Brendan Nyhan

In a Wall Street Journal op-ed, Karl Rove revives the phony claim that President Bush’s tax cut reduced taxes on businesses by $4,000:

Let’s also be clear about what it means to roll back the president’s 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, as the Democrats want to do. Every income-tax payer will pay more as all tax rates rise. Families will pay $500 more per child as they lose the child tax credit. Taxes on small businesses would go up by an average of about $4,000. Retirees will pay higher taxes on investment retirement income. And now we have the $1 trillion tax increase proposed as “tax reform” by the Democrats’ chief tax writer last month.

These “average” tax cut statistics about small business are extremely misleading, as we pointed out at Spinsanity in the context of the debate over President Bush’s 2003 tax cut (see All the President’s Spin for much more on the misuse of “average” tax cut stats):

Bush’s latest talking points are deceptive in the same way, using averages that distort the benefits to taxpayers in question. The President has claimed on several occasions (most recently on Wednesday) that “Twenty-three million small business owners will receive an average tax cut of $2,042 under this plan.” Yet, as Paul Krugman pointed out in an an column on Tuesday, this claim exaggerates the plan’s benefits to middle-income small businesses. As CBPP has noted, 79 percent of tax filers reporting small business income will receive less than Bush’s “average” figure, and 52 percent would receive less than $500.

With the debate over repealing Bush’s tax cuts heating up, expect to see more of these bogus talking points in the press.

The media do a terrible job explaining what exactly waterboarding is. My 2005 posts titled “What is waterboarding?” (here and here) still get a lot of hits from Google.

The question then was whether waterboarding involved actual submersion under water or pouring water over the face to simulate submersion. In the US case, at least, the answer appears to be the latter. Today’s McClatchy report on the debate over waterboarding includes this helpful (but disturbing) graphic:

If more news reports illustrated what the technique actually entails, I’d guess public support for its use would go down quite a bit.

This is what I get for trusting news reports on Bill Clinton’s comments about Hillary.

Yesterday I quoted from a New York Times article that suggested Bill had compared criticism of Hillary to the “Swift boat” ads against John Kerry. However, Greg Sargent and Media Matters make a convincing case that what Bill said was distorted. Read in context, his comments were directed at the way the media facilitates Republican attacks against Democrats, not the criticisms of Hillary made by other Democratic candidates.

Here’s the Media Matters transcript from the video:

PRESIDENT CLINTON: [T]he point I’m here to make to you is whoever you’re for, this is a really big election. We saw what happened the last seven years when we made decisions in elections based on trivial matters. When we listened to people make snide comments about whether Vice President [Al] Gore was too stiff. When they made dishonest claims about the things that he said that he’d done in his life. When that scandalous Swift boat ad was run against Senator [John] Kerry [D-MA].

When there was an ad that defeated [former Sen.] Max Cleland [D] in Georgia — a man that left half his body in Vietnam. And a guy that had several deferments ran an ad with Max Cleland’s picture with Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden, because he dared to vote against the president’s version of the Homeland Security bill.

Most Americans still don’t know the truth. The president was against the Homeland Security bill for eight and a half months. And [former White House senior adviser] Karl Rove told him they were going to lose the 2002 elections unless the American people were scared about terror again. So, they decided to be for a bill they’d opposed — and they put a poison pill in it.

That bill was designed by the president to take the job rights away from 170,000 federal employees that had no access to secure information, no access to secure technology, no business being treated like CIA agents. Look, we need to be able to fire CIA agents without going through a long process in the public, right? … But we don’t need to treat secretaries at FEMA [Federal Emergency Management Agency] that way. I mean, the whole thing was a scam.

So Max Cleland said, “I didn’t go to Vietnam and leave one arm and two legs to come home and hold my job by stripping the job rights from 170,000 good, hard-working Americans. I won’t do it. So they put an ad on comparing him to Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden.

Why am I saying this?

Because, I had the feeling, at the end of that last debate, we were about to get into cutesy land again. “Ya’ll raise your hand if you’re for illegal immigrants getting driver’s licenses.” So, we’ll then let the Republicans run an ad saying, “All the Democrats are against the rule of law.”

I don’t — look, I think it’s fine to discuss immigration. We should. Illegal immigration needs to be discussed, and it’s fine for Hillary and all these other guys to be asked about Governor Spitzer’s plan — but not in 30 seconds, yes, no, raise your hand. This is a complicated issue. This is a complicated issue.

