House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy lied…and lied…and lied. After the release of a book that claims McCarthy told people he would call on Trump to resign during the wake of the January 6 attack on the Capitol, McCarthy denied that ever happened. And he denied it again and again. This morning, the book’s authors released a tape of McCarthy saying exactly what they claimed.
The revelations come on the heels of a report that McCarthy’s counterpart in the Senate, Mitch McConnell said that Trump should be impeached just days before voting against impeaching him. The two men are profiles in cowardice. They represent a party that has little use for accountability or the truth. It’s a party led by cynics who only care about achieving or holding power. They will say anything.
So as the liars are exposed, expect social media to explode with whataboutism. Republicans and conservatives will endlessly post Obama’s lie, “If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor.” In North Carolina, Republicans will remind us of a slew of corrupt Democrats who went to prison in the early aughts, as if the Democrats are just as bad as the Republicans.
There’s a difference, though, and the difference is accountability. Democrats paid a steep price for Obama’s broken promise. He made the statement while trying to push through a massive overhaul of the health care system in 2009. The next year, Democrats faced the biggest midterm blowout in 70 years. As for all those corrupt North Carolina Democrats? They were disgraced and sent to prison. The base lost their enthusiasm for Democrats and hung them out to dry, punishing them for making misleading statements and for corruption.
Republicans have no such accountability. The base doesn’t penalize Republicans for lying. They create an alternative reality in which they claim the lie is the truth, as if they live in an Orwellian society. Kevin McCarthy won’t pay a penalty for lying, but he likely would have paid a price if he had followed through on his threat to ask Trump to resign.
The lies spread by Republicans are backed up by an entire information environment that feeds disinformation and misinformation to an ignorant and reactionary base. In contrast, Democrats are still held accountable by the mainstream media that Republicans loath. Politifact was the organization that called Obama’s statement “Lie of the Year,” giving Republicans election year fodder to hammer Democrats in the midterms. When Democrats lie, they’re bashed by both the right-wing media outlets and the mainstream press, firing up the GOP base and depressing their own.
In addition, not all lies are the same. Obama’s lie was about the effect of a policy that had not been passed. He was wrong, maybe because he thought it would work differently and maybe because he hoped saying it would garner support. Had it failed, nobody would remember it. Republicans lie about what they do. Trump said he didn’t try to blackmail Ukraine but he did. McCarthy says he never said he would call on Trump to resign but he did. At worst, Obama lied in a Machiavellian belief that the ends justified the means. Republicans lie about what happened to try to change the reality of history. The two are not the same.
There’s an accountability gap in our politics. Democrats are routinely punished by the mainstream media and their own base for making misleading statements or corrupt behavior. Republicans may be held accountable by the mainstream media, but those outlets have been discredited with the GOP base by years of Republicans calling them the “liberal media.” One party tends to pay a price for its dishonesty and one party does not. In fact, dishonesty and disinformation have become weapons in the Republican political arsenal.
Thomas Mills is the founder and publisher of PoliticsNC.com. Before beginning PoliticsNC, Thomas spent twenty years as a political and public affairs consultant. Learn more >
Obama’s statement about keeping your insurance was Republican gold spun from dross. First you must ask yourself, who issues insurance policies even under Obamacare a.k.a. Affordable Care? Insurance companies write and issue policies with thousands of legal obligations in mind. The federal government provides Medicare standards, but the policies are written by private companies. Only the VA is exclusively written by the government. When Obama made the statement that you can keep your insurance, he over-stepped his authority. Private insurance companies could decide to allow or not to allow you to renew some policies.
The Affordable Care Act set minimum standards because there were companies issuing policies which were near worthless and provided very few necessary benefits, but they didn’t cost much because they insured very little. The ACA put many of these fraudulent companies out of business. If your policy met a minimum benefit standard, you could keep it but only if your insurance carrier renewed your policy. The government has no mechanism for making an insurance company issue or renew a contract for insurance if they don’t want to do. The president did not consider this when he made his proclamation. Surely, some companies did renew their insurance policies, but not all.
Insurance policies are a complex patchwork of companies, benefits and premiums. Obama should not have made a general statement about what the many companies and many policies would be available. It was a mistake, but it was not a lie.
American voters are ignorant about the powers of their president. Americans blame Biden for high gas prices, when he is not Exxon or BP and he is not in control of the free market. Supply and demand control gas prices and insurance companies decide whether to renew your major medical policy. The president has no power to control market forces. He and the government can influence them. but, in the end, private carriers decide. Americans talk about wanting capitalism to rule the market, but they want to blame someone who has no power to control free markets when we are disappointed.
Obama did not say you can keep your doctor to deceive the public . He said it because he thought that was what the legislation would allow. The vast majority of Americans did keep their doctor because they had private insurance or other insurance . Those who signed up for the Affordable Care Act were not on insurance and probably did not have a regular doctor.
One of my employees said that Obama and Trump were no different because they both lied. That is like saying a person who smokes one cigarette a month is no different than someone who smokes 2.5 packs a day !
There is no equivalency between Obama and Trump !
Politicians, in general, have been lying for years. Perhaps 30 % are better at it than others. Historically, McCarthy has never been known for having a high IQ. This time he made his stupidity obvious by trying to deny he said it. The big question will the voters of his California Congressional district believe he has the integrity to represent them. Kevin’s public career could wind up on the cutting room floor.
We are still waiting for the Jan. 6 Committee’s public hearings! And what follows under guidance of the current Attorney General. This may be an excellent time to elect politicians who agree to vote for term limits, just like the authors of the constitution thought would be the case based on the pressures created on a good citizen who needed to get back to his business of farming or running a business.
The program would go something like this: Max of 4 years as rep. and 12 years as a Senator. Of course, if a rep becomes ineligible, he or she could run for the senate. No more lifelong politicians subject to the temptations of power and bribery.
Of course he lied! He’s a Republican after all.
This coward is the worst McCarthy since good old Joe!