response 35 of 107:

Feb 2 00:16 UTC 2006

Whooooooops!

response 37 of 107:

Feb 2 01:32 UTC 2006

FactCheck.org has published their analysis of the State of the Union  
address.  They found nothing factually incorrect, but several instances 
of statistics being used selectively. I'll copy the summary here; the 
full text is at http://www.factcheck.org/article376.html  
 
--- 
  
The President left out a few things when surveying the State of the  
Nation:  
  
* He proudly spoke of "writing a new chapter in the story of  
self-government" in Iraq and Afghanistan and said the number of  
democracies in the world is growing. He failed to mention that neither  
Iraq nor Afghanistan yet qualify as democracies according to the very  
group whose statistics he cited.  
  
* Bush called for Congress to pass a line-item veto, failing to mention  
that the Supreme Court struck down a line-item veto as unconstitutional  
in 1998. Bills now in Congress would propose a Constitutional  
amendment, but none have shown signs of life.  
  
* The President said the economy gained 4.6 million jobs in the past  
two-and-a-half years, failing to note that it had lost 2.6 million jobs  
in his first two-and-a-half years in office. The net gain since Bush  
took office is just a little more than 2 million.  
  
* He talked of cutting spending, but only "non-security discretionary  
spending." Actually, total federal spending has increased 42 percent  
since Bush took office.  
  
* He spoke of being "on track" to cut the federal deficit in half by  
2009. But the deficit is increasing this year, and according to the  
Congressional Budget Office it will decline by considerably less than  
half even if Bush's tax cuts are allowed to lapse.  
  
* Bush spoke of a "goal" of cutting dependence on Middle Eastern oil,  
failing to mention that US dependence on imported oil and petroleum  
products increased substantially during his first five years in office,  
reaching 60 per cent of consumption last year.  
  

response 39 of 107:

Feb 2 01:46 UTC 2006

Well, I respect enemies of freedom but I disagree with them and see no reason
to discuss it further.  I don't know why they hate our country and our
freedomes.  Freedom is on the March.  We want to send the right kind of
message to our troops.  That's why I'm asking Congress to summon Chtulu here
tonight as we carpetbomb the shit out of Iran.  See, I'm a war przdunt.

response 41 of 107:

Feb 2 02:59 UTC 2006

>FactCheck.org has published their analysis of the State of the Union  
>address.  They found nothing factually incorrect,

Well, there's this:  http://tinyurl.com/aydpa

Also, charges against Cindy Sheehan have been dropped because--Oops!--it
turns out that exercising one's 1stAmendment rights via t-shirt isn't
actually against the law.  Who woulda guessed?

response 43 of 107:

Feb 2 04:14 UTC 2006

" * The President said the economy gained 4.6 million jobs in the past  
 two-and-a-half years, failing to note that it had lost 2.6 million jobs  
 in his first two-and-a-half years in office. The net gain since Bush  
 took office is just a little more than 2 million."

The *population* has increased by 15 million since Bush took office. About 
64% of the population is in the labor force. That means that the required 
employment growth needed to keep pace with population increase is 9.6 
million. A net gain of 2 million is barely 21 % of that required to 
maintain a steady employment percentage. This is a pretty miserable 
performance of the economy.

response 45 of 107:

Feb 2 06:33 UTC 2006

Re resp:41: I don't think the goal was ever to charge her with anything.
 The goal was to get her out of sight before anyone noticed her.


Re resp:42: FactCheck.org does routinely take on both sides, though. 
(For example, here's a rather strong criticism of a recent DNC ad:
http://www.factcheck.org/article373.html) They also provide citations
for everything they say.  I find them useful even if I don't agree with
all of their conclusions.

I don't think their State of the Union article was one of their better
ones, but I thought it might be of interest here.  I think that, at very
least, they should have picked a different headline; the use of the word
"misstatement" isn't supported by the article text.  This crops up
enough that I'm wondering if their headlines are written by an editor
instead of by the article authors -- a common practice in journalism.

Incidentally, I keyed in on the President's use of the term "non-defense
discretionary spending" as a bit of a dodge as soon as I heard it.  That
category is a tiny portion of the budget, only 16%.  Cutting spending
there is unlikely to make up for his goal of making his tax cuts permanent.

response 47 of 107:

Feb 2 09:50 UTC 2006

The State of the Union should be broadcast on the Comedy Channel.

response 49 of 107:

Feb 2 15:57 UTC 2006

Look what happened during the last two democratic elections for the President
of the USA.  There are many ways to rig an election, and also to bamboozle
the voters, some of whom have mental ages of about 5.

response 51 of 107:

Feb 2 16:14 UTC 2006

You don't seriously expect us to believe that the antepenultimate election,
and the one before that, ended with the election of a president even worse
than the current half-trained monkey, do you?

Oh wait. Yes. You do.

response 53 of 107:

Feb 2 16:30 UTC 2006

Re 51: How the hell did you get that from #50?

response 55 of 107:

Feb 2 16:47 UTC 2006

And from that you conclude my meaning was that Bush was better than Clinton?

response 57 of 107:

Feb 2 16:52 UTC 2006

I took that your meaning was that the elections of 1992 and 1996 were
less well conducted (in the sense of having irregularities and not
producing a clear result) than the elections of 2000 and 2004.  What I'm
not sure is where that comes from.  The 1996 election did have the odd
influence of Perot as a possible spoiler, and a relatively low turnout,
but I certainly don't see that as remotely similar to what happened in
2000.