possible that the deficit would have gotten worse under Romney, because if he had decided to inject no stimulus at all into the economy, the downturn would likely have been worse, tax revenue would have declined even further, and social welfare spending would be even greater. And if any Republican president had attempted to slash spending in accordance with current party rhetoric, we'd be staring directly into the depths of Great Depression 2.0.

Also crucial to note: Obama's major new initiatives were either designed to be short term, such as the stimulus, or revenue neutral, such as healthcare reform. That's not something you can say about Bush's budget busters.

The budget deficits under Obama are big, there's no doubt about that. But the primary drivers of those deficits are a combination of decisions made by George W. Bush and the worst economic crisis in the United States in 80 years.

Why do conservatives keep spreading the lie that President Obama is a big spender? To distract from the fact they drove the economy off a cliff. Conservatives know they caused the recession by not keeping an eye on Wall St and by not paying for two wars. All the while insisting that we keep tax cuts for the richest who need them the least.

Does America Have a Spending Problem - Obama Versus Conservatives

Obama, Conservatives and The Deficit

With President Obama and Republican leaders calling for cutting the budget by trillions over the next 10 years, it is worth asking how we got here — from healthy surpluses at the end of the Clinton era, and the promise of future surpluses, to nine straight years of deficits, including the $1.3 trillion shortfall in 2010. The answer is largely the Bush-era tax cuts, war spending in Iraq and Afghanistan, and recessions.

Despite what antigovernment conservatives say, non-defense discretionary spending on areas like foreign aid, education and food safety was not a driving factor in creating the deficits. In fact, such spending, accounting for only 15 percent of the budget, has been basically flat as a share of the economy for decades. Cutting it simply will not fill the deficit hole.

The first graph shows the difference between budget projections and budget reality. In 2001, President George W. Bush inherited a surplus, with projections by the Congressional Budget Office for ever-increasing surpluses, assuming continuation of the good economy and President Bill Clinton’s policies. But every year starting in 2002, the budget fell into deficit. In January 2009, just before President Obama took office, the budget office projected a $1.2 trillion deficit for 2009 and deficits in subsequent years, based on continuing Mr. Bush’s policies and the effects of recession. Mr. Obama’s policies in 2009 and 2010, including the stimulus package, added to the deficits in those years but are largely temporary.

The second graph shows that under Mr. Bush, tax cuts and war spending were the biggest policy drivers of the swing from projected surpluses to deficits from 2002 to 2009. Budget estimates that didn’t foresee the recessions in 2001 and in 2008 and 2009 also contributed to deficits. Mr. Obama’s policies, taken out to 2017, add to deficits, but not by nearly as much.

A few lessons can be drawn from the numbers. First, the Bush tax cuts have had a huge damaging effect. If all of them expired as scheduled at the end of 2012, future deficits would be cut by about half, to sustainable levels. Second, a healthy budget requires a healthy economy; recessions wreak havoc by reducing tax revenue. Government has to spur demand and create jobs in a deep downturn, even though doing so worsens the deficit in the short run. Third, spending cuts alone will not close the gap. The chronic revenue shortfalls from serial tax cuts are simply too deep to fill with spending cuts alone. Taxes have to go up.

In future decades, when rising health costs with an aging population hit the budget in full force, deficits are projected to be far deeper than they are now. Effective health care reform, and a willingness to pay more taxes, will be the biggest factors in controlling those deficits.

Republicans are running around like Chicken-little on steroids. The sky is falling and its all Obama's fault. As usual nothing could be further from the truth. Reverting the average federal tax rate back to what it was under Bill Clinton will hardly be the end of the world. The tax rate on capital gains, the money made on stock trading could easily be 30% and no one would suffer. American's are paying the lowest taxes since 1950 and yet low taxes obviously are not the secret to creating jobs. Taxes are how the wealthy pay back America for all the infrastructure that makes their welth possible. Not paying taxes is just a way for the wealthy to free load.

The Economy - President Obama is More Conservative Than Reagan

The Economy - President Obama is More Conservative Than Reagan

President Obama endorsed [1] the Senate's Gang of Six deficit reduction plan Tuesday, saying that the proposal “is broadly consistent with the approach that I’ve urged” and “makes sure that nobody is disproportionately hurt from us making progress on the debt and deficits.”

