Fact-checking the Presidency of Obama

For those who believe that it’s only Trump that equivocates and denies saying things that he did here’s an eye-opening article not from some right-wing blog but USA Today on fact-checking Obama.

The article goes on to cover in exhaustive detail, documenting each instance, the whoppers told by Obama and outright denials of statements that he was on record as having made.

The examples cover all areas of his Presidency:

ACA ‘if you like your health plan you can keep it’ (no)
Otto Raddatz died because of cancelled insurance (no)
‘my mother was almost denied health insurance’ (no)
‘lower premiums’ (no)
‘unprecedented for SCOTUS to overturn ACA’ (no)

Middle East ‘I didn’t set a red line, the world did’ (no)
Never dismissed ISIS as the JV team (yep, he did)

Tax ‘in 2011 I paid a lower tax rate than a teacher making
$50,000 a year’ (false)
Many millionaires pay a lower tax rate than the middle
class (no)

Education High school dropout rate has “tripled in the past 30 years.” (no,
it had actually declined by 30%)

Oil ‘We import more oil today than ever before’ (untrue,
imports peaked in 2005 and were substantially lower
at the time that the president made his remarks.)

More examples and much more detail and documentation at the site. And please, try to address the actual facts, challenging them if you can, don’t just say Trump does it too. We know that. The article is simply pointing out that Obama has a bad record of bending the truth or outright lying too.

I clicked on your link and was sent to a paywall. So I tried searching for the article, and this was the first thing I found from USA Today:

Basically, it is a recounting of all the lies that people told, and many still believe, about Obama. He’s a secret Muslim, he cancelled the National Day of Prayer, he diverted funds to build madrassas around the world, he banned the Pledge of Allegiance in schools, etc.

We’re talking about different articles, correct?

He’s pretty accurate: PolitiFact | Barack Obama

Has he said stuff that’s wrong, sure. I’d put his numbers against any president in history, and I’d suspect he’s way near the top.

A lying politician!? Shocking.

You are talking about different articles.

Some of the claims in the article are… questionable. They say that Obama told a lie when he said that overturning the ACA would be unprecedented. The article says “actually, the job of the Supreme court is to rule on the constitutionality of things.”

No fucking shit. He clearly wasn’t saying that ruling on the constitutionality of things is beyond the purview of the court, but that the ACA itself doesn’t have precedent.

It also claims that Obama was lying that millionaires pay lower effective tax rates than middle class people.

The article calls that a lie because “nuh uh, some millionaires pay higher rates than some middle class people!”

It’s a really fucking stupid article.

Why, sometimes Trump says as many as six unpossible things before breakfast.

Politifact
Obama 596 statements checked.

True 123 (21%)
Mostly True 163 (27%)
Half True 160 (27%)
Mostly False 70 (12%)
False 71 (12%)
Pants on Fire 9 (2%)

Trump
348 statements checked.

True 15 (4%)
Mostly True 40 (11%)
Half True 51 (15%)
Mostly False 65 (19%)
False 115 (33%)
Pants on Fire 62 (18%)

Wow. They’re practically identical.
old rolleyes

Need a working link, please.

Let’s say that it is true, although it has already been posted that the truth-telling of Trump and Obama is not the comparable. But let’s say that it is.

Isn’t Trump supposed to be changing things? Isn’t that supposed to be part of his appeal? That Trump isn’t a politician and since he’s beholden to nobody he’s not afraid to say things as they are. Why is the bar for Trump that he’s no better than any previous politician when a major reason he was elected was because the people wanted something different and better?

QFT.

First, who is saying Trump is “practically identical” to Obama? Secondly, you’re talking about something different from the OP. The OP is talking about denying things that one has actually said. That’s a subset of lying, but is not the entire category.

N.B.: Yes, I expect Trump will look than Obama on that item as well.

Great! You should print this article out, pop it in an envelope, and mail it to Kansas. Dorothy can take it with her next time she goes to Oz, where she can deliver it to the intended audience.

I think aldiboronti has something in common with the Scarecrow.

Please do not appear to insult other posters. If you feel you must the BBQ Pit is right around the corner.

[/moderating]

And that would be who, again? Links to anyone saying something like this would lovely-I would like to know who you are debating with.

The link works just fine for me, it goes to the correct article and there’s no paywall. I’m certainly not subscribed to USA Today so I’m not sure what the problem is for those who can’t get to it.

I’m assuming that’s the reason very few of you are actually challenging the facts in the article. It surely couldn’t be that the record of Obama’s saying things he’s later denied saying (in other words lying) is rather difficult to challenge?

It’s been challenged. Do you have nothing to say to Snarky Kong’s response?

Well, it goes to a paywall for me, too, and I don’t read USA Today, FWIW.

Ah. Figured it out. It goes to the paywall if you have AdBlock running.

I run Adblock and it went to the linked article, no paywall. I wonder if Viglink is acting up again.

I read the article. There’s really only one example that actually meets this, which is the “ISIS is JV” comment.