Tim Pawlenty’s weak indictment of Obama

(SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images)

By Glenn Kessler
WashPost


“Barack Obama promised that spending 800 billion dollars on a pork-filled stimulus bill would keep unemployment under 8 percent. He promised that bailouts for well-connected businesses were a good deal for the country. He promised that a federal takeover of health care would keep costs under control. And hard as it is to believe, he even promised the deficit would be cut in half in his first term!” — Former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty (R), May 23, 2011

“T-Paw,” the former Minnesota governor, threw his hat into the ring Monday for the GOP presidential nomination. The paragraph above comes from his announcement speech, and it struck us as a pretty fair summary of the Republican indictment against President Obama’s reelection.

“A litany of broken promises . . . a failed, pork-laden stimulus bill . . . soaring unemployment . . . bailouts for the undeserving . . . a government takeover of health care . . . out-of-control deficits!”

So let’s dig beneath these sentences to find out what they are based on and what truth there is to the assertions.

(Original here.)