However, an examination of the plan’s specifics [2] reveals that corporations and wealthy Americans won’t feel much pain at all—in many cases, just the opposite. The plan slashes taxes and could bring the top personal income rate down as low as 23 percent—meaning CEOs like Jamie Dimon and Lloyd Blankfein could see their after-tax income increase by as much as $3 million, according [3] to Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research. The corporate tax rate would be reduced [4] from 35 percent to between 23 and 29 percent under the proposal. (Supposedly enough loopholes would be closed to keep total revenue from corporate taxes the same. Even in that scenario, corporations won’t pay an extra penny). Military spending also remains virtually untouched.

Meanwhile, the harm done to seniors, students, working families and others under the Gang of Six plan is unmistakable. Social Security benefits would be reduced, and there are also cuts to Medicare and Medicaid. Students and the disabled would lose some federal government support. Here’s a quick look at who would be most harmed under the new most popular proposal in Washington.

Seniors: Americans over age 65 get hit from several directions under the Gang of Six proposal. First, the plan reduces Social Security benefits by 0.3 percentage points per year by tinkering with the formula that adjusts benefits based on inflation. This could lead to annual reductions of over $1,300 [5] for some seniors. Social Security is solvent through 2037 and does not contribute to the deficit, so this change is particularly misguided.

Medicare also would also face serious reductions. The plan directs [6] the Senate Finance Committee to reduce doctor payments by $300 billion and then cut another $200 billion from the program overall. To achieve that, anything from raising the eligibility age to increasing cost-sharing could be considered and would almost have to be in order to find savings of that magnitude.

The poor: Medicaid will no doubt suffer under the Gang of Six plan, though it’s not possible to put a dollar amount on the cuts yet. The proposal says that the government must “spend healthcare dollars more efficiently in order to strengthen Medicare and Medicaid.” That’s obviously code for spending fewer dollars, which means Medicaid recipients can expect to receive less.

The cuts would be negotiated by another bipartisan group of senators over the next six months, but the starting point for Republicans on Medicaid is downright draconian. In the budget passed by House Republicans earlier this year, supported by a vast majority of Republicans when it came up for a vote in the Senate, the program would be cut [7] by a whopping 35 percent by 2021—even as medical costs skyrocket between now and then. It’s not likely the GOP would win that steep of a reduction, but even halfway to that point would be catastrophic for Medicaid recipients. As none other than Sen. Kent Conrad, a key figure in the Gang of Six, told [7] the Huffington Post in June, Medicaid operates on such low overhead that a cut “goes right to medical services.”

The disabled: The Gang of Six plan completely eliminates a disability insurance program created under the 2009 healthcare reform bill. The Community Living Assistance Services and Supports Act, or CLASS Act, provides [8] in-home care for anyone who becomes disabled, as an alternative to being placed in a nursing home. It provides up to $18,250 annually for these costs, with no lifetime cap. Premiums are $5 per month for students or people under the poverty line, and about $123 per month for everyone else, but it’s also voluntary—anybody can ask their employer to simply opt out.

The elimination of the CLASS Act is another example of sacrificing a valuable program that simply does not contribute to the deficit but rather conflicts with conservative ideology. The Congressional Budget Office estimates [9] the program actually saves the government $70 billion through 2019, because people have to pay premiums for five years in order to qualify for benefits. It also keeps people out of nursing homes, which are a major driver of increasing medical costs.

Students: The Gang of Six blueprint directs the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, which oversees federal student loan programs, to come up with $70 billion in budgetary savings. Given the somewhat limited scope of what the Committee oversees [10], in terms of areas that actually create federal expenditures, it’s virtually impossible it could find savings of that scale without serious changes to federal student loans.

One idea popular [11] with the Bowles-Simpson debt commission, and echoed recently by Representative Eric Cantor, would be to end the Stafford student loan program, which subsidizes the interest on loans while students are enrolled in college. An outright elimination of the program would save the government $40 billion over ten years, but would force students to pay interest on their college loans while still in school and likely not drawing much of an income, if any.

