President Obama is at long last the recipient of an award he actually earned:
It was a catchy political pitch and a chance to calm nerves about his dramatic and complicated plan to bring historic change to America’s health insurance system. "If you like your health careplan, you can keep it," President Barack Obama said -- many times -- of his landmark new law. But the promise was impossible to keep...PolitiFact has named "If you like your health care plan, you can keep it," the Lie of the Year for 2013. Readers in a separate online poll overwhelmingly agreed with the choice.
Richly deserved, champ. Well done. And based on what's coming, this exact same line should be a strong contender for 2014's lie of the year, too -- although 'keep your doctor' might be the early favorite. You may be wondering why 'keep your plan' didn't bring home this honor in 2010, back when it was first perpetrated upon the American people in furtherance of a political fraud. Answer: Because over the last few years, Politifact has been rating Obama's pants-on-fire claim "half true." Back in 2008, they actually gave Obama's verbatim campaign promise an unqualified "true" score. They've also been slapping Republicans for correctly identifying the very lie that they've belatedly awoken to, just in the nick of time. Thanks, Politifact:
In 2012, Leader Cantor said Obamacare would cause people to lose policies they had and liked. Politifact rated him "mostly false."
— Rory Cooper (@rorycooper) December 12, 2013
So a left-leaning fact-checker has beclowned itself while dishing out a long-overdue scolding to our mendacious president. I can't really improve on this:
Even when @PolitiFact, after years of failure, picks an *actual* lie for their Lie of the Year award, they still look awful. #HangItUp
— Michael F. Cannon (@mfcannon) December 12, 2013
Flashback: We called it. All of it.
