The talk shows’ factual failures included misinformation from Karl Rove (about write-in ballots in Alaska), from a former president (about college graduation rates and health in the U.S.) and from a current one (of Iran, about several topics).
Rove’s Spelling Lesson
Republican strategist Karl Rove overstated a legal barrier confronting GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska in her bid to win reelection as a write-in candidate. Appearing on "Fox News Sunday," he said:
Rove: [Murkowski] can’t win.
A story I reported 18 years ago for CNN has recently become an issue in the California governor’s race. Meg Whitman, the Republican candidate,
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is attacking Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer of California in two ads accusing her of favoring a "three-inch smelt," a freshwater fish, over water and jobs. The ads aren’t quite accurate, however.
According to The Associated Press, the ads began running Sept. 8 in Sacramento, Fresno, Bakersfield and San Diego. Both ads say "Boxer is famous for protecting the three-inch smelt" and accuse her of voting to "cut water" to San Diego and the Central Valley.
Q: Is “Obama’s finance team” recommending a 1 percent tax on all bank transactions, as a chain e-mail claims?
A: No. This idea was first floated in 2004 by one House member, who says it would replace the federal income tax and eliminate the national debt. So far it has gone nowhere.
Q: Will "the largest tax hikes in the history of America" take effect next year? Will ordinary taxpayers see taxes "skyrocket"?
A: That’s not likely. A scary e-mail lists "Tax hikes in 2011" that probably won’t take effect, or won’t apply to families making under $250,000 a year. One "tax hike" is pure fiction.
In Nevada’s Senate race, Republican Sharron Angle and Democrat Harry Reid began airing new commercials Aug. 26. Angle’s attack ad pictures Reid in a "love triangle" with President Barack Obama and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and repeats some familiar but misleading claims.
Like Angle’s, Reid’s ad covers familiar ground. All of its claims are rooted in true statements or proposals. But Reid goes too far in one case. Angle did not say that "Medicare and Social Security violate the Ten Commandments."
Vice President Joseph Biden and House Republican Leader John Boehner both put their partisan spin on the effects of the administration’s economic stimulus spending. But Biden exaggerated, and Boehner got it wrong, according to a report issued later in the day by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.
President Obama claimed that Republican leaders are pushing to make “privatizing Social Security a key part of their legislative agenda” should they regain control …
An attack ad by a corporate-backed shadow group linked to GOP candidate Bill McCollum claims his rival for the party’s nomination for governor of Florida, Rick Scott, "profited from porn." But that charge is based on a loose connection between Scott and a website’s partnership with Playboy Mexico.
The ad first appeared Aug. 6 in the "video files" of the ScottFraudFiles.com website, which at the bottom of every page states that it is a "Political Advertisement Paid for and Approved by Bill McCollum,
AFSCME, the big labor union, is running a misleading ad attacking one of the GOP’s premier House candidates. In an attempt to protect a vulnerable freshman Democrat, Rep. John Boccieri of Ohio, AFSCME badly misrepresents his Republican challenger’s stance on taxation. AFSCME’s ad …