by James Downie

To be honest, in its eight year run in the White House, the Republican Party did not demonstrate the greatest grasp of truth (truthiness, on the other hand…). But hey, squeaking to 270 in presidential elections has made both parties claim bizarre things (on the Democratic side, see JFK’s use of the entirely nonexistent missile gap in the runup to 1960). Yet, if the past few days are any guide, the fragile relationship between today’s GOP and basic facts seems to be at an all-time low.

The cabinet official: The former Treasury Secretary released his memoir this week, ready to reshape the narrative of the financial collapse to his liking. As Simon Johnson points out over at TNR, though, it doesn’t take long to suspect something’s a little off on his narration. According to Paulson, ““I was convinced we were due for another disruption” while working in government, yet he never did anything to forestall it while working at one of Wall Street’s most powerful banks. He also leaves out his $100 million bonus for moving from Goldman to Wall Street, and claims at the end that ““the Wall Street I knew had come to an end,” even though every behavioral indicator seems to indicate Wall Street’s well on its way back to its bloated best. It really says everything about today’s leaders that, since Paulson “keeps no notes and never uses email,” he can say pretty much whatever he wants.

The “pundit”: Glenn Beck – you knew the blackboard blowhard would make an appearance. His latest claim, from yesterday’s edition of his radio show, is that the census’s questions on race are an attempt to “increase slavery.” Somehow, according to Beck, the race question was in evidence in 1790 to count the slave population as 3/5ths, and now it is being used to funnel government towards minority programs. “At least in 1790, they were doing it to slow the South down on slavery,” he told his listeners, “To try to stop it as much as they can. Today they are asking the race question to try to increase slavery. No way, don’t answer that question.” Not only is the historical analogy completely wrong (the 3/5ths clause was inserted to get the South to sign that Constitution Beck claims to care so much about), but Beck’s suggestion not to answer the race question would lead to his listeners to being undercounted, strengthening those minority programs he hates. Whoops.

The wonk: Finally, GOP congressman Paul Ryan – considered one of his party’s brightest policy minds – last month released his own budget roadmap, which he claimed would balance the budget and lower taxes…at the same time! Conservatives everywhere squealed with delight. Unfortunately, as Matt Yglesias highlighted today, there are two  rather major problems with this promise: first, it wouldn’t balance the budget, instead pushing government debt to Greece-levels and beyond (sidenote: the CBO didn’t catch this when they scored Ryan’s plan because they had to take his estimate at face value. What the?). Second, in an admirable trick, despite cutting taxes overall, only the top 10% would pay fewer taxes under Ryan’s plan. The top 1% would pay 15% less while the bottom 20% were paying 12% more.

Still, it’s nice to see party members that deserve each other.