Monday, May 12, 2014

Geithner: White House Wanted Me to Lie on Sunday Shows

"Timothy Geithner, the former secretary of the Treasury Department, says the White House wanted him to lie in scheduled appearances on the Sunday TV talk shows. As Geithner writes in his new memoir:"
“I remember during one Roosevelt Room prep session before I appeared on the Sunday shows, I objected when Dan Pfeiffer wanted me to say Social Security didn’t contribute to the deficit. It wasn’t a main driver of our future deficits, but it did contribute. Pfeiffer said the line was a ‘dog whistle’ to the left, a phrase I had never heard before. He had to explain that the phrase was code to the Democratic base, signaling that we intended to protect Social Security.”
"Of course, Geithner would not have been the only official from the White House to have misled the American people on the Sunday talk shows. Susan Rice famously came under fire for blaming a terrorist attack on a YouTube video in appearances on the shows."

The Weekly Standard

18 comments:

The Dude said...

If you like the lies you have you can keep the lies you have, period.

bagoh20 said...

In these White House meetings, I wonder if anyone ever says stuff like " We need to be honest with the American people on this."

"...and then we laughed and laughed. Most of us were in tears from it. Ahh, good times."

Shouting Thomas said...

The notion that Social Security is under siege is pretty funny.

Unknown said...

Every election time the left go on a lie filled rampage about how the evil GOP are going to push grandma over a cliff and take away her SS benefits.

The base (think Ritmo and ARM) dutifully eat it up.

Chip Ahoy said...

I cannot access ace.mu.nu, a kid'll eat ivy too, can you?

All my browsers say the server cannot be accessed, and that's like being cut off. Cut off !

The Dude said...

DDoS? Vacation? Who knows, but I get the same message.

Unknown said...

Meanwhile, the conservative candidate attempts to provide a plan for saving SS or the VA or Fanny and Freddie or whatever and is met with media/democrat outrage. 'How dare you! Everything is just fine. We cannot possibly consider your crazy ideas to buck the status quo! What is wrong with you?
The idea that the free market can offer solutions is blasphemous.'
...and all that typical water carrying crapola.


I believe the entire left is run on the stale electricity provided by the burning of lint in Paul Krugman's awful lint filled brain.

AllenS said...

Me too with Ace.

Eric the Fruit Bat said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Eric the Fruit Bat said...

I had a writing instructor in law school who once advised: "Concede nothing, argue everything."

She was a pretty dislikeable person.

Chip Ahoy said...

Eric, all my friends are like that.

The thing is, I noticed although nothing is conceded the points I made in arguing are nonetheless adopted in later disputation as if they were their own. I recognize my own language. How could I not? Because it was so hard for me to come up with it. BAM there it is back at me a month or so later. I'd say so. Then that would be an argument.

I've seen dinners ruined by people arguing, smart people, unable to concede a single fine point, and missing the whole idea of all of us getting together for a fine time. Making their brilliance rather dumb.

And now I'm like that. Because that was then and this is now. And now those fine points come to the tune of 17,000,000,000, (I think that's trillion) so those sharp partisan points need smashing flat without care for delicate feelings. Fun is abandoned and completely gone.

Leland said...

Funny, I came here to see if anyone else noted Ace was down.

But I also had read the WSJ article, and am a bit confused by the snippet. I suspect that Geithner means to say that he was told to not bring up Social Security, because the base assumes it is untouchable and the WH really knows it must be fixed. However, his statement isn't really clear. In a court of law, one could read his statement as, don't mention SS because the base doesn't want to hear it is a contributing problem.

Either way, it is irrelevant to worry about his meaning, because the Democrats aren't really interested in restructing SS. Gone are the discussions of SS running out by X year, as if something changed other than who occupies the White House. Heck, gone is the discussion of uncontrollable debt and deficits. We as a nation have quit answering the phone and checking the mail, and therefore all our debts are forgiven, as we forgive those that gave us those debts.

Leland said...

I think that's trillion

It's not. You need another set of zeroes. Yes, it really is this bad: 17,000,000,000,000.

I'm of course not calling you out. Rather, just pointing out that the number is so outrageously bad, none of us actually comprehend it with what we would otherwise consider normal. We understand 17,000,000,000 because it is only 17 billion and while our grandparents couldn't comprehend billions, we can. But 17 trillion...

bagoh20 said...

A thousand times what was beyond our parents. A THOUSAND TIMES = 10 times a BILLION, and then 10 times that, and then ten of those big piles to get just 1 trillion. Once you get your hands on that amount you can use it to give an excellent career, with amazing benefits and a wealthy retirement to a bunch of people who are lazy, incompetent and who despise the people you took the money from. Awesome!

bagoh20 said...

And no, they can't even punctuate any better than me.

Leland said...

Found the Ace backup site. They got his servers but they didn't get him.

Aridog said...

Geithner...another born liar, needs no prompting. This is the financial genius guy who said Turbo Tax caused an error of tax evasion on the $250,000 or so he was paid in a separate stipend by his Euro employers to cover his tax liability from his salary...in lieu of withholding taxes...e.g., Euro dudes don't have to file Form 941's. Yep, Timmy the Get always blames anyone handy for his own bullshit.

edutcher said...

They really didn't have to ask.

Turbo Tax Timmy is the yes man's yes man.

Chip Ahoy said...

I cannot access ace.mu.nu, a kid'll eat ivy too, can you?

Protein Wisdom had the same problem.