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Brian Cherry, Associate Editor

Fact Checking the AP’s
Fact Check on Sarah Palin
September 8, 2008

Nobody should be surprised that the day after Sarah Palin knocked the ball out of the park with her acceptance speech; the Associated Press ran an article claiming she was using a corked bat. This is because the mainstream media, while completely in the tank for Obama, isn’t so blinded by the Messiah’s divine light that they can’t see a huge threat when it appears. In the case of Mz. Palin, her appearance on the political scene has given the liberal press the same sense of dread that the people of Alderaan must have felt when a moon sized space station unexpectedly appeared in their orbit.

On Wednesday, September 3rd Yahoo plastered an AP article on their front page claiming to be a fact checking Sarah Palin’s speech and other comments made at the RNC convention. True to form, their "fact check” was about as accurate as the 2004 Presidential exit polls that declared John Kerry the new leader of the free world.

The following are comments made by Sarah Palin and others, the AP’s version of a fact check, and the truth. Nobody will be taken by surprise to discover that what the Associated Press has to say is far removed from what the truth actually is:

PALIN: "I have protected the taxpayers by vetoing wasteful spending ... and championed reform to end the abuses of earmark spending by Congress. I told the Congress 'thanks but no thanks' for that Bridge to Nowhere."

THE FACTS ACCORDING TO THE AP: As mayor of Wasilla, Palin hired a lobbyist and traveled to Washington annually to support earmarks for the town totaling $27 million. In her two years as governor, Alaska has requested nearly $750 million in special federal spending, by far the largest per-capita request in the nation. While Palin notes she rejected plans to build a $398 million bridge from Ketchikan to an island with 50 residents and an airport, that opposition came only after the plan was ridiculed nationally as a "bridge to nowhere."

THE TRUTH: The real fact here is that the writer of the "fact check”, Jim Kuhnhenn, has taken the sort of liberties with the facts that should qualify him as a fiction writer.

He wrote that Alaska requested nearly $750 million in federal dollars during Palin’s two years as Governor. What he didn’t mention was that the year before she was elected as Alaska’s top executive, the state had requested $705 million taxpayer dollars from the federal government for 2005 alone.

According to the Anchorage Daily News, in 2008 the state’s request for federal money is down over 50% to $256 million, and in 2009 Alaska is only asking for $197 million in earmarks. Between 2006 and 2009 Sarah has eliminated $508 million worth of earmarks in Alaska. There is no doubt this is the record of a fiscal reformer.

By way of contrast, Obama has requested over $740 million in earmarks for the same period of time; a million of that was for the hospital where his wife, Michelle, is a Vice President. Considering his love of taxpayer dollars, combined with some conflict of interest issues, a discussion about earmark reform is probably not one an Obama surrogate in the media wants to get into.

PALIN: "There is much to like and admire about our opponent. But listening to him speak, it's easy to forget that this is a man who has authored two memoirs but not a single major law or reform — not even in the state senate."

THE FACTS ACCORDING TO THE AP: Compared to McCain and his two decades in the Senate, Obama does have a more meager record. But he has worked with Republicans to pass legislation that expanded efforts to intercept illegal shipments of weapons of mass destruction and to help destroy conventional weapons stockpiles. The legislation became law last year. To demean that accomplishment would be to also demean the work of Republican Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana, a respected foreign policy voice in the Senate. In Illinois, he was the leader on two big, contentious measures in Illinois: studying racial profiling by police and requiring recordings of interrogations in potential death penalty cases. He also successfully co-sponsored major ethics reform legislation.

THE TRUTH: It is pretty clear that research is not one of Jim Kuhnhenn’s strong suits. Objective evidence would indicate reading comprehension is above his pay grade as well. Palin’s quote says that Obama has "authored two memoirs but not a single major law or reform”. Jim cites his rare work with a Republican on a bill, but doesn’t address Sarah’s comment. Obama didn't author the federal bills Kuhnhenn mentions; he voted for them. There is a world of difference between voting for a bill and authoring one.

The two bills from Barack’s days as a state senator that Jim cites here also don’t qualify "major" legislation. For him to be correct we need to expand the definition of what "Major" means. In his little world of strange proportions William Hung would qualify as a major recording star, and Kate Moss could probably qualify as a Sumo Wrestler. The fact is that Obama's record is so thin that he has started claiming that running for office gives him the executive experience he needs to be President.

So Sarah is correct, Obama has not authored a single major law or reform.

PALIN: "The Democratic nominee for president supports plans to raise income taxes, raise payroll taxes, raise investment income taxes, raise the death tax, raise business taxes, and increase the tax burden on the American people by hundreds of billions of dollars."

THE FACTS ACCORDING TO THE AP: The Tax Policy Center, a think tank run jointly by the Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute, concluded that Obama's plan would increase after-tax income for middle-income taxpayers by about 5 percent by 2012, or nearly $2,200 annually. McCain's plan, which cuts taxes across all income levels, would raise after tax-income for middle-income taxpayers by 3 percent, the center concluded.

Obama would provide $80 billion in tax breaks, mainly for poor workers and the elderly, including tripling the Earned Income Tax Credit for minimum-wage workers and higher credits for larger families.

He also would raise income taxes, capital gains and dividend taxes on the wealthiest. He would raise payroll taxes on taxpayers with incomes above $250,000, and he would raise corporate taxes. Small businesses that make more than $250,000 a year would see taxes rise.

THE TRUTH: The Brookings Institute is a far left "Think Tank", so the conclusions of one of their subsidiaries are hardly credible. If Obama said his fiscal policy would be based on Alchemy or hens shooting golden eggs out their back end, they would call it a triumph economic genius. In truth his tax plan raises taxes across the board and has been panned by the Wall Street Journal, Stanford University, Investor’s Business Daily, etc. In short, financial professionals have about as much confidence in Obama’s fiscal proposals as they do in a Wall Street rally by Enron.