Pell Grants, which are federal scholarships for low-income students, are also likely [12] to be on the chopping block. The program is already running an $11 billion deficit, and will no doubt be a juicy target for Senators looking to get $70 billion in cuts.

These are the areas currently identifiable based on the Gang of Six blueprint—but it calls for massive, yet-unspecified spending reductions, and possibly discretionary spending caps down the road. Given the current slant towards reductions for needy Americans in the blueprint, it’s hard to imagine future reductions will be any different.

[1] http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/hannity/2011/07/20/rep-ryan-gang-six-debt-plan-doesnt-add
[2] http://www.washingtonpost.com/r/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2011/07/19/National-Politics/Graphics/Gang_of_Six_Document.pdf
[3] http://www.cepr.net/index.php/press-releases/press-releases/statement-on-the-gang-of-six-plan
[4] http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2011/07/20/273830/gang-of-six-plan-reduces-social-security-benefits-by-1300-a-year-cuts-corporate-tax-rates/
[5] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/01/social-security-advocates_n_888899.html
[6] http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/the-gang-of-sixs-plan-better-than-were-likely-to-do-otherwise/2011/07/19/gIQAXjZROI_blog.html?wpisrc=nl_wonk

Some morons keep calling President Obama a socialist. That would be funny except that in fact Obama's economic policies are to the Right of Reagan. If Obama is a socialist that would mean Ronald Reagan was a raging communist. Or maybe today's conservatives have more in common with Mussolini than Reagan or Obama.

UnAmerican Fox News Misleads Nation About Economy and Deficit

Can't Add It Up: Fox Still Misleading On Economy, Debt, Stimulus

Fox & Friends repeatedly attacked comments made by Democratic officials and legislators to suggest that the 2009 stimulus failed and that the Obama administration is primarily to blame for the nation's debt. In fact, economists have agreed that the stimulus promoted job growth and had positive economic effects, and several analyses have shown that most of the U.S. debt in the past decade can be attributed to former President Bush's tax cuts and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Pelosi: "If [Obama] Hadn't Taken The Actions That He Did ... The [Economic] Situation Would Be Worse." In an interview that aired on the June 5 edition of CBS's Face the Nation, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said:

What the president has done has improved the situation from where it may have been," Pelosi said. "If he hadn't taken the actions he did, the situation would be worse. He pulled us from the brink of the financial crisis, from an economic crisis, and now we have to dig out of a deep debt. And we have to also make it clear that we're not getting into this situation again. [CBS, Face The Nation, 6/5/11 via CBSNews.com]

Fox & Friends Mock Pelosi And Goolsbee, Pin Debt On Obama, Attack Stimulus

Carlson: "How Long Can You Continue To Say" The Recession "Is Something That They Inherited?" On the June 6 edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends, the co-hosts discussed Goolsbee and Pelosi's comments about the economy. Co-host Gretchen Carlson said:

CARLSON: The argument to me is, you know, how long can you continue to say that the hard hit recession of 2007, moving into 2008 is something that they inherited? I mean at one point, at what point does it become this administration's situation that they have to take full control for, and I think we're kind of teetering right now on the fact that it is their responsibility now and the policies that they've put into place to try and fix it. [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 6/6/11]

Carlson is a typical Fox Stalinist. She spouts propaganda like a fountain:

But Economists Agree That The Stimulus Raised Employment, Had "Very Substantial" Effects

Independent And Private Analysts: Stimulus Significantly Raised Employment. As Media Matters has previously documented, many analysts confirmed that the stimulus significantly raised employment. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated that the stimulus increased the number of people employed, as of the second quarter of FY2010, by "between 1.4 million and 3.3 million." Moody's Economy.com estimated it would have created 1.9 million jobs by 2010. [Media Matters, 9/26/10]

Economists: "The Effects Of The Fiscal Stimulus" On Economy "Appear Very Substantial." Economists also agreed that the stimulus was effective. A March 2010 study in The Wall Street Journal found that 70 percent of economists surveyed said the stimulus "boosted growth and mitigated job losses." ABC News reported on February 18, 2010, that most of the economists on its panel thought the economy "would be worse today without the big aid package." And a February 2010 survey of 203 members of the National Association for Business Economics (NABE) found that "[e]ighty-three percent believe that GDP is currently higher than it would have been without the 2009 stimulus package (ARRA)." [Media Matters, 9/26/10]
Eight Percent Unemployment Projection Made Before Data Was Released Showing "Far Worse" Economic Conditions