So, do I hope you’ll vote for my wife? You bet I do. It’d be good for America and good for the world. But, more than that, I came here to tell you today: Don’t you dare let them take this election away from you. This belongs to you and to your children — and to the future of America.

Don’t be diverted. Don’t be divided. Our best days are still ahead, claim them. Thank you.

It’s worth noting, however, that Clinton, like Michael Tomasky and many other Democrats, pushes the myth that the 2002 Saxby Chambliss ad against Max Cleland “[compared Cleland] to Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden.” As I showed, that is not true.

The New York Times blog The Caucus reports on a bizarre delay in an Obama rally in Iowa:

It turns out that Mr. Obama apparently was flying in from Chicago, and blustery winds in Cedar Rapids delayed his plane. But that explanation was of little solace to Mr. Lammer, who seemed far angrier than his wife at Mr. Obama’s tardiness…

Update: The travel delay, as it turns out, was not because of winds. While they were strong, the Obama campaign plane apparently flew to Des Moines by mistake. So the plane fired back up and jetted to Cedar Rapids. Because of his tardiness, Mr. Obama lingered longer than usual to take extra questions from the crowd.

I know campaigns are chaotic, but how do you fly to the wrong city by mistake?

Update 11/8 11:32 AM: The New York Times has a report with more details on the mistake, but it never explains how it happened. Did the pilot get the wrong itinerary?

Yesterday, Bill Clinton finally entered the fray directly on behalf of his wife:

“We listened to people make snide comments about whether Vice President Gore was too stiff,” Mr. Clinton said, “and when they made dishonest claims about the things that he said that he’d done in his life. When that scandalous Swift boat ad was run against Senator Kerry.”
“Why am I saying this?” he continued. “Because I had the feeling that at the end of that last debate we were about to get into cutesy land again.”

However, as Barack Obama and Chris Dodd argued, there’s no comparison between the attacks on Hillary’s position on driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants and the “Swift boat” ads against John Kerry.

The bigger question is how this will play with Democratic primary voters. Back in August, I suggested that Obama and John Edwards were failing to challenge Hillary’s “experience”, which mostly consists of her time as First Lady, for fear of causing Bill to come after them. So far that has largely held up, but now he’s in the mix anyway. So what happens?

On the one hand, Bill is more popular with Democrats than either Obama or Edwards. But his entry threatens to overshadow Hillary and make it look like she is playing the victim and needs to be defended by her husband.

The other possible consequence is that Bill trivializes what happened to Al Gore and John Kerry, which does not help the larger cause of drawing attention to the pattern of character smears against Democratic candidates.

Update 11/8 11:00 AM: The full transcript reveals that Clinton’s comments were directed at the media, not other Democrats — see my new post for more. However, the Clinton campaign is tied up in knots trying to address Bill’s involvement in Hillary’s campaign (via Michael Crowley):

A senior Clinton aide was quoted as saying the former president’s remarks were neither helpful to his wife’s candidacy nor was he speaking for the campaign. Another official later tried to distance the campaign from the suggestion that officials were trying to distance the candidate from her husband.

What a mess.

When is a reporter going to point out that John Edwards is making a campaign promise that is probably unconstitutional?

To appeal to Democrats infuriated by Washington, Mr. Edwards is employing unusual approaches. While he was the first candidate to present a health care plan, he no longer dwells on details of his proposal. Instead, in city after city, he threatens to take away health insurance for members of Congress if they do not overhaul the system by July 2009, six months after he would take office.

As Matthew Yglesias noted last month, Edwards seemingly could not do so without violating the 27th amendment to the Constitution, which states that “No law, varying the compensation for the services of the Senators and Representatives, shall take effect, until an election of Representatives shall have intervened.”

It’s amazing to me how little credence most reporters give to the statements candidates make on the campaign trail that don’t fit into prevailing narratives. The attitude seems to be that what they say now doesn’t matter, but of course it does. Look at candidate Bush, whose dissembling about tax and budget issues on the campaign trail turned into dissembling about tax and budget issues while in office (see All the President’s Spin for details).

During yesterday’s interview with GOP presidential candidate Fred Thompson, NBC “Meet the Press” host Tim Russert repeated the myth that Thompson claimed Iraq had WMD immediately before the US invasion.

Here’s what Russert said:

RUSSERT: You were in Iowa, and you’re talking about Saddam Hussein, and you said, it was, “He was certain former Iraqi leaders Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction before the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, a point of contention in the four and a half years since the war began. ‘We can’t forget the fact that although at a particular point in time we never found any WMD down there, he clearly had’” “‘WMD. He clearly had,’the beginnings of a nuclear program,’ Thompson told the audience of about 60 at a Newton cafe.”

The Duelfer Commission, David Kay, all the weapons inspectors said they did not find any WMD. And yet you’re—you seem to be raising the whole herring again…

THOMPSON: No, no, I’m not…

RUSSERT: …of chemical, biological and nuclear.

However, the story in question, which appeared in the Des Moines Register, actually quoted Thompson saying that Saddam “had had” WMD and the beginning of a nuclear program, not that he “had” them at the time of the invasion as Russert’s reading of the article suggested. Here’s the exact quote:

Former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson said Monday he was certain former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction prior to the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, a point of contention in the 4 1/2 years since the war began.

“We can’t forget the fact that although at a particular point in time we never found any WMD down there, he clearly had had WMD. He clearly had had the beginnings of a nuclear program,” Thompson told an audience of about 60 at a Newton cafe.

Russert showed the exact quote from the article on screen while asking the question, but changed “had had” to “had” in reading it for his audience (click the netcast link here and go to 13:40). Thompson, of course, denied the allegation.

As I previously showed, this myth was first promoted nationally by Josh Marshall and Eric Kleefeld of Talking Points Memo, both of whom rephrased Thompson’s quote into the claim that Saddam “had” WMD. Marshall, for instance, wrote the following:

Thompson on Saddam Hussein: Good we got him when we did since he had WMD, had an active nuclear program and was about to become “new dictator of that entire region.”

Marshall’s post linked to a Kleefeld post that does not support this claim. Instead, it rephrased Thompson’s statement that Iraq “had had” WMD and a nuclear program in the past to suggest that Thompson claimed Iraq “had” WMD and a nuclear program at the time of the invasion:

Thompson: Saddam “Clearly” Had WMD And A Nuke Program
By Eric Kleefeld – October 1, 2007, 9:30PM

During a campaign stop in Iowa today, Fred Thompson unambiguously stood by the premise of the Iraq War — and went so far as to say Saddam Hussein “clearly” had weapons of mass destruction and a nuclear program that posed a threat.

“Saddam Hussein, today, had we not gone in, would be sitting on this power keg and be in control of the whole thing,” Thompson said. “He would have been the new dictator of that entire region in my estimation. He is — was — a dangerous irrational man who, by this time, would have been well on his way to having the nuclear capability himself.”

Thompson also seemed to say that the failure to find WMD was simply a matter of particulars, of where and when America has looked.

“We can’t forget the fact that although at a particular point in time we never found any WMD down there, he clearly had had WMD,” he said. “He clearly had had the beginnings of a nuclear program, and in my estimation his intent never did change.”

During the interview, Russert also shamelessly attempted to demagogue Thompson, taking his statements out of context to imply that the candidate had trivialized the death of US soldiers and 9/11 victims:

MR. RUSSERT: You made a comment the other day in South Carolina, said, “Fred Thompson said the Iraqi insurgency is made up of ‘a bunch of kids with improvised explosive devices,’ and suggested that the appearance of losing to such an enemy would harm U.S. national security.” As you know, we’ve lost 3,834 kids; 28,385 wounded or injured, 65 percent of them by these improvised devices…

RUSSERT: It’s more than just a bunch of kids…

RUSSERT: You shouldn’t trivialized as a bunch of kids…

RUSSERT: Let me turn to Osama bin Laden. In Iowa you told reporters, “Bin Laden is ‘more symbolism than anything else.’” To the people who died on September 11th, Osama bin Laden is more than symbolism.

Even by Russert’s “gotcha” standards, these questions are cheap debating tactics, not journalism. They have no substantive content.

Update 11/7 1:53 PM: Per commenter Crust’s reasonable request for the context that Russert omitted, here is the CNN.com report on Thompson said in the “bunch of kids” quote:

At a campaign stop in South Carolina Wednesday, Fred Thompson said that the Iraqi insurgency is made up of “a bunch of kids with improvised explosive devices,” and suggested that the appearance of losing to such an enemy would harm U.S. national security.

Thompson was confronted about Iraq by a Bluffton resident named Bernhard Steinhouse, who asked Thompson whether he would bring back U.S. forces from the country.

“We will not be a safer country, we will not be a safer America if the whole world watches us being defeated by a bunch of kids with improvised explosive devices,” Thompson said.

Roadside bombs are one of the leading causes of U.S. casualties in Iraq.

Of course, the insurgency is made up primarily of young men. There’s nothing inaccurate about what Thompson said, nor does it necessarily trivialize US casualties, which was surely not his intent. Moreover, the GOP candidate was making a serious point about the potential effect of US withdrawal, which Russert ignored.

And here is the AP report on the bin Laden quote:

Republican Fred Thompson said Friday that terrorist mastermind Usama bin Laden is “more symbolism than anything else” as the presidential hopeful warned of possible greater Al Qaeda threats within the United States.

As a new video surfaced from bin Laden days before the sixth anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Thompson focused on the broader war on terrorism and the Iraq conflict. He argued that not only are the United States and Iraqi forces making progress in Iraq, but that public support for the war is increasing.

The new video of bin Laden is his first in three years. Thompson played down its release in talking to reporters on his second day of campaigning in Iowa.

“Bin Laden being in the mountains of Pakistan or Afghanistan is not as important as there are probably Al Qaeda operatives inside the United States of America,” Thompson said.

Bin Laden is considered the man behind the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people. The former Tennessee senator and actor argued that “bin Laden is more symbolism than anything else. I think it demonstrates to people once again that we’re in a global war.”

Thompson said the Al Qaeda leader and the Iraq war must be seen as part of the larger war on terrorism.

“It’s one that bin Laden and people like him are heading up and we need to catch him and we surely need to deal with him, but if he disappeared tomorrow we still have this problem. If Iraq disappeared tomorrow, we’d still have this problem,” Thompson said.

The last paragraph is the key — Thompson is saying that killing bin Laden would be symbolically important, but would not end the terrorist threat. Once again, there’s no indication that he meant to dishonor victims of 9/11.

Clark Hoyt gets results!

A few weeks ago the New York Times public editor revealed that Deborah Solomon’s impossibly witty (and harsh) interviews in the Times Magazine are the result of heavy edits that have included changing the order and wording of the questions.

And in yesterday’s Times Magazine, Solomon’s interview of former UN ambassador John Bolton concludes with the disclaimer “Interview conducted, condensed and edited by Deborah Solomon,” which to my knowledge has never appeared before. It’s better than nothing…

The 2002 Saxby Chambliss ad criticizing Max Cleland has been become a standard talking point in liberal critiques of post-9/11 GOP demagoguery. The latest figure to exaggerate its viciousness is former American Prospect editor Michael Tomasky, who wrote the following in a review of Paul Krugman’s The Conscience of a Liberal:

Difficult as it is to remember now, there was a time in the United States, as recently as fifteen or so years ago, when we were not engaged in constant political warfare. In those days Senator Max Cleland, who lost three limbs in a war, would not have been visually equated with Saddam Hussein in a television ad, something the Republicans did to him in 2002.

The ad was certainly demagogic, but it did not “visually equate” Cleland with Saddam. Instead, it showed a bunch of scary images at the beginning, including Osama bin Laden and Saddam, while the announcer said “As America faces terrorists and extremist dictators…”:

As it turns out, while the ad did include nasty insinuations about Cleland’s “courage to lead,” a little-known Chambliss press release accusing Cleland of “breaking his oath to protect and defend the Constitution” by voting for a chemical weapons treaty was actually far worse — here’s what we wrote at Spinsanity:

[O]ne of Chambliss’s ads included video footage of Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein, which played while a voice-over suggested, “As America faces terrorists and extremist dictators, Max Cleland runs television ads claiming he has the courage to lead… Max Cleland says he has the courage to lead. But the record proves Max Cleland is just misleading.” The images were subsequently deleted from the ad. Chambliss also issued a press release accusing Cleland of “breaking his oath to protect and defend the Constitution” based on an obscure 1997 vote in favor of an amendment to the chemical weapons treaty. The amendment, which passed with bipartisan support, deleted a clause banning weapons inspectors from a number of countries from being part of inspection teams in Iraq.

I’m including an updated version of my timeline of Republican attacks on dissent since 9/11 below the fold. If you read it over, I think you’ll see that the Chambliss TV ad pales in comparison.

[Disclosure: Tomasky was editor of The American Prospect when I quit after TAP’s web editor asked me to limit my criticism of liberals on their blog.]

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There’s a reason I keep touting the McClatchy Washington bureau — they keep writing excellent stories like this one, which states unequivocally in its lede that “experts in and out of government say there’s no conclusive evidence that Tehran has an active nuclear-weapons program.” (The accompanying FAQ is also very useful.) There’s a reason these guys got Iraq right and almost everyone else got it wrong.