Republican strategist Karl Rove and NBC’s "Meet the Press" guest host Tom Brokaw got into a tussle on that program Sunday over whether the Bush administration had planned to use oil money to partly fund the Iraq war. Rove also overstated opposition to Democratic health care legislation.
We’ll start with the health care claim. Rove, a former top adviser to President George W. Bush, said:
Rove, March 14: If you step back for a minute, it’s a pretty remarkable year that we’ve had,
This ad from Americans for Prosperity caught our eye because of the sheer number of falsehoods it hits on, both new ones and old faithfuls. The group, whose president helped organize the Tea Party protests, is spending $750,000 to run this very misleading ad in nine states.
In the ad, breast cancer survivor Tracy Walsh denounces new government guidelines on mammograms, which she says “[save] money, but could cost your life.” She claims the “guidelines” say that “women shouldn’t receive mammograms until age 50.”
In this edition of Extras, we look at morphing presidents, a piece of health care pie chart and an ad that checks itself.
Mighty Morphin’ Presidents
In Sunday’s New York Times, the American Civil Liberties Union took out a full page ad urging President Obama to try Sept. 11 defendants in criminal court, as opposed to military tribunals. The ad even included a stark graphic morphing Obama’s face with former President Bush’s:
But the ad cites a questionable statistic.
The Washington Post reported on March 9 that Employers for a Healthy Economy, a coalition of business groups that includes the National Association of Manufacturers and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, plans to spend up to $10 million running an ad about the effects of health care legislation on the economy.
The ad, which portrays workers and businesses going through difficult times, says that "health care costs will go even higher" and that this will "[make] a tough economy even worse." These claims need context.
This week, we examine health care claims from the president, a conservative group and a Republican candidate in the race for a Senate seat in Nevada. Plus, we give listeners the scoop on allegations that Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi hosts congressional party planes.
Former Nevada state Sen. Sue Lowden, who is running for the Republican nomination to challenge Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in November, goes after Reid in a new ad for trying to force "one-size-fits-all government health care" on all Americans.
Maybe "one-size-fits-all government health care" is a plausible description of the systems in some other countries: Canada or the U.K., for instance. But the Senate-passed health care overhaul, which Reid shepherded through that body on Christmas Eve,
The president made another push for health care legislation March 3, while being flanked by physicians and nurses in the East Room of the White House. Much of what he said in describing his proposal was correct, but he went a bit overboard with a few of his statements.
In a remark reminiscent of last week’s spat with Republican Sen. Lamar Alexander over premiums, Obama said most people would save money under his plan:
Obama: Our cost-cutting measures mirror most of the proposals in the current Senate bill,
A relatively unknown conservative group called the League of American Voters has launched an ad attacking Democratic members of Congress for, in the words of the TV spot, voting in favor of “Obama and Pelosi’s health care takeover." But the ad is filled with misleading claims.
The group’s Web site says it is running similar ads "across the nation." We contacted the group to ask where exactly the ad is airing, but we have yet to receive an answer.
The premiere edition of our podcast features a look at the factual malpractice that took place during the president’s nearly daylong health care summit.
We tuned in to watch the president’s health care summit at Blair House today — all six-plus hours of it. And we weren’t surprised to hear some factual missteps in the discussion: Sen. Lamar Alexander said premiums will go up for “millions” under the Senate bill and president’s plan, while President Barack Obama said families …