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Listening to lies, near and far
© by Barbara Anderson
The Salem News
Thursday, September 11, 2014
“Who’s behind Seth
Moulton?” the announcer asks. “Moulton took money from a
special-interest group that only funds Republicans. NRA-backed
Republicans who voted to outlaw abortions, tea partyers who say
they’ll end the Medicare guarantee. Seth Moulton’s special-interest
friends gave nearly half a million to 67 Republicans but donated to
just one politician who wants you to believe he’s a Democrat. Huh,
what do they know that Seth Moulton won’t tell us?”
The last time I saw a television ad this ridiculous was in 1964,
when the Democrats claimed that Republican presidential candidate
Barry Goldwater wanted to nuke a little girl picking flowers in a
field.
Unfortunately, it worked; Lyndon Johnson won the race and went on to
send thousands of American men to die in Vietnam.
I’d expected the recent anti-Moulton ad by Tierney supporters to be
universally laughed at, until I ran into someone on Election Day who
told me he voted for Tierney because Moulton is a Republican
right-winger who is waging war on women. Another person told me she
voted for Moulton because he’s really a Republican.
So, apparently some voters are susceptible to lies no matter how
absurd. A similar lie helped Tierney win in 2012; I still have the
fliers attacking Richard Tisei the same way Moulton was attacked in
the above ad.
Truth is, Tisei has always been pro-choice, and if he is friends
with tea partiers like me, it isn’t because we want to end Medicare,
it’s because we want to save it from bankruptcy, support fiscal
responsibility, oppose higher taxes and debt.
I don’t know much yet about Seth Moulton, but I’m certain none of
that ad applies to him either. It will be interesting to see if,
having had lies used against him, he will allow them to be used by
his campaign allies against Tisei again.
One bad sign: I heard him say during an interview on WRKO talk radio
on election morning that one reason he is running is because
“women’s rights are under assault” and he wants to work for equal
pay and choice.
This seems to be all that Democrats have: pretending that women’s
rights are threatened, presumably by people like me. Guess we’ll be
hearing it all through the campaign season again.
I did take a Democratic ballot and voted against Tierney and Martha
Coakley. This meant I had to vote for two other, less-offensive
liberals, so I went straight from the polling place to Dunkin’
Donuts, where I felt better after having a pumpkin cream doughnut. I
expect I’ll be eating a few more of those during what will be close
Tisei-Moulton, Baker-Coakley campaigns, both with delusional
ego-driven independent candidates to possibly take votes from my
favorites.
I’ll be voting for the Republicans, once again hoping for fiscal
responsibility, as well as the experience and competence to deal
with the hard times that are coming.
Meanwhile, and speaking of lies, we are just learning about another
whopper told to us about the Benghazi attack just two years ago.
Because of the anniversary of two 9/11s, a new book about Benghazi
is being released today: “13 Hours: The Inside Account of What
Really Happened in Benghazi” by Boston University journalism
professor Mitchell Zuckoff, with the Annex Security Team.
Some of us got a preview as the new book was introduced on Fox News
this week, a television special with Bret Baier. He spoke on camera
with three security contractors who were there during the attack;
they’ve come forward to tell the true story about the death of four
Americans in Libya on Sept. 11, 2012.
Reminder: We were told by the Obama administration, by Hillary
Clinton, that the attack was response to an anti-Muslim video and
that there was no chance to rescue the ambassador from the mobs.
What viewers learned this week is that rescuers at the CIA annex
wanted to rush to the defense of Ambassador Chris Stevens at the
nearby consulate but were told to “stand down” by the CIA bureau
chief, someone named “Bob,” who was talking to someone in Washington
on the phone. By the time the three decided to disobey this order,
it was too late to save Ambassador Stevens and Sean Smith at the
burning consulate.
I thought I had followed the Benghazi story but hadn’t realized that
Massachusetts native Glen Doherty wasn’t at the annex in the
beginning of the assault, but flew down from Tripoli with other
rescuers; two of these heroes, including Doherty, also died that
night. The military backup they’d requested never arrived. The Obama
administration has insisted it wasn’t possible to send it.
It was good to learn that Chris Stevens wasn’t beaten and dragged
through the streets, as some commentators had claimed for dramatic
effect; he was found by some Libyans inside the consulate, suffering
from smoke inhalation, and rushed by ambulance to a nearby hospital,
where he did not recover.
The Bret Baier interview will possibly be repeated now that the book
is out; watch for this riveting hour. As we begin the final leg of
Election 2014, then the 2016 presidential contest, I hope we will
see broad-based media coverage of their testimony. Hillary Clinton,
who as secretary of state was supposed to have answered that 3 a.m.
phone call for help, has a lot of explaining to do.
The comments made
and opinions expressed in her columns are those of Barbara Anderson
and do not necessarily reflect those of Citizens for Limited Taxation.
Barbara Anderson is executive director of Citizens for Limited Taxation. Her
column appears weekly in the Salem News and other Eagle-Tribune newspapers.
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