MCCAIN: "She's been governor of our largest state, in charge of 20 percent of America's energy supply ... She's responsible for 20 percent of the nation's energy supply. I'm entertained by the comparison and I hope we can keep making that comparison that running a political campaign is somehow comparable to being the executive of the largest state in America," he said in an interview with ABC News' Charles Gibson.

THE FACTS ACCORDING TO THE AP: McCain's phrasing exaggerates both claims. Palin is governor of a state that ranks second nationally in crude oil production, but she's no more "responsible" for that resource than President Bush was when he was governor of Texas, another oil-producing state. In fact, her primary power is the ability to tax oil, which she did in concert with the Alaska Legislature. And where Alaska is the largest state in America, McCain could as easily have called it the 47th largest state — by population.

THE TRUTH: This is dead wrong on its face. She is responsible for helping foster an environment that would allow Alaska to be the second biggest producer of crude. If a hard core liberal were running Alaska, so many new restrictions would be placed on the state’s oil industry that they would be out produced by a grove of California olive trees.

For proof of the effect that a Governor can have on an industry, we need look no further then Governor Granholm of Michigan and how her policies, as well as an unholy alliance with the unions, have helped destroy the Michigan auto industry. Few would argue that Michigan becoming a "Right to Work" state would help it dramatically. She has dragged her feet on this and a whole host of other issues that would help the auto companies to help themselves.

The writer is also playing a semantics games with his "fact check" in regards to the size of Alaska. Regardless of its population, it is the largest state in the country. So McCain was correct

MCCAIN: "She's the commander of the Alaska National Guard. ... She has been in charge, and she has had national security as one of her primary responsibilities," he said on ABC.

THE FACTS ACCORDING TO THE AP: While governors are in charge of their state guard units, that authority ends whenever those units are called to actual military service. When guard units are deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan, for example, they assume those duties under "federal status," which means they report to the Defense Department, not their governors. Alaska's National Guard units have a total of about 4,200 personnel, among the smallest of state guard organizations.

THE TRUTH: If the Alaska National Guard had only one recruit that would be one more soldier then Obama has ever had to command. The truth is that whether the AP likes it or not, she is in charge of those troops. As the Commander of the Alaska National Guard, she has traveled to the Middle East to visit those under her command. Obama couldn’t be bothered to meet with wounded troops in Germany unless he could turn it into a photo op. There is very little doubt which of these two has more experience when it comes to working with the troops.

Liberals are now trying to diminish her role as the commander of the Alaska National Guard. Oddly enough, a Governor’s position as boss of the state’s National Guard is what the media used to prop up Bill Clinton's command experience credentials during the 1992 election. Unlike Bill, at least Sarah is not a draft dodger.

FORMER ARKANSAS GOV. MIKE HUCKABEE: Palin "got more votes running for mayor of Wasilla, Alaska than Joe Biden got running for president of the United States."

THE FACTS ACCORDING TO THE AP: A whopper. Palin got 616 votes in the 1996 mayor's election, and got 909 in her 1999 re-election race, for a total of 1,525. Biden dropped out of the race after the Iowa caucuses, but he still got 76,165 votes in 23 states and the District of Columbia where he was on the ballot during the 2008 presidential primaries.

THE TRUTH: Kuhnhenn is now trying to use a different semantically tilted argument. In a previous point about Alaska, he stated that McCain could have referenced its populations ranking instead of its physical size when describing how big Alaska is. Well he gets caught in his own trap here. Sarah did win more votes the Biden, based on the percentage of the population. Few will argue that there are more Democrats in the 23 states that Biden competed in then there are people in any single city; whether that city is Wasilla or New York. The percentage of Democrats who voted for Biden was in single digits, while Sarah garnered a winning percentage among her constituents.

So using Kuhnhenn’s own logic, she did win more votes – by population.

FORMER MASSACHUSETTS GOV. MITT ROMNEY: "We need change, all right — change from a liberal Washington to a conservative Washington! We have a prescription for every American who wants change in Washington — throw out the big-government liberals, and elect John McCain and Sarah Palin."

THE FACTS ACCORDING TO THE AP: A Back-to-the-Future moment. George W. Bush, a conservative Republican, has been president for nearly eight years. And until last year, Republicans controlled Congress. Only since January 2007 have Democrats have been in charge of the House and Senate.

THE TRUTH: Kuhnhenn’s bias and lack of research skills are exposed here. Part of the problem that most conservatives have with Bush is he is not a fiscal conservative. He has spent our money like a Kennedy at a strip club and dramatically grew the government. This fiscal irresponsibility is what resulted in Conservatives staying home in 2006 instead of voting to return the spend happy Republicans back to Washington. This guy thinks just because somebody has an R after their name, they must be a conservative. The irony is that the liberals should love Bush for his entitlement programs and open border policies.

Electing a true fiscal conservative would be change for the Republican Party. This is not something we have had since Reagan took the oath of office. If Kuhnhenn actually believes that Bush is a true conservative than he probably also thinks that the Picture of Dorian Gray is something hanging in the Louvre.

To address Kuhnhenn’s last point; under Bush the economy experienced sustained growth, record amounts of cash flowing into the national treasury, and record lows in unemployment. The economy has also survived the Clinton/Gore recession and the negative economic impact of 9/11. After liberals got control, the nation seemed to hit a financial wall.

Considering the failures that of the Reid/Pelosi era, kicking them and their cohorts out of office is probably a change we can all live with.