When Breitbart News executive chairman Steve Bannon went on CNN this morning to discuss his new film, The Hope and the Change, Soledad O’Brien and her panel were eager–as usual–to be as nasty as possible. The chyron on the screen called the film “propaganda,” and Roland Martin chimed in to call the former Obama supporters in the film “folks who lie” because they (correctly) claim President Obama has raised taxes.
Martin argued (incorrectly) that 40 percent of Obama’s 2009 stimulus had been tax cuts–though these were in the form of targeted credits and focused adjustments, such as a fix to the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT)–not lower tax rates. The fact is that Obama has raised many taxes, from the cigarette tax to the tax hikes in Obamacare–and Obama happens to be running on a platform of raising taxes even more next term.
When Bannon suggested that the voters in his film–former Obama supporters who had turned against the president–deserve to have their opinions heard regardless of what information they based their views on, Martin was adamant: “But if somebody lied, why include their lie in the film?” By that logic, Martin should be off the air at CNN, since his “40 percent” claim is an exaggeration of even the rosiest (false) estimates.
O’Brien jumped right in, backing up Martin’s faulty argument. She added that Bannon seemed to be “preaching to the choir.” Yet new focus group research by Frank Luntz and described by RealClearPolitics reveals that ads showing remorseful Obama voters are the most effective commercials of the 2012 campaign.
No wonder O’Brien and her panel were so determined to quash The Hope and the Change. They failed, of course.