Initial Eight Percent Unemployment Projection Made Before Fourth-Quarter FY2008 Results. As Media Matters has previously noted, while Obama advisers initially predicted that after stimulus spending the unemployment rate would not exceed 8 percent -- a prediction made "10 days before Mr. Obama was inaugurated," according to The New York Times -- advisers later explained that this estimate was made before fourth-quarter results for the GDP were available. Jared Bernstein, then-economic advisor to the vice president, explained, "[W]hen we made our initial estimates, that was before we had fourth-quarter results on GDP, which we later found out was contracting on an annual rate of 6 percent, far worse than we expected at that time." [Media Matters, 6/9/09; The New York Times, 6/8/09]
Analyses Show Most U.S. Debt Can Be Attributed To Bush-Era Policies, Economic Downturn

Wash. Post Graphic Shows Bush Tax Cuts And Iraq Wars Contributed Most To Current Deficit. From a June 4 post on The Washington Post blog PostPolitics:

In the debate over the nation's rising debt, rhetoric trumps reality. In January 2001, the U.S. budget was balanced for the first time in decades and the Congressional Budget Office was forecasting surpluses totaling $5.6 trillion by 2011. A decade later, the national debt is larger, as a percentage of the economy, than at any time in U.S. history except for the period shortly after World War II.

[ ]...CBPP: "[V]irtually The Entire Deficit Over The Next Ten Years" Due To Bush Policies, Economic Downturn." The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) published an analysis of federal deficits in December 2009, which was updated on June 28, 2010, titled, "Critics Still Wrong on What's Driving Deficits in Coming Years: Economic Downturn, Financial Rescues, and Bush-Era Policies Drive the Numbers." The report noted:

Some critics continue to assert that President George W. Bush's policies bear little responsibility for the deficits the nation faces over the coming decade -- that, instead, the new policies of President Barack Obama and the 111th Congress are to blame. Most recently, a Heritage Foundation paper downplayed the role of Bush-era policies (for more on that paper, see p. 4). Nevertheless, the fact remains: Together with the economic downturn, the Bush tax cuts and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq explain virtually the entire deficit over the next ten years.

The report also graphed the effects of Bush's policies and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan on the deficit. From the report: ( charts and citations at link).

Sarah Palin is develping quite the reputation for mangling facts and history. She usually follows up by not having the maturity or humility to admit she is wrong.

Palin said: "He who warned, uh, the British that they weren’t going to be taking away our arms uh by ringing those bells and making sure as he’s riding his horse through town to send those warning shots and bells that we were going to be secure and we were going to be free and we were going to be armed."

So while riding his horse, a reference to Revere's famous ride, he " ringing those bells and making sure as he’s riding his horse through town to send those warning shots and bells". Palin and her toadie apologists say this is correct because AFTER the famous ride Revere was captured by the British and told them in so many words they would get theirs someday. So having time to get some coaching from her handlers she says that captured incident was what she was talking about, when Revere "warned" the British. That only makes a little sense if in her original ignorant account of events she had not the referred to Revere riding his horse. One also has to ask why Revere's taunting of the British would be counted as a sincere warning by Palin. Did she honestly believe Revere was concerned for British troops. Revere's account of the night and his capture when he told off the British.

Colbert Reenacts Revere's Famous Ride To Prove Palin Right (VIDEO)

Sarah Palin was dead on when she said that Paul Revere did...whatever it is she thought he did. And to prove it, Stephen Colbert reenacted Revere's midnight ride with a bell, a musket and a mechanical horse.

"It's just like we all learned in grade school," Colbert said. "'One if by land, bells if by two, hey, British, you're warned, sailed the ocean blue.'"

"I could not have said a random string of words better," he added, referencing Palin's subsequent garbled defense that she hadn't flubbed her facts.

So, donning a tricorn hat, Colbert hopped aboard a coin-operated horse ride and showed what Palin's version of history would have looked like.

Watch the video at the link: