Obama vs. Joe Wilson on the Truth-o-meter
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Joe G. noted earlier that Joe Wilson scored very poorly on Politifact’s Truth-o-meter. Since that post, there have been five more targeting Rep. Wilson, including Kathy’s moderately titled, Is there a politician lower than Joe Wilson?
I’m guessing Kathy has heard of Charlie Rangel, but I don’t know for sure.
Anyhow, I’m not here to defend Joe Wilson, who most people never heard of until yesterday. I’m here to look at how President Obama scores on the Truth-o-Meter. After last night’s speech, Politifact awarded President Obama a Barely True for pretending that Democratic reform bills actually incorporated Republican ideas. In fact, Democrats accepted some technical amendments from the GOP.
Politifact also awarded the President a flat-out False for saying that preventive care “saves money”.
In a very generous ruling, Politifact awarded Obama a True for saying
Nothing in this plan will require you or your employer to change the coverage or the doctor you have.
But that’s just some tricky wordplay, since the real issue is whether government incentives will lead your employer to take away your coverage. That’s why, less than a month ago, Politifact awarded the President a Half-true for insisting for the umpteenth time that “If you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan.”
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4 Comments - add your own
mikeybackwards — September 11, 2009 at 10:28 am
I’m guessing you have heard of Randy ‘Duke’ Cunningham but I don’t know for sure.
Anyhow, I’m not here to defend Charlie Rangel, or even Kathy. Rather, I find it interesting that rather than simply addressing your valid concerns and objections to aspects of Obama’s statements, you chose to try to link Rangel’s questionable behavior in a ‘guilt by association’ attack on Obama and by inference, the positions laid out in the proposed bills and enumerated by Obama in his speech.
IMHO, you do yourself, and those who share your concerns a disservice by using such flawed argumentative techniques in stating your positions. Also questionable, to me, is how you also don’t rap people like Joe Wilson, who use “tricky wordplay” in accusing those who support the Democrats’ bills of (in the words of Joe Wilson) “a government takeover of healthcare”.
*I do, however, award a style point for the snarky labeling of Kathy’s position ‘moderate’ playing off of the generally inaccurate (IMHO) name of the blog at which she posted.
David Adesnik — September 11, 2009 at 11:04 am
No guilt by association efforts here. My comment about Rangel was simply a response to Kathy’s fixation on Joe Wilson.
Why Charlie Rangel and not Duke Cunningham? Because if you read Kathy, you know she’s a partisan Dem who needs to be reminded of her own party’s flaws, not mine. Also, I believe Duke Cunningham faced some consequences for his behavior, but Rangel is still chairman of Ways and Means.
As for my concerns about Obama, I think they’re laid out pretty clearly, especially if you follow the links to Politifact.
mikeybackwards — September 11, 2009 at 12:23 pm
David –
I don’t think somebody posting an article the day after Joe Wilson makes an ass of himself, and on the day he exacerbates that by making an even bigger ass of himself equals a fixation. Given that she doesn’t accuse him of corruption, merely being an ass makes your comparison/remonstration questionable – now if you had used a comparison to Cynthia McKinney, I might see a more appropriate and equal comparison (which is why I chose Cunningham over other possible comparisons to use in fisking you such as Duvall, Ensign, or any of a bevy of other South Carolina Republican leaders).
Having said all of that, asshattery is not a partisan trait. Further, while I agree you laid out your objections to the Dems’ plans on health insurance reform, I still stand by my criticism that you weaken your argument by the use of rant/guilt by association by including those extraneous and conflationary aspects of your post.
After all, it’s not link you are limited in the number of post you can put up. It would have been very easy for you to put up separate posts and thus avoid any conflation of the two topics and (imho) improving both arguments.
mikeybackwards — September 11, 2009 at 12:26 pm
*last paragraph above should read