Rush Limbaugh, on the August 8 edition of The Rush Limbaugh Show, suggested that Obama is bombing ISIL in Iraq “to distract us from some of his numerous problems.”
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Listen, courtesy of Media Matters for America:
October 2002. Barack Obama. B. Hussein O., makes a speech, accuses George W. Bush of wanting to invade Iraq to distract us from a bad economy. We had not gone into Iraq yet. That happened in 2003. Bush was out trying to marshal all kinds of support for it. He spent a year-and-a-half making speeches, sending Colin Powell to the UN. Spent a lot of time putting together a massive coalition for this and dredging up public opinion support for it. He just didn’t do this, Bush didn’t, willy nilly over night. But Obama was out there in 2002 and this is how he came to be known. This is how he first achieved national attention, and he never voted for the Iraq War. So he had some credibility with the Democrats because all the rest of them did.
I don’t want to review this whole thing, as I’ve done it so many times, but there were two votes on the use of force authorization that Bush asked for and the first one none of the Democrats voted for then they saw a public opinion on it and demanded a re-vote. Bush did not have to have the Republicans re-submit it but he did because he wanted the democrats on record supporting it so a unified country would appear to be the case. it made sense in that way. I mean, why go to war with all the Democrats opposing it? They asked for a second vote after the saw public opinion and Bush granted the second vote so we could create the – it turns out the illusion – of national unity on the use of force in Iraq. So Obama was one of the holdouts, didn’t vote for it, made a speech before it even happened condemning it and Bush was just dredging it up as a distraction. He makes a speech at the Democratic Convention in 2004, called it a dumb war, continued that theme, and now look where we are. Would it be too cynical to suggest that Obama might be bombing Iraq to distract us from some of his numerous problems. I mean, we got an immigration disaster taking place, our economy is a disaster, Obamacare is a disaster.
This is a great idea, Rush, except that the only problems Obama has are of Republican making, in other words, Republicans misinformation and lies and false scandals.
Immigration:
- The Republican talking points driving Limbaugh’s thesis are false;
- The immigration crisis, like the Iraq crisis, was created by Republicans and left to Obama to fix;
- Republicans have refused to contribute to a solution, killing their own border plan; even Speaker of the House John Boehner, has slammed his fellow House Republicans for immigration reform obstructionism, and this while a majority of Republican voters favor immigration reform; In fact, as far back as 2013 Republicans said their refusal to deal with immigration was their way of punishing Obama, Sen. Marco Rubio going so far as to say it was because Obama refused to cave to Republican pressure to gut the ACA;
- In fact, Obama’s policy of urging people to keep their kids home because they can’t stay here, seems to be working to reduce the flow of child refugees. As reported here by Jason Easley on August 8, “According to new numbers from the Department of Homeland Security, the number of migrant children apprehended on the Southern border dropped from 10,000 in May and June to 5,500 in July.”
Economy:
- As Justin Baragona reported here on June 6,
For the fourth month in a row, American employers added over 200,000 jobs. For May, we saw 217,000 nonfarm payroll jobs added to the economy. Also, the months of March and April, which both saw robust job growth, saw very little revision. Overall, we have finally added back all of the jobs that were lost during the Great Recession. The private sector reached pre-recession levels back in March. However, due to Republican austerity measures that have led to the shedding of a million public sector jobs, it took until now for total employment numbers to reach that goal.
The unemployment rate stayed steady at 6.3%, as did the labor participation rate of 62.8%. Wages saw a slight increase, as the average hourly wage came in at $24.38, up five cents. Over the past year, wages have increased 2.1%, essentially staying in tune with inflation.
Obamacare:
- Obamacare is wildly successful. It was reported here in May that “Gallup released a new tracking poll on Monday that shows that the uninsured rate for Americans dropped to 13.4% in April. This continues a trend that started at the end of 2013, when the uninsured rate peaked at 18.0%.” In fact, the uninsured rates reached the lowest point since 2008. Needless to say, “This large drop in the uninsured rate takes away another Republican talking point, that the ACA was causing millions of people to lose their insurance“;
- On August 6 it was reported that “A national tracking poll on healthcare, released by Morning Consult on Tuesday, reveals that only 15% of registered voters agree with opponents of the Affordable Care Act that federal subsidies”;
- The Republicans, Limbaugh included, ignore positive Obamacare news, for example, from June 14: “In separate reports that came out this week it was revealed that in every state so far, more insurers are asking to participate in state exchanges, it was estimated that roughly 90% of ACA enrollees have paid their first month’s premium, the growth of Medicare was shown to be slowing, and of course the devastating news that 66% of Americans want to keep Obamacare“;
- If you want to know how wildly successful Obamacare has been, as soon as enrollment his 17.8 million, the Republicans dropped their Obamcare talking points, refused (Limbaugh too) to mention enrollment numbers, and jumped instead all over their fake Benghazi scandal all over again.
As is readily apparent, President Obama has no need to distract Americans from “numerous problems” because his only real problems are the Republicans themselves. This includes, not least, people like Rush Limbaugh, who drive Republican talking points without any regard for the facts.
These talking points are of the oh-so-blatant plug-n-play variety, picked them up and dropped as they become more or less useful in the GOP’s unceasing attempt to vilify, nullify and impeach America’s first black president for the “crime” of being a black man to live in a White House. In fact, Republican talking points that are designed to distract Americans from the fact that America’s existing problems are all due to the Republicans themselves.
Hrafnkell Haraldsson, a social liberal with leanings toward centrist politics has degrees in history and philosophy. His interests include, besides history and philosophy, human rights issues, freedom of choice, religion, and the precarious dichotomy of freedom of speech and intolerance. He brings a slightly different perspective to his writing, being that he is neither a follower of an Abrahamic faith nor an atheist but a polytheist, a modern-day Heathen who follows the customs and traditions of his Norse ancestors. He maintains his own blog, A Heathen’s Day, which deals with Heathen and Pagan matters, and Mos Maiorum Foundation www.mosmaiorum.org, dedicated to ethnic religion. He has also contributed to NewsJunkiePost, GodsOwnParty and Pagan+Politics.
