Thursday, February 18, 2010

Sen. Scott Brown Flunks the Truth Test on Stimulus Job Claim

The good folks at PolitiFact have a pesky habit for checking the veracity of statements made by politicians. It's a worthy excercise, one that skewers pols of all stripes. 

Liberal or conservative or in between—it doesn't matter. If it does pass the truth test, PolitiFact is going to call the politician on it.

Which brings us to newly minted Sen. Scott Brown. Brown criticized the federal stimulus bill, claiming that the bill hasn't created a single job—not one. 

Of course, it's a lie. PolitiFact have the claim its lowest rating—the infamous Pants on Fire Award. Get the whole story here.

6 comments:

Man of the West said...

No doubt such astute commentators have already figured this out, but you're going to have an awfully tough time selling the idea--actually, if I'm not mistaken, the polling indicates that you are having an awfully tough time--selling the idea that the stimulus has created any jobs, Politifact or not. The jobless rate is up, not down, since the stimulus, and doesn't look like it's getting any better. And like it or not, you may rest assured that voters will likely hold Democrats accountable for it in November.

Tulsan said...

I'm glad to see you citing data, MotW. Included in one of your cites is this:

"The economy has lost 8.4 million jobs since the start of the downturn in December 2007"

We may be assured that the GOP will have completely "forgotten" in their messaging that the downturn began well under Bush, long before Obama arrived.

How soon you can turn around a reverse of that magnitude? Probably not quickly.

The GOP continues to wage a propaganda war. Luckily we have sites like Politifact to shoot down these fabrications as they are floated out by pols like Brown.

Tulsan said...

While on the World's site, I looked at this story: Judge rules Oklahoma abortion law unconstitutional

I'm stunned at the nearly unanimous supportive tenor of the comments. You would think this is a blue state if you dropped onto this page. Maybe someday...

Tulsan said...

The comments moved to this article: Abortion measure unlawful, judge says

Man of the West said...

We may be assured that the GOP will have completely "forgotten" in their messaging that the downturn began well under Bush, long before Obama arrived.

I agree with that. That is what politicians do, after all. Personally, I am pretty well convinced that poor economic policy through Democrat and Republican administrations and congresses alike, going back for decades, is at the root of the current recession/depression. I do not blame the Obama administration for causing it; that would be absurd. I do think they are exacerbating it and prolonging it, and, voter memory being what it is, it seems likely to me that the pendulum is going to swing somewhat away from the Democratic Party this November, regardless of what Politifact has to say about Scott Brown--and that was my only point vis-a-vis this post.

The GOP continues to wage a propaganda war.

Tulsan, you tickle me! Like Democrats never engage in such things... :)

Tulsan said...

MotW, I've seen you employ this particular defense mechanism repeatedly. It involves errors of scale.

Example: Tom DeLay implemented a vast, overt system of corruption for the GOP, the "K Street Project." But Democrat Jefferson from Louisiana squirreled away some cold bribe cash in his fridge. Thus, according to your reckoning, the two parties are equivalent in their levels of corruption. Q.E.D.

I've seen you do this over and over on this blog, and will supply more examples on request.

Not saying that either party has a corner on the corruption market. But unquestionably, the GOP has been unusually audacious in recent times, perhaps buoyed by Guru Rove's declaration of a Thousand Year Reich, which has sadly (Schadenfreude) gone down in flames.