Politifact names "death panels" its "Lie of the Year"
December 18, 2009 8:09 pm ET by Media Matters staff
From a December 18 entry on PolitiFact.com :
Of all the falsehoods and distortions in the political discourse this year, one stood out from the rest.
"Death panels."
The claim set political debate afire when it was made in August, raising issues from the role of government in health care to the bounds of acceptable political discussion. In a nod to the way technology has transformed politics, the statement wasn't made in an interview or a television ad. Sarah Palin posted it on her Facebook page.
Her assertion - that the government would set up boards to determine whether seniors and the disabled were worthy of care - spread through newscasts, talk shows, blogs and town hall meetings. Opponents of health care legislation said it revealed the real goals of the Democratic proposals. Advocates for health reform said it showed the depths to which their opponents would sink. Still others scratched their heads and said, "Death panels? Really?"
The editors of PolitiFact.com, the fact-checking Web site of the St. Petersburg Times, have chosen it as our inaugural "Lie of the Year."
PolitiFact readers overwhelmingly supported the decision. Nearly 5,000 voted in a national poll to name the biggest lie, and 61 percent chose "death panels" from a field of eight finalists.
Previously:
REPORT: The media have debunked the death panels -- more than 40 times over
Mr. News
She takes a Black Magic Marker and Scratches out his Name.
She gives a Perfunctory Excuse, "I was trying to keep a Low Profile"
Will the Extreme Right ever wake up and call her on her Bloviating Bile?
Speak truth to power.
Mr. News
Never mind that most all of the lies and pants on fire lies come from people on the right. And by most I don't mean 51%. I mean like 90-95%. Really! And never mind that most of the "lies" from the left are piddly stuff, like when Obama meant to say "Indiana" in a story he was relating and he said "Illinois" - because the staff who gave him the anecdote he was using thought that the story came from "Illinois"! Not really even a "lie" when you don't know that it's untrue, and it's not intended to deceive anyone anyway!
Never mind that they recently rated Obama's claim that "up to 1.6 million jobs have been created" as only half true, when in fact that claim is 100% true. They only rated it half true because the number could be as low as 600,000. But what Obama said was 100% true - UP TO that number of jobs have been created. But then they turn around and rate a comment by Rove that's undeniably, 100% false, as mostly true! I'm not kidding! Rove said that no other President has had such low poll results after a year in office. But Reagan's results were the same, so Rove was 100% wrong...but somehow they rated that statement as mostly true!!!
So, they had some really, really offensive lies by some people on the right, and they had two very weak "lies" from those on the left.
Then, to top it off, the "lies" on the left? Corrected as soon as the lefties were made aware of them. The lies from those on the right? Repeated over and over again!
All that being said, the lie from Sarah Palin was the most offensive one, and the one I voted for.
Same goes for the Biden "lie" about the extent of germs spreading throughout an airplane cabin from a sneeze. It was an off-hand remark that only an expert would know was an overstatement. I would assume its accuracy as "conventional wisdom" based on the similar claim about cigarette smoke on a plane. And I would be wrong too.
This was another "gaffe" by Biden, rather than a deliberate deceit.
Having said that, I think deliberate deceit is one currency of politics of which all politicians, including Biden, are guilty of on occasion.
transparent about Obama is his lies you can see right through them.
Brad