A New York Times story on President Obama’s approval rating yesterday included this unpersuasive claim: If Congress passes Mr. Obama’s health care bill, the White House — and many independent analysts — believe that the accomplishment of a signature campaign promise is likely to push the president’s approval ratings back up. I can see why

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Via Ben Smith, an utterly baseless claim by Sarah Palin that Obama does not “acknowledge the sacrifices” of US military: “There’s been a lack of acknowledgment by our president in understanding what it is that the American military provides in terms of, obviously, the safety, the security of our country,” Palin said during an interview

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The only thing worse than pretending to read minds is offering long-distance diagnoses of mental illness in your political opponents — a practice that has become increasingly common among pundits on the left and right. In the last few weeks, the board-certified psychiatrist trio of Michelle Goldberg, Glenn Beck, and Michael Savage have diagnosed Sarah

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Let me recommend Greg Marx’s critique of the AP’s Going Rogue “fact check”, which illustrates how the paradigm can go horribly wrong. As Marx notes, the AP critique frequently targets claims that fall short of the standard we tried to uphold at Spinsanity — statements that are false or blatantly misleading. In some cases, the

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Newsweek’s decision to run a picture from Sarah Palin’s ill-advised Runner’s World photo shoot on its cover is being condemned as sexist by everyone from Palin herself to Media Matters, and rightfully so.* Some conservatives have also condemned the cover as demonstrating Newsweek’s liberal bias, which may also be true. However, I think the most

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National Journal’s Ron Brownstein makes an important point about health care — even if the Democratic reform bill is signed into law, Republicans are likely to try to repeal it if they take back the White House in 2013: If Obama does sign a reform bill, which appears more likely than not, Republicans will face

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Least plausible political argument I’ve seen today — Matthew Continetti’s Wall Street Journal op-ed claiming Sarah Palin’s “poll numbers among independents are strong enough to give her a chance” to make a comeback (coincidentally, he wrote a book defending her). Here’s the key passage on Palin’s poll numbers: Ms. Palin’s unpopularity—the result of horrendous media

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In addition to imitating white Republicans like Eddie Murphy and creating a blog that was briefly called “What Up?”, RNC chairman Michael Steele also became the first major political figure to use the Wayne’s World “Not!” catchphrase as a debating tactic on Sunday (via my friend Ben Fritz): STEPHANOPOULOS: When you hear Governor Kaine talk

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Conservative elites continue to exploit the misperception that President Obama is a Muslim. The latest offender is Fox’s Sean Hannity, who suggested Monday night that President Obama was somehow responsible for the Fort Hood shooting: This Fort Hood situation is really beginning to disturb me and should disturb everybody. And that is that there is

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I tend to believe that many elites who promote misinformation don’t actually believe what they’re saying, but it’s rare that you see someone being as candid about it as Dick Armey: Armey prides himself on his intellect and rationality, but his years in Washington have taught him the political uses of irrationality and even outright

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