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Politics : Idea Of The Day -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: IQBAL LATIF who wrote (47046)	10/14/2004 3:46:09 AM
From: IQBAL LATIF	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 50167

NEW DEBATE, SAME KERRY LIES (AND A NEW ONE, TOO) In the third presidential debate last night John Kerry repeated -- twice more! -- a lie about the number of jobs lost during the Bush administration. He told the same lie -- also twice! -- in the second presidential debate, too. From last night: first -- He's also the only president in 72 years to lose jobs -- 1. 6 million jobs lost. and second -- And this is the first president in 72 years to preside over an economy in America that has lost jobs, 1. 6 million jobs. Truth: according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the number of payroll jobs lost is actually 821 thousand (or only 585 thousand if you include the expected upward revision that BLS announced last week). Kerry's 1.6 million is the number of private sector payroll jobs lost. Kerry is arbitrarily and capriciously excluding the public sector payroll jobs that have been gained. Why? No good reason except that he wants to have a number larger than a million. It sounds so much worse. Okay -- you like numbers larger than a million? You like 1.6 million in particular? Well, that happens to be the number of jobs gained during the Bush administration if you include both payroll and self-employment jobs, also according to BLS. The Washington Post excused those lies then, saying "Kerry misspoke. He meant to qualify that statistic by referring to 'private sector' jobs" (isn't it just amazing how the Post knows what Kerry "meant" to do?). Paul Krugman in the New York Times excused those lies, too, saying "Mr. Kerry sometimes uses verbal shorthand that offers nitpickers things to complain about." Fine. Give him the benefit of the doubt -- the first time. But this time he can't say he wasn't warned -- by the Washington Post and the New York Times, no less. This time it's flat-out, willful lying. No excuses. Fool me twice, shame on you. Kerry also told another lie last night about the future costs of President Bush's spending proposals. Claiming (falsely) that "the president's plan" for reforming Social Security (the President has announced no such plan) would cost $2 trillion, Kerry said last night, Now, the president has never explained to America, ever, hasn't done it tonight, where does the transitional money, that $2 trillion, come from? He's already got $3 trillion, according to The Washington Post, of expenses that he's put on the line from his convention and the promises of this campaign, none of which are paid for. Kerry is referring to a September 14 Washington Post story by Mike Allen, in which Bush's spending plans were said to total $3 trillion. However, the $2 trillion cost of Social Security reform was already included in the $3 trillion. When Kerry says "He's already got $3 trillion," he is implying that the $2 trillion for Social Security reform would be in addition -- in other words, that the total would grow to $5 trillion. At this point Kerry's just in love with the sound of his own voice -- so he arrogantly repeats lies that have been identified even by his own apparatchiks, and casually over-embellishes his soundbites into silly exaggerations. It's back to pure Bush-bashing, Michael Moore style -- where lies and exaggerations don't matter, because the end justifies the means, and the more you lie the more the adoring audience of the faithful applauds. We now have three weeks to wait -- for Kerry to blow himself up with this arrogant crap. Posted by Donald Luskin at 2:31 AM \| link