Media Continues Pushing Disproven Obama Campaign 'Fact Check'

The mainstream media gave a perfect example of how it disseminates Democrat talking points after the vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan’s speech at the Republican National Convention.

Seconds after Ryan said in his speech that the Janesville, Wisconsin GM plant “didn’t last another year” after President Obama promised it would be there “for another hundred years,” Obama’s deputy campaign manager Stephanie Cutter sent this tweet out:

Ryan blaming the President for a GM auto plant that closed under Pres Bush — thought he was smarter than that.

But Cutter’s “fact check” was simply not true. According to the Janesville Gazette Extra, the plant stopped producing sport utility vehicles on December 23, 2008 and closed down entirely on April 23, 2009, more than three months after President Obama’s inauguration.

Cutter repeated the lie in an appearance on CNN’s Piers Morgan:

CUTTER: I think Congressman Ryan played the role of vice-presidential attack dog and I think he did it very well. Frankly, it was 40 minutes of pure vitriol with no facts and no plans for what he and Mitt Romney would do to move this country forward. And I found that interesting. 

Because just a few weeks ago when Mitt Romney announced that he was picking Paul Ryan, he called Paul Ryan the intellectual leader of the Republican Party. He did not really demonstrate that tonight. Not one new idea on the table. But did he present a bunch of dishonest attacks on the president. 

And if you’ll allow me, I’ll walk through them one by one. 

MORGAN: Please.

CUTTER: You know, he attacked the president for closing an auto plant that closed under President Bush. (emphasis added)

MORGAN: That is indisputably a load of old claptrap, because that plant closed in President Bush’s tenure. 

In an email sent out this morning at 4:27 am, Jim Messina, Obama’s campaign manager, repeated the lie once more:

Friend —

If you’ve seen any coverage of Paul Ryan’s speech in Tampa, you know that the consensus among journalists and independent observers is that it was … factually challenged. 

He lied about Medicare. He lied about the Recovery Act. He lied about the deficit and debt. He even dishonestly attacked Barack Obama for the closing of a GM plant in his hometown of Janesville, Wisconsin — a plant that closed in December 2008 under George W. Bush… (emphasis added)

More soon.

Messina

Almost 24 hours after Stephanie Cutter planted this false meme, not only have the usual suspects at ABC, NBC, and CBS repeated it, but even two senior members of the Fox News team haven’t reported its inaccuracy. 

James Rosen repeated the false talking point in a Fox News column that ran this afternoon. Bret Baier repeated it when he interviewed Paul Ryan live on the Fox News Channelat 6:05 pm eastern time. It wasn’t until 40 minutes later that Steven Hayward pointed out on the Fox News Channel’s All Star Panel that Cutter’s claim was false.