Mitt’s Lies Steal a Debate

By Columnist TRB - I have always known Mitt Romney to be a liar. When he was running for the Senate against Kennedy, he lied. When he ran for Mass. Governor, he lied - curious kinds of lies of the type where the liar waits to see what everyone else believes then he claims he believes it too, even when he doesn't. He promises things he has no intention of delivering. The voters ask, you promise. You don't deliver. The voters get over it. This has been the Romney formula from the beginning. The very first time I covered a Romney speech was back when he thought he could unseat Ted Kennedy. He ran as a "Republican Kennedy," of course; the so called "liberal/conservative." Just another of Romney's lies. Teddy beat him. Naturally.

I believe Obama will beat him as well this October, despite his poor showing during the first debate. Some have called Obama "lethargic," during the debate. Others, closet racists like former N.H Gov. John Sununu, called his performance "lazy." Still others have said that Obama was letting the liar Romney dig a large, deep grave. Romney dug many graves that night, rows of them. In the first debate, Romney was in true (dishonest) form.

All those changes to Social Security he's been talking about for the past year? Gone.

The $5 trillion tax cut? Missing in action.

Something like Obamacare, but better. You bet ya.

Closing tax loopholes on the middle class. He wouldn't think of it.

Medicare? No problem. It will be there for future generations.

Listening to the debate, all I could think of is the salesman's song in the musical "The Music Man." Romney was up there saying, "Ya got trouble my friends, right here in River City," and the President seemed almost mesmerized by the wide spectrum of lies. Honest men react like that to a Wall of Lies, and Romney has the Wall of Lies perfected to the level of music producer and gun nut Phil Spector's "Wall of Sound." It is almost impenetrable. You get wrapped up in it - not to the point where you believe it, but rather to where you can't believe he's saying any of it.

Obama was thrown to say the least when Romney lied that he never had a $5 trillion tax cut for the wealthy on the table; a tax cut for rich folks that would have cost middle class voters $3400 a year. Apparently, shortly before the debate, Romney and his handlers had decided to make it disappear, knowing that Romney could lose the debate on that fact alone. So they dropped it and denied it ever existed. The lie hit Obama like a left hook. He wasn't much good after that. The flurry of lies that followed took the President right out of the fight - for that night..

But there will be other chances for Obama to reveal this man for the liar that he is, and there will be a debate between the predatory Biden and the wet-behind-the-ears Ryan.

When you think about it, most of the really bad situations that develop around this sorry world begin with a lie. Romney hopes to be one of those "sorry situations" for at least "47 percent" of the U.S. population. Many of his supporters, drunk with his lies from the debate, are quite happy today, despite the "bad news" that the unemployment rate has dropped to 7.8 percent, the lowest it has been since Jan. 2009. They think their man Romney can lie his way out of anything - can lie he and his well bred brood right into the White House.

It depends on the gullibility of U.S. voter. Romney is betting they are as stupid as he believes they are.

Maybe they are.