Skip to content
Link copied to clipboard

Has Mitt Romney ever uttered a true statement in his life?

I mean, this is the guy who even lied about his first name on national TV.

More importantly, there's this:

Mitt Romney escalated Republican attacks on President Barack Obama's energy policies Sunday, calling for the firing or resignations of what he labeled the "gas hike trio" of top energy and environment officials in the administration.

The Republican presidential hopeful's remarks on "Fox News Sunday" illustrated a GOP strategy to target Obama for rising gas prices as part of a campaign narrative that depicts the president as stifling U.S. production in order to boost alternative energy sources.

The reality, of course, is completely the opposite:

Taken together, the increasing production and declining consumption have unexpectedly brought the United States markedly closer to a goal that has tantalized presidents since Richard Nixon: independence from foreign energy sources, a milestone that could reconfigure American foreign policy, the economy and more. In 2011, the country imported just 45 percent of the liquid fuels it used, down from a record high of 60 percent in 2005.

How could that possibly be?

More recently, with gasoline prices rising and another election looming, Mr. Obama has struck a different chord. He has opened new federal lands and waters to drilling, signaled a willingness to eventually approve the Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada, trumpeted increases in oil and gas production and de-emphasized the challenges of climate change.

As you may know, I don't 100 percent agree with everything Obama's done here. I think his lack of emphasis on climate change -- although driven in part by a Tea Party-flavored Congress -- is tragic, and while I don't think fracking should be banned I do think it needs to be much better regulated, But it's also cynical and disingenuous for Romney to attack the president based on a lie. I think there's plenty of material to go after Obama on -- Guantanamo, drome assassinations, etc. It's just that these clowns would do the exact same things.

(Romney etch-a-sketch by Talking Points Memo)