Thursday, September 4, 2008

Some facts:

From http://www.mydd.com/story/2008/9/4/125718/1967


Sarah Palin's Assault On The Truth

It's astounding when the media does its job and even more astounding when it's The AP that does it but credit where credit is due, they have a fact check of the speeches last night and Sarah Palin in particular turns out to be just an out and out liar.

Just a few of her doozies:

PALIN: "I have protected the taxpayers by vetoing wasteful spending ... and championed reform to end the abuses of earmark spending by Congress. I told the Congress 'thanks but no thanks' for that Bridge to Nowhere."

THE FACTS: As mayor of Wasilla, Palin hired a lobbyist and traveled to Washington annually to support earmarks for the town totaling $27 million. In her two years as governor, Alaska has requested nearly $750 million in special federal spending, by far the largest per-capita request in the nation. While Palin notes she rejected plans to build a $398 million bridge from Ketchikan to an island with 50 residents and an airport, that opposition came only after the plan was ridiculed nationally as a "bridge to nowhere."

PALIN: "There is much to like and admire about our opponent. But listening to him speak, it's easy to forget that this is a man who has authored two memoirs but not a single major law or reform -- not even in the state senate."

THE FACTS: Compared to McCain and his two decades in the Senate, Obama does have a more meager record. But he has worked with Republicans to pass legislation that expanded efforts to intercept illegal shipments of weapons of mass destruction and to help destroy conventional weapons stockpiles. The legislation became law last year. To demean that accomplishment would be to also demean the work of Republican Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana, a respected foreign policy voice in the Senate. In Illinois, he was the leader on two big, contentious measures in Illinois: studying racial profiling by police and requiring recordings of interrogations in potential death penalty cases. He also successfully co-sponsored major ethics reform legislation.

PALIN: "The Democratic nominee for president supports plans to raise income taxes, raise payroll taxes, raise investment income taxes, raise the death tax, raise business taxes, and increase the tax burden on the American people by hundreds of billions of dollars."

THE FACTS: The Tax Policy Center, a think tank run jointly by the Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute, concluded that Obama's plan would increase after-tax income for middle-income taxpayers by about 5 percent by 2012, or nearly $2,200 annually. McCain's plan, which cuts taxes across all income levels, would raise after tax-income for middle-income taxpayers by 3 percent, the center concluded.

Obama would provide $80 billion in tax breaks, mainly for poor workers and the elderly, including tripling the Earned Income Tax Credit for minimum-wage workers and higher credits for larger families.

He also would raise income taxes, capital gains and dividend taxes on the wealthiest. He would raise payroll taxes on taxpayers with incomes above $250,000, and he would raise corporate taxes. Small businesses that make more than $250,000 a year would see taxes rise.

The article was posted last night but got a second lease on life today as the number one featured story on the Yahoo home page. Yahoo is generous, saying "Sarah Palin and her fellow RNC speakers weren't completely truthful at times" but the message is clear: she's a freakin liar.

Now, while neither The AP nor Yahoo comes right out and uses the "L" word, it's great to see the Obama campaign once again not shying away from it. In an e-mail to supporters, David Plouffe writes:

I wasn't planning on sending you something tonight. But if you saw what I saw from the Republican convention, you know that it demands a response.

I saw John McCain's attack squad of negative, cynical politicians. They lied about Barack Obama and Joe Biden, and they attacked you for being a part of this campaign. [...]

It's now clear that John McCain's campaign has decided that desperate lies and personal attacks -- on Barack Obama and on you -- are the only way they can earn a third term for the Bush policies that McCain has supported more than 90 percent of the time.

Notice that he refrains from using the term in relation to Palin specifically but the implication is clear.

Update [2008-9-4 13:49:46 by Todd Beeton]:And as if on cue:

The fired Alaskan official, whose dismissal has become the subject of a state senate committee's investigation of Gov. Sarah Palin, has told ABC News that she has not been entirely truthful on the matter.

In a telephone interview Wednesday, Walt Monegan, the former Alaskan Public Safety Commissioner, said he was dismissed because he refused to fire the Governor's former brother-in-law, a state trooper. [...]

Monegan says he believes that the Governor has not told the truth about what happened.

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