Republicans On Parade

Here is the seventy-sixth article in our Republicans on Parade series, featuring individuals who personify what the Republican Party has become. Today’s honoree is Carly Fiorina, Republican presidential candidate. She is so honoured for her incessant lying and disassociation with reality.

During last week's Republican presidential debate, former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina described the doctored Planned Parenthood sting videos that have spurred the ongoing effort by congressional Republicans to defund the women's health care provider. Her voice rising, she recounted a grisly scene: "I dare Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, to watch these tapes. Watch a fully formed fetus on the table, its heart beating, its legs kicking, while someone says we have to keep it alive to harvest its brain."

The audience erupted in applause. Fox News called it "the moment of the night." The only problem? None of what she described ever happened in the heavily edited videos.  …

As it turns out, Fiorina's tendency to embellish—or altogether avoid—the facts goes back much farther than last week's debate. Below is a partial compilation of some of her less-than-truthful moments:

1. Claim: Fiorina was not fired from her job at Hewlett-Packard because of performance.

Facts: In February 2005, Fiorina was dismissed from her post as CEO of HP by a board of directors that she's since called "dysfunctional." At the time, she roundly told reporters that the firing was not about performance. She struck a similar note in her 2006 memoir, Tough Choices, writing that after more than five years leading HP, by December 2004 she had pulled the company toward success. She cited a strong fourth quarter, despite a third-quarter "stumble." In fact, the stumble was an enormous shortfall: HP missed its earnings projections that quarter by 23 percent. "When companies miss by a few pennies, it doesn't mean all that much," the New York Times wrote of Fiorina in 2006. "When companies miss by 23 percent, Wall Street starts wondering if the people at the top have a clue as to what's going on in the various businesses." The Times also pointed out at the time that although Fiorina wrote in her memoir that HP missed its numbers on her watch only three times, "in fact, the company fell short at least nine times on either revenue, profit or both."

This list is anything but complete, but you can read seven more less than truthful moments in Mother Jones.

We know that Republican politicians lie, misinform, distort and generally wreck havoc on anything with which they come into contact.  Fiorina is no different.