Right-wing truthers lead Romney to debate disaster

>>> when mitt romney got on his campaign plane today to go do some this guy. from world net daily . that's the website that has done all of the exclusive reporting about president obama 's birth certificate . at the world net daily super store you can still by the yard sign. but maybe now that the book is down to 78 cents on amazon.com, mr. corsi has moved on to a new conspiracy theory which is that gay. actually i should say secretly gay married. secretly gay married to a whole bunch of different guys who he killed because he's a secretly gay married murderer. the ring he wears says he's a muslim and he's gay and a murderer. the romney campaign put him on the campaign plane with the candidate. but the world net daily website kind of sucks now. it's always been -- but now that they've tried to move on from the birth certificate conspiracy to the new conspiracy theory , it's clear that it's really just not giving them the same juice that it used to. they're not pushing that many stories, nobody is really linking to them. the best stuff in their super store now is all about how to protect themselves from home invasions. it's clear they're not able to energize as many people as they used to. and i think that's because of what feels good about a good conspiracy theory . what gives conspiracy theories their appeal. in the case of the birth certificate , what those folks were saying, what they were claiming, even if you didn't follow all the steps about kenya and the grandmother and the newspaper and how the infant must have been moved and even if you didn't follow all the steps. what they were selling you was the basic idea that president obama is not actually president. he is secretly foreign, he is ineligible therefore to hold office. so therefore even though it seems like we've got this man as president. feel better, he's not really president. he's not eligible to hold the office. so he's secretly not holding the office. don't you feel better? the problem with world net daily now is that their new theory, president obama being secretly gay married, it doesn't elicit the same feeling. nobody needs to be comforted about that. nobody needs to be comforted that president obama doesn't really love michele. nobody needs to feel that way. but that dynamic and in conservative politics that an mates those conspiracy theories . it does not only happen on the fringes. we've seen it over and over again as republicans increasingly isolate themselves in our country. they stay inside a media bubble where they do not hear any contrast continuing point of view. to republican pop tigss who are playing only to those hosts and news shows and bloggers in a loop that just gives people what they want to hear in those settings. tand in that environment when something happens that makes people feel uncomfortable, there is an almost irresist tibl impulse on the right to assure people that uncomfortable thing really happen.

>> unbelievable jobs numbers, these chicago guys will do anything, can't debate so change the numbers. i don't know what the right number is, but i'll tell you, these numbers don't smell right when you think about where the economy is right now.

>> sadly, no. the the unemployment rate really is below 8%. i know it feels awful to you because of your politics, but the unemployment rate really is below 8%. it is 7.8 truly.

>> unemployment is going down, just as a factual matter. why would congressman ryan in defines of facts suggest otherwise?

>> i think what he was saying is the truth which is unemployment is higher today when the president took office.

>> no. that is not true. i know you want to think that congressman ryan said the truth when he said that, but he did not. the unemployment rate is factually going down. and that must feel awful to you guys, but it really is the truth. truly. that impulse on the right now did not just down play or distract from or try and explain away from things they didn't like. the impulse not to do that normal stuff, but to assert that uncomfortable fablths just aren't real facts, that the president isn't really president, that the unemployment rate hasn't really gone down, that closed loop, cuddle yourself, pretend it isn't happening impulse that's what made the right's presidential candidate last night walk into this horrible wall.

>> i'm the president and i'm always responsible. and that's why nobody is more interested in finding out exactly what happened than i did. the day after the attack, governor, i stood in the rose garden and i told the american people and the world that we are going to find out exactly what happened. that this was an act of terror .

>> i think it's interesting that the president just said something which is that on the day after he attack he went in the rose garden and said that this was an act of terror .

>> that's what i said.

>> you said in the rose garden the day after the attack it was an act of terror . it was not a spontaneous demonstration, is that what you're saying?

>> please proceed, governor.

>> i want to make sure we get that for the record. because it took the president 14 days before he called the attack in benghazi an act of terror .

>> get the transcript.

>> he did in fact, sir. so let me call it an act of terror --

>> did you say that a little louder, candy?

>> mitt romney repeating the story told about the subject on the right in the way that is very satisfying to conservatives. in a way that is told on the right is a story is told the stories exactly what they want to hear. a comforting story about how this bad president never used that word terror in talking about these attacks until two weeks that happened. that story must feel great if you're against this president and if you only experience reality as mediated through the conservative media , you might think that is really what happened. that is not what happened.

>> no acts of terror will ever shake the resolve of this great nation, alter that character or eclipse the light of the values that we stand for. today we mourn for more americans who represent the very best of the united states of america . we will not waiver in our commitment to see that justice is done for this terrible act. and make no mistake, justice will be done.

>> you can count on 3- 2 - 1 until the right starts saying that the tape has been doctored and the transcript has been forged from a fax machine in hawaii. mitt romney getting it wrong last night because he apashtly consumes the right wing version of reality instead of the real reality. that was the story of the night when he face planted on that story. just a shocking face plant by an excitable candidate who decided to take a leaping round house punch while his opponent was standing there -- too painful. debate interruption by candy crowley steps on major moment for governor romney. oh, darn that candy crowley . her pointless interruption ruined mitt romney 's big moment when he was nailing obama for not saying the word terror in the rose garden that day.

>> no acts of terror will ever shake the resolve of this great nation.

>> in the right wing world president obama never said that.

>> paoliti fact, so when mitt romney wrote an op-ed entitled let detroit go bankrupt and he went on cbs news to defend it, they found that half true. because basically they don't think that mitt romney likes to be quoted saying let detroit go bankrupt or something, even though he did. so half true? politi fact looked into last night whether he used the phrase act of terror .

>> no acts of terror will ever shake the resolve of this great nation.

>> politi fact said yes he did say that but it's only half true because he didn't mean it when he said it. this infection is leading the conservative media , these baldly false conservative feel-good assertions that come from the right end up becoming just the other side of a political issue. we're taking an objective look and that is bull. barack obama was born in hawaii, the unemployment rate is under 8%. the day after the benghazi attack, the president called it an act of terror . do not confuse your world net daily caliber fantasy babble for what actually happened. because stuff really does actually happen. and eventually you really do have to deal with it.

>>> now it's time for "the last word" with lawrence o'donnell. have a great night.