Why do politicians often exaggerate, when the truth would serve just as well?
Rick Santorum had us asking that question of ourselves again when he made several puffed-up claims on “Fox News Sunday.”
Arguing that a come-from-behind win is still possible in the race for the Republican presidential nomination, Santorum said Kansas had been “down almost 20 points in the first half” before beating Ohio State the night before in an NCAA Final Four basketball game.
The misleading assault on the president’s energy policies continues.
A conservative group’s TV ad claims “we will all pay more at the pump” because the administration “blocked” the Keystone XL pipeline.
Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell claims that the pipeline “could have brought 700,000 barrels of oil to the market each day.”
The TV ad also claims that Obama “opposed exploring for energy in Alaska,” which is only half true.
All those claims are false or misleading.
Declaring “manufacturing is back,” Vice President Joe Biden gave a rosy — but not entirely accurate or complete — picture of U.S. manufacturing at a March 28 campaign stop in Iowa.
Biden overstated — by 1.1 million — the number of manufacturing jobs lost before President Obama took office. He said the U.S. lost 5.8 million manufacturing jobs “during the 2000s, before we came in.” But that figure includes 2009 — Obama’s first year in office.
A conservative group omits some important details in a TV ad attacking North Carolina’s lame-duck Democratic governor and praising the Republican-controlled state General Assembly during a partisan budget battle.
The ad says the legislature added state funding for “2,000 more teachers” and that its budget “adds teachers.” But the legislature’s increased funding didn’t make up for the loss of federal money and discretionary state funds that local districts use to hire teachers. The state had a net loss of about 900 teachers overall.
A new ad from the pro-Mitt Romney super PAC Restore Our Future plays a game of gotcha politics. It grabs a comment from Rick Santorum — “I don’t care what the unemployment rate’s going to be” — out of context to frame an attack on the former senator’s record on economic issues.
In context, Santorum was making the point that the election was about something bigger — more “foundational” — than just the economy, that it was about less government intrusion into the private sector.
Rep. Paul Ryan says the House Republican budget plan does not cut taxes. White House senior adviser David Plouffe says not only does it cut taxes, but it “showers huge additional tax cuts on the wealthy.” Who’s right? It depends on the details of the final plan, but a nonpartisan analysis shows Ryan’s plan likely would reduce taxes for high-income taxpayers.
The does-too/does-not virtual debate between Ryan and Plouffe played out March 25 across a few of the Sunday morning talk shows.
Both the Republican National Committee and the Obama administration are making misleading claims about health insurance premium costs. An RNC ad falsely implies that the federal health care law is responsible for all of the $1,300 average increase in family coverage premiums last year. But at the same time, the Obama administration makes the misleading claim that families “could save up to $2,300” on health care costs per year in the future by buying insurance through exchanges called for by the law.
Mitt Romney says “most Americans want to get rid of” President Obama’s two-year-old health care law. Is he right? That depends on which poll-taker is asking the question, and how it’s worded.
Romney made the assertion at a rally in Louisiana on March 23, marking the second anniversary of the president signing the law. He’s not alone — we’ve heard others make the same statement. But some polls show otherwise.
For example, a Bloomberg News national poll of 1,002 adults taken March 8 through March 11 asked the question this way: “Turning to the health care law passed last year,
We’ve already written about the 17-minute Obama campaign film. But did you notice how narrator Tom Hanks portrays the president as being above finger-pointing politics, claiming Obama “would not dwell in blame” for inheriting a huge economic mess? We did.
Hanks, “The Road We’ve Traveled”: Not since the days of Franklin Roosevelt had so much fallen on the shoulders of one president. And when he faced his country, who looked to him for answers, he would not dwell in blame or dreamy idealism.
Republican presidential candidates Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich have repeatedly lifted several quotes out of context to allege that President Barack Obama and his administration actually wanted to drive up the price of gasoline, and have succeeded.
Gingrich said Obama wants gasoline prices to get to the European levels of $9 or $10 a gallon, but that “he just wants it to be gradual.” But that’s not what Obama said. Rather, when asked in 2008 about then-$4 per gallon gasoline prices,