Former president Bill Clinton gave the nominating speech for Barack Obama at the Democratic convention last night which lasted for over 40 minutes. Transcript is here and video will be shown below the post.
Fact Checkers have weighed in with the Associated Press, via NY Daily News, finding some stretching of the truth, inaccurate blame gaming, with some wishful thinking thrown in as a bonus. Then they remind readers that Clinton "has had his own uncomfortable moments over telling the truth."
Washington Post's The Fact Checker, covers most of Clinton's speech as well as some other speakers from last night.
Much more at Wapo, go read.“We could have done better, but last year the Republicans blocked the president’s job plan, costing the economy more than a million new jobs. So here’s another job score. President Obama: plus 4.5 million. Congressional Republicans: zero.”— Clinton
Obama’s jobs plan was more of a rhetorical device, aimed at Republicans, rather than a real plan. He even used the same $1 trillion in previously-agreed savings with Republicans, mentioned above, that was supposed to be in his budget in order to pay for this plan. The jobs plan also would be paid for with the imaginary money from winding down the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. (The administration argued that the budget had never passed, so the money could be used again.)
Get the picture? Clinton praises Obama both for his sound budget math and for his jobs plan, even though the money to fund the budget and the jobs plan is used twice. That certainly doesn't pass the Arkansas 2+2=4 test.
We have noted the problems with Obama’s claim that 4.5 million private sector jobs have been created. (It is a cherry-picked figure.) As for whether 1 million jobs would be created through Obama’s jobs plan, that is merely a fuzzy and optimistic projection. Bloomberg News surveyed 34 economists and found that the median estimate was that the plan would add or keep 275,000 workers on payrolls.
Clinton speech below: