Dylan Ratigan: 'Republican Rhetoric Based in Abandonment of Arithmetic and Fact'

If you had any questions as to why Dylan Ratigan belongs on MSNBC rather than CNBC they were all answered Friday night.

Appearing on HBO's "Real Time," Ratigan presented himself as a far-left commentator telling the audience of devout liberals, "This entire rhetoric machine from the Republican Party is predicated on an abandonment of arithmetic and fact" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

DYLAN RATIGAN, MSNBC: If you were to look again at the core of all of this is a manipulation of arithmetic and fact. This entire rhetoric machine from the Republican Party is predicated on an abandonment of arithmetic and fact. And the dangerous thing about that…

[APPLAUSE]

RATIGAN: Yeah, it’s true. The dangerous thing about that is that once you suspend arithmetic and fact from a debate between any two people, you no longer have a democracy.

BILL MAHER, HOST: Right.

RATIGAN: I can accumulate power much easier in a world without arithmetic and fact because now I can just manipulate using fear, using the things that are used, and that really is the tragedy that we’re witnessing right now and sort of battling in this country.

You mean when a newly-elected Democrat president says that if his stimulus plan is passed, unemployment won't rise above 8 percent?

Or when Democrats today say the entire budget deficit can be wiped out just by eliminating the Bush tax cuts?

Or when a Democrat president in February proposes a budget that he claims reduces the deficit when it in fact increases debt by $9.7 trillion?

Or when a Republican Congressman weeks later proposes a budget to shore up the soon to go bankrupt Medicare and the Democrats along with their media minions say it eliminates the senior healthcare program?

Or when a Republican president in 2005 says that Social Security needs to be reformed because it's soon to go bankrupt and the Democrats along with their media minions say he's wrong and that we shouldn't worry about that program's finances for decades to come?

Or when Republicans in the '90s propose cutting the growth in various programs from 12 percent to 7 percent and Democrats along with their media minions say this represents a cut in those programs?

Or when virtually the entire Democrat Party believes despite all evidence to the contrary that carbon dioxide is responsible for temperatures rising on this planet since 1850 and that if we limit carbon emissions we can actually prevent temperatures from rising further?

You mean that kind of abandonment of arithmetic and fact, Dylan?

The reality is that for at least the last three decades, it has been the Democrat Party that has routinely misrepresented arithmetic and fact to the public, and the only way they get away with it is because liberal media members like Ratigan aid and abet the disinformation.

And now you know why Ratigan is on MSNBC - the primary disinformation source on cable television today.

(H/T RCP)