Nearly a week after he gave it, Paul Ryan still taking heat over speech-of-lies

[Liberal_in_LA]

Matt Lauer Grills Paul Ryan Over RNC Speech: 'You Played A Little Fast And Loose With The Truth'

Nearly a week after he gave it, Paul Ryan's speech to the Republican National Convention is still being carved up in the media — even in the supposedly softer confines of morning television.

It's not exactly the focus a campaign would prefer. Vice presidential candidates are usually supposed to go out and attack the opposing party, but Ryan's speech has left the eye of the press trained squarely on his inconsistencies and inaccuracies.

When Ryan appeared on Tuesday's "Today," he was probably hoping for a friendlier welcome than the one Matt Lauer gave him. Lauer was unusually relentless with Ryan, asking him just one light-hearted question over the course of the five-minute interview.

“There are some people who are claiming that you played a little fast and loose with the truth on certain key elements,” he said by way of an opening. “I’m not just talking about Democratic analysts. I'm talking about some independent fact-checkers. Would you concede that while many of the things you said were effective, some were not completely accurate?”

Ryan was, not surprisingly, unwilling to concede this, and went on to defend the now-infamous story he told about a GM plant that closed in his hometown of Janesville, saying that he never meant to accuse President Obama of being responsible for its closure. (This isn't entirely true.)

"Read the speech," he said to Lauer.

"I not only read the speech, but I listened to it as well," Lauer shot back. "In my opinion, it seemed like you were unmistakably trying to link the president’s promise with the closing of that plant, which you know obviously closed before he became president.”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/04/matt-lauer-paul-ryan-speech_n_1854021.html

[catbyte]

1. The initial questions may have been OK, but Lauer completely fumbled any follow-up

[BeyondGeography]

2. What do you expect for an annual salary of $25 million

Actual competence?

[renate]

3. the "Paul Ryan lies" theme has made it to the Today show!

Now it's not just news junkies who are hearing about it--it's gone really mainstream. That's pretty excellent!

[lpbk2713]

4. Gotcha!

"Yeah but ... but ... but ... (pause) ... OBAMACARE! Yeah, that's it!"

[matt819]

5. And now Ryan's lying about the lies

He just doesn't know when to stop. If that's not pathological, I don't know what is.

[MariaM83]

6. don't matter - the people who are gonna vote for RMoney are gonna vote for him regardless nt

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

7. This was shown just a few minutes ago on MSNBC

and then they showed the new lie where Ryan was asked why Romney didn't address Afghanistan in his acceptance speech. Ryan answered that Romney gave an entire speech on the subject just the day before. Martin Bashir looked like he was about to come through my TV set when he pointed to the transcript of Romney's speech and the fact he mentioned Afghanistan just one time, devoting half a sentence to it. Period. Ryan is a tall tale artist who soon will be telling us about Paul Bunyan changing the course of rivers with the help of his blue ox Babe.

[FirstLight]

8. matt lauer...? THAT Matt Lauer...?

what's this? even morning show hosts are trying to be 'journalists' now?

Perhaps they are all starting to watch the Newsroom?


It may have lacked follow up as someone upthread pointed out, but it is still a major step in the right direction!
why not? maybe a trend is starting, and we will see more of this, what do you call it, fact-checking, in the news

sigh...one can dream....

[Fumesucker]

10. Morning show hosts don't depend on access to politicians for their stories.

They actually can ask harder questions than political reporters because they have many other things they can and do cover besides politics.

[FirstLight]

11. oh, i am sure

cuz the pressure seems 'off' because the morning folks are more homey and comfortable, supposedly. I was not bagging on morning hosts in general, just didn't think i'd see it out of Lauer...

[TwilightGardener]

9. I am pleasantly surprised at what's been going on.