Circling back to the new Luntz memo, this is the most enormous lie in the batch:
Congress is preparing to enact legislation to pass a law with $4 trillion more for more bailouts. Should people who write the financial reform laws be the same ones who helped cause the crisis? Should taxpayers be punished and the big banks and credit card companies be rewarded? The time has come to take a stand. Oppose the big bank bailout bill. ["$4 trillion more for more" is a typo in the memo.]
Uh what now? The financial regulatory reform plan is absolutely not a $4 trillion bailout. Obviously. In fact, the proposal is the exact opposite of a bailout.
Jon Chait writes that this is the equivalent of the Democrats campaigning against Sam Alito's Supreme Court nomination by suggesting that Bush had really nominated Charles Manson.
But the good news here is that it commits in writing the ongoing Republican strategy of making shit up. That's something.