Well, I think we all know that our Barack Obama lies about the GOP just about everytime he opens his mouth.  But let’s just shine a light on one of Obama’s specific fallacies.

Much was made over the GOP’s Pledge to America revealed a few months ago.  There was criticism from both sides of the partisan divide about its legitimacy.  I tend to agree with Redstate’s criticism of the plan from a substantive perspective.  Here is an excerpt from their analysis:

1. The Pledge fails to address the single greatest threat to our nation’s long term fiscalhealth – the fact that we have precisely $0 set aside for the more than $106 trillion in unfunded liabilities staring us in the face for social security, medicare and medicaid. Instead, we get more of the same political rhetoric about seniors standing to lose Medicare because of Obamacare. MEDICARE IS BANKRUPT. SOCIAL SECURITY IS BANKRUPT. FOR GOODNESS SAKE, MAN UP AND DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT.

2. The Pledge blatantly fails to even mention earmarks, much less calling for a ban on them. The issue here isn’t about how much money we will save. The issue is about Congressional arrogance – and their naked addiction to using your tax dollars to try to buy off your votes back home.

3. The Pledge offers no significant, concrete plan to reduce spending such as a Balanced Budget Amendment or a Spending Limit Amendment, relying instead on gimmicks like weekly votes on spending cuts and hiring freezes, as well as nebulous promises to cap spending.

4. And perhaps most troubling of all, the Pledge adopts the nonsensical “repeal and replace” mantra for Obamacare – offering as replacement yet more federal government mandates regarding pre-existing conditions and lifetime caps on benefits, which begs the question: which mandates are unconstitutional and which ones are not, GOP? And, STOP WITH THE MANDATES. STOP IT. MANDATING THAT INSURERS COVER PRE-EXISTING CONDITIONS IS JUST AS BAD AS THE INDIVIDUAL MANDATE ON ITS FACE – BUT WORSE, YOU IDIOTS, IT WILL LEAD TO AN INDIVIDUAL MANDATE BECAUSE YOU CANNOT COVER THE ALREADY SICK WITHOUT MANDATING THAT THE HEALTHY PARTICIPATE. JUST STOP IT.

That being said, I feel like our conservative friends were a little bit harsh on the GOP here.  It would be one thing if the Pledge to America was a substantive document.  But it isn’t.  It’s a political ploy with little substance. It says all the right things to persuade voters to support the GOP.  It is an excellent production, but it is designed for political purposes, not substantive ones.

So, let’s dispense with the illusion that this pamphlet proposes any sustainable legitimate policy positions and see it for what it is: a clever political ploy.  Once you come to terms with that, then you can understand how ridiculous Obama sounds when he makes claims such as these about education:

Obama says Republicans would pay to keep a set of expiring tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans by cutting spending on education, an area where he’s investing billions of dollars from kindergarten through college.

“And when you ask them, well, how would you pay for some of this stuff, they don’t really have good answers,” Obama said Sept. 28 in Albuquerque, N.M., shortly after Republicans released the plan. “But one way they would pay for it is to cut back our education spending by 20 percent and eliminate about 200,000 Head Start programs, and reduce student aid to go to college for about 8 million students.”

This talking point is so worn out coming from Obama it almost makes the ears bleed.  When the subject of education comes up I can pretty much tell you what the president will say verbatim.  But is it true? No.  Nowhere in the 48 page document is there any mention of such a substantive proposal.  Probably because, as we’ve established, the Pledge to America is not a substantive document.  Here’s the source of Obama’s education mantra:

The White House says the claim is based on an analysis by the liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities of the Republicans plan’s proposal to return federal spending to 2008 levels. A White House spokeswoman says the administration also crunched the numbers.

The think tank says such a reversal would require immediate cuts of 21 percent, or $101 billion, in spending on programs unrelated to national security or veterans. The center chose education as an example and said a cut that size would trim more than $8 billion from K-12 funding, on top of cuts by state and local governments.

Brendan Buck, a spokesman for the House Republican leadership, said the analysis is faulty. While the pledge calls for deep spending cuts, it doesn’t specify where they should be made, he said.

The left-wing analysis makes its own calculations on how the GOP would implement the Pledge to America.  It comes up with a requirement for immediate cuts of 21%.  Stop.  Is this think-tank telepathic?  Does it have access to the thoughts and ideas of John Boehner?  I kind of doubt that.  So, immediately we run into the problem that the left is fabricating GOP policy-decisions.  But let’s say the 21% cuts are accurate.  I can buy that, and I think it is probably roughly accurate.  Then we get to the real malarkey.  Apparently, the White House knows for sure how those spending cuts will fall on education spending.  Really? How? Ridiculous.

To be honest, I’m relatively ambivalent towards a left-wing group producing a biased analysis of the Pledge to America.  What else would you expect?  But for the President of the United States to use absolutely fabricated facts to push his left-wing agenda is irresponsible and disturbing.  Obama, a Harvard Law School graduate, seems to think his elitist status and “superior intelligence” gives him the right to blatantly lie to the entire American people.  Well, Mr. President, not all of us graduated from Harvard, but unfortunately for you, that actually doesn’t make us a bunch of brainless zombies.  Yes, shocker, we know when you’re lying, and we really don’t like it.

Want some more? Here’s another education lie:

Obama said the tuition tax credit “could be repealed if Republicans take over. They’ve already proposed to cut education spending by 20 percent.”

The American Opportunity Tax Credit, worth $2,500 a year, was included in the $814 billion economic stimulus bill Obama signed into law last year. The tax credit is available for the 2009 and 2010 tax years, but is scheduled to expire at the end of this year because of how the law is written. Obama on Wednesday called on Congress to make the credit permanent.

So how does a law that is expiring in just over two months get repealed by a party that’s not in power?

If that makes sense to you, let me in on the logic.  Of course, I didn’t go to Harvard so I really probably wouldn’t understand it anyway.  I’d probably be better off just believing that blindly, right Mr. President?

The Pledge to America promises are just that: promises.  They are not substantive policy outlines.  They are vague promises that are intended to create GOP support for the midterm elections.  As much as people would like politicians run on policy, it doesn’t happen that way.  The politics happen first.  The policy follows.  And apparently, the lies just keep coming.