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Let’s be honest. Democrats did so much lying this year it’s hard to choose just one ‘Lie of the Year.’ So instead, we’re offering our readers the opportunity to select a ‘Liar of the Year.’
Below are the nominees (in no specific order) and explanations for why they were selected.
We’ll reveal the final results of the contest on Wednesday, Jan. 2.
Stephanie Cutter
“I don’t know the facts about when Mr. Soptic’s wife got sick, or the facts about his health insurance.”
Remember the despicable Priorities USA ad that essentially claimed Mitt Romney was responsible for the death of former employee’s wife? After the ad was roundly met with criticism, former Obama campaign deputy campaign manager Stephanie Cutter denied knowing the employee, Mr. Joe Soptic, the details of his story and that the timeline of his wife’s death established in the video was inaccurate before seeing the ad. However, Cutter’s statement was quickly invalidated after journalists pointed out that she lead a conference call several months prior featuring Mr. Soptic in which we he told a more accurate version of the story.
Cutter also claimed that the only reason the attack on Libya was still a story was because Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan were politicizing it, refusing to accept the fact that the Obama administration’s response to the attack was being investigated because four people died unnecessarily. Our favorite Cutter lie, though, is that she never called Mitt Romney a felon.
Joe Biden
“They’re going to put y’all back in chains!”
Not only was Vice President Joe Biden’s claim that Romney and his friends on Wall Street would put the predominately black audience “back in chains” offensive, it was also unbelievably inaccurate.
Biden also bizarrely claimed that Romney was best buddies with Russian President Vladmir Putin, even though it was Obama, not Romney, who had stated that he would give Russia more “flexibility” if he were re-elected. And in the vice presidential debate, Biden attacked Ryan for voting for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan – unlike himself . . . who also voted for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. As Joe Biden would say to Joe Biden in this instance, “That’s a bunch of malarkey!”
Debbie Wasserman Schultz
“I have no idea what the political affiliation is of folks who are associated with that Super PAC”
From her outrageous claim that she didn’t know if the folks at Priorities USA – the Super PAC responsible for the Joe Soptic ad – were Democrats, despite the fact that both principals used to work in the Obama administration, to her assertion that there was “no discord” at the Democratic National Convention over whether to put God in the platform and the majority of delegates were in favor of making the change (even Jon Stewart acknowledged that majority of delegates present vocally voted against it), DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz racked up quite a numbers of lies this year.
To top it all off, rather than admit she has a problem with telling falsehoods, Wasserman Schultz trashed conservative journalist Philip Klein for “misquoting” her. Unfortunately for her he audio recorded her original remarks and posted them online. Turns out she said exactly what Klein said she said. BUSTED!
David Axelrod
“We have reported, the administration has reported everything that we’ve been told, and we’ve shared it in real time.”
The number of lies Obama campaign adviser David Axelrod told about the Obama administration’s knowledge of the details of the attack on the U.S. consulate in Libya is frightening. First, Axelrod claimed that the intelligence at the time of the attack showed that it was in response to a vile YouTube video, directly contradicting the State Department. In the same interview he also claimed that Obama said the assault was a terrorist attack in his statement the day after, which we now know is not true, and joined Cutter in claiming that Romney was “working hard to exploit this issue.”
Axelrod later doubled down on his remarks, calling claims that the administration’s storyline about what happened in Libya was inconsistent “nonsense” and arguing that the administration told the American people everything it knew about Libya in real time.
Harry Reid
“He didn’t pay taxes for 10 years!”
Who could forget Harry Reid’s scandalous claim that Mitt Romney “didn’t pay taxes for 10 years.” The charge enraged Republicans, and even led Republican National Committee chair Reince Priebus to call Reid a “dirty liar” on national television. To make matters worse, Reid refused to back down from the unsubstantiated claim on numerous occasions, accusing Romney of manipulating his returns on Twitter after Romney kowtowed and released his taxes.
Of course Reid was also at the forefront of the Republican’s so-called ‘War on Women,’ inaccurately claiming that Republicans were trying to limit “women’s access to health care & contraception,” despite the fact that Republicans never anything of the sort. And apparently Reid believes the filibuster is bad and shouldn’t be allowed in the Senate, but that’s not what he said when Democrats were in power.
Nancy Pelosi
“Harry Reid made a statement that is true. Somebody told him. It is a fact.”
Despite the fact it was obvious to everyone else that Harry Reid was lying about Romney not paying his taxes, Pelosi backed him up, arguing that if Harry Reid said Romney didn’t pay taxes for 10 years, it must be true. Pelosi also argued over the summer that Republican Jews were “being exploited” and that it was “self-evident” that Republicans were trying to suppress minorities from voting.
And let’s not forget her accusation that U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder was being held in contempt in the House of Representatives not for his refusal to cough up documents regarding Operation Fast and Furious, but for his positions on Voter ID and immigration laws.
President Barack Obama
“[N]obody accused Romney of being a felon.”
Where to begin. Shall we start with the President’s repeated lies that he called the assault in Libya a terrorist attack just one day after? With his false claim that Romney’s campaign recklessly disregarded the truth when creating its ads? With his lie that Romney would get rid of abortion? Or how about his denial that anyone affiliated with his administration or campaign called Mitt Romney a felon (that “nobody” would be Stephanie Cutter). In the same presser the President also claimed he was not running a negative campaign!
Most recently the President has claimed that a majority of Americans support tax increases on the rich, which is simply not true.
Chris Matthews
“And we can go into that about the white working class in the South and looking at these numbers we’re getting the last couple days about racial hatred in many cases…”
Logic would suggest that most Americans who voted against Barack Obama in the presidential election did so because they disagreed with his policies. But that didn’t stop MSNBC host Chris Matthews from accusing them of having racial hatred toward Obama. Likewise, Matthews claimed the GOP had been playing a “racial game” the entire campaign. (“You’re lying,” former San Diego mayor Rodger Hedgecock said in response.)
Matthews also asserted that the attack in Libya was “all about the video,” on the night of the third and final presidential debate, even though that theory had been disproven weeks before.
Rachel Maddow
“Despite what you may have heard about Wisconsin’s finances, Wisconsin is on track to have a budget surplus this year.”
Although less high-profile than some of her competitors’ lies this year, no ‘Liar of the Year’ list would be complete with those of MSNBC host Rachel Maddow. In February, Maddow mistakenly claimed that “that there is nothing wrong in the state of Wisconsin,” and Wisconsin was not facing a budget shortfall. Instead, she claimed it was facing a budget surplus. FALSE.
This year Maddow also accused the GOP controlled Michigan legislature of doing “the most radical thing Republicans have done anywhere in the country.” And by radical, she meant following the same procedures that Democrats followed for years to pass bills (by her next show she had been convinced she was wrong and she indirectly acknowledged that her previous ‘scoop’ was actually an error).
Robert Gibbs
“Absolutely no one intentionally or unintentionally misled anybody involved in this – absolutely not.”
It’s possible that the Obama administration did not intentionally mislead Americans about what happened in Libya on Sept. 11, the night that four Americans were killed. (We said possible folks, we didn’t say probable.) But to say that neither the Obama administration nor the Obama campaign unintentionally misled the public on this issue, well, that’s simply absurd. But that’s exactly what former White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said on a Fox News Sunday appearance in September.
Gibbs also falsely claimed that the only item Romney said he would cut in his budget during the first debate was funding for PBS and Big Bird. (Wrong. Romney also said he would cut Obamacare – a huge line item.)
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