Thursday Mashup (7/7/11)

Glenn Kessler of the WaPo tells us here that, after six months of supposed “fact checking” between the Dems and the Repugs, the total of who told more lies is as follows: it’s a tie.

To say I’m skeptical of such a finding is putting it mildly, so I took a look at one of Kessler’s supposed critiques of a Democratic politician here (namely, Sen. Barbara Boxer’s claim that the Repugs didn’t do anything to help grow the economy in the ‘90s)…

In Boxer’s telling, the budget surplus that emerged in 1998 and continued for four years sprang forth from a critical moment — the passage of Bill Clinton’s 1993 deficit-reduction bill. For those who don’t remember, it was a cliffhanger vote in both houses of Congress, with not a single Republican lawmaker supporting it.

“Lucky for us, a lot of us are still here who made that fateful vote. We didn't have one Republican voting for that budget, and when they came to the floor — I have all the quotes, chapter and verse--they said: This is horrible. It will never balance the budget. This is going to lead to a depression. This is the worst thing,” Boxer recounted.

Boxer added: “But we know what happened. We not only balanced the budget, but we had a surplus. We not only had a surplus, but the debt was going down so fast we thought we would never have to have Treasury bonds again. On top of that, we created 23 million jobs.”

But is that really what happened? Were Republicans — who controlled the House and essentially the Senate when the budget was in surplus in 1998, 1999, 2000 and 2001 — irrelevant to the process?

Umm, yeah, they were – as noted here…

So why, then, does he give Boxer three pinnocchios (note: a “pinnocchio” is Kessler’s unit of measurement of sorts for a lie)? What is his evidence that the GOP had anything to do with the surpluses? Well, he says, they caused a “substantial shift in the policy debate” when they got to Washington.

Even if that claim is true — and Kessler offers no evidence that it is — did that “shift in the debate” lead to any actual legislation that had any impact on the bottom line? No, it did not. I’m at a loss to explain how a perceived “shift in the debate” that led to no real change in budgeting policy can be credited with improving the budget situation.

Kessler is also upset that Boxer doesn’t give enough credit to the booming economy for its role in helping to balance the budget. And it is true that the enormous economic growth in the early 1990s was crucial to achieving a balanced budget.

But that doesn’t invalidate the point that GOP-led legislation played no role. Quite the opposite. Even with the benefit of the boom, the budget would still have been in deficit had it not been for the Democratic-passed legislation. Republican-passed legislation still played no role at all.

And as noted here (in a Media Matters post correcting another erroneous WaPo Op-Ed on the economy), Boxer is correct in saying that the Clinton 1993 budget passed with no Repug votes (just like the Affordable Care Act passed with no Republican votes, just like the “stim” passed with no U.S. House Repug votes…).

It just goes to show that, when it comes to fact checking, leave it to the lefty blogs to get it right (and let Kessler propagandize as he wishes…caveat emptor, as they say).

Update 7/12/11: Sounds like Kessler is up to his old tricks (here).

Continuing, it looks like Gramps McCain is crankier than usual these days (here)…

In a colloquy with Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas) on the Senate floor (McCain) asked if it was her view that the Senate had been "terribly overworked" this week.

"I understand we cancelled our Fourth of July recess to get back here and get back to work and do the people's business," said McCain. "Is it correct that this is the second vote we have taken, the first one being an instruction the sergeant-at-arms and this one another highly controversial issue that was taken up?"

McCain added that he would have a hard time explaining to his constituents back in Arizona what the Senate had been up to. His remarks reflected those of President Obama, who at a press conference last week chided Congress about its work schedule.

In response, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) cancelled the fourth of July recess for the first time in decades and directed the Senate to hold two votes, neither of which involved creating actual legislation.

And Reid added the following (here)…

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) on Thursday defended the Senate's light work schedule and his decision to keep the upper chamber in session during a week usually reserved for the Independence Day recess.

"There was a lot of work this week that took place as a result of us being here that would not have taken place but for the fact that we were in session," said Reid. "There has been a lot of working going on behind the scenes."

Reid was defending the schedule against a speech delivered by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) in which he asked if the week, which included just two minor votes, had been a "worthwhile expenditure of the taxpayers' dollar."

Reid also blamed Republicans for clogging up the Senate's legislative process and making it difficult for him to schedule votes.

"One reason we aren't having a lot of votes in recent months is because we cannot get things to the floor," said Reid. "We are stopped by my Republican friends."

Well, I suppose that’s just a good “return on investment” when you consider that the Heritage Foundation hosted a little party here of corporate lobbyists who shared tips on how to obstruct the Senate, with nary a peep of condemnation from “Senator Honor and Virtue” and his pals in the Senate (the Think Progress post tells us that Steven Duffield, one of the Heritage-sponsored “experts” at the event, is responsible for the following)…

While he helps corporations place secret holds for his corporate clients, Duffield has elected a new crew of Republican senators to boost his business. In addition to his lobbying gig, Duffield serves as “Policy Director” of Crossroads GPS, the undisclosed corporate front group that helped elect Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI), Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA), Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-NH), and other freshmen Republican senators. By granting Duffield and Wichterman a platform to promote Senate obstruction, Heritage is doing a service for corporate lobbyists.

And as noted here, there actually was a window to cleaning up these antics last January, which Dems Tom Udall and Jeff Merkley tried to pry open, to no avail (and with no help from “Country First” McCain, either).

Also, this tells us that Number 44 dodged the question of invoking the 14th amendment to ensure that the debt ceiling is raised at his recent “Twitter Town Hall” (this provides more background). In response, Repug U.S. House Rep Tim Scott invoked impeachment here.

Actually, Scott did us a bit of a favor here by confirming what we always suspected, which is the fact that Roger Ailes, Rupert Murdoch and the rest of the “brain trust” at Fix Noise tells the Repugs where to go, what to do, what to say, and how high to jump when they’re told to do so.

And I wonder if all of those numbskulls applauding Scott when he actually mentioned impeaching Obama over a perfectly legitimate exercise of presidential prerogative know that their U.S. House rep sponsored a bill to deny food stamps to families who have a member on strike (here)?

Finally, I detected more than a little bit of corporate media tut-tutting over the following (here)…

Speaking before a group of liberal youth activists Wednesday, (former President Bill) Clinton said laws in states like Florida and New Hampshire are aimed at limiting voter turnout and keeping young people from the ballot box.

"There has never been in my lifetime, since we got rid of the poll tax and all the voter Jim Crow burdens on voting, the determined effort to limit a franchise that we see today," Clinton said at Campus Progress's annual conference in Washington.

…

"Why should we disenfranchise people forever once they've paid their price?" Clinton said. "Because most of them in Florida were African Americans and Hispanics and would tend to vote for Democrats, that's why."

He also referred to a proposal in New Hampshire that would prevent college students from registering to vote where they attend school, instead of where they are from originally.

(Oh, and speaking of attempting to disenfranchise younger voters, particularly college students, I’m sure the results of that supposed investigation by Repug Bucks County CA David Heckler into last year’s Ciervo/Fitzpatrick letter – from here – will be forthcoming any day now…any day now…).

Actually, in addition to Florida and New Hampshire, this Think Progress post tells us that conservatives are moving to disenfranchise younger voters in 20 other statehouses across the country.

So, if anything, I don’t have an issue with President Clinton for going too far in invoking Jim Crow, poll taxes, and other ways to suppress core Democratic constituencies.

I have a problem because he didn’t go far enough.

Update 7/10/11: OK, this is progress.