Empty Suits and Other Trick Games 1
Empty Suit four and a half, McCain one half, the others one each.
From Fact Check dot org. Follow the link for the full analysis:
- Romney complained that McCain used “the wrong data” about job creation to support his assertion that Massachusetts had ranked 47th among the 50 states while Romney was governor. Romney was wrong; McCain was correct.
- Romney said his hundreds of millions of dollars in “fee increases” merely caught up with years of inflation and weren’t tax increases in disguise. Independent budget experts contradict him on that.
- Romney said the over-budget costs of his Massachusetts health care plan were due to changes made by his successor. Authorities on the plan say that’s mostly untrue; costs went up because more people than expected signed up for state-subsidized insurance.
- Romney wrongly claimed McCain’s anti-global-warming bill would boost gasoline prices by up to 50 cents per gallon. Actually, the official estimate is 40 cents for most vehicles, and not until the year 2025.
- McCain and Romney traded oversimplified assertions regarding a “timetable” for withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq.
- Huckabee cited a Heritage Foundation study to back up his assertion that rebates to taxpayers aren’t as good a way to stimulate the economy as the highway construction he favors. In fact, the study does disparage rebates but urges tax cuts instead, not increased spending.
- Ron Paul repeated his claim that defending the U.S. “empire” is costing “a trillion dollars a year.” But the dubious figure includes costs such as the entire Veterans Affairs budget. Paul also claimed “nobody” is talking about cutting spending, even as his rivals did so 14 times during the same debate.
By the way, a thought occurred to me as I read John Cole’s musings, quoted here:
Maybe it’s the emptiness in the suit.
Empty Suit is touting his experience as a “management consultant.”
One of the definitions of a “management consultant” is someone who is more than 50 miles away from home, carrying a Blackberry, who charges [mumble] hundreds of dollars an hour to tell the client what the client wants to hear.
Considering how consistently Mitt the Flip has changed his positions in the past year, it seems pretty clear that he can’t figure out what this client–the American electorate–wants to hear.
His business model is crashing about his ears, because he now has to think for himself.
And the OEM “think-for-yourself” equipment seems to have shorted out.
January 31, 2008 at 9:49 pm
“Romney wrongly claimed McCain’s anti-global-warming bill would boost gasoline prices by up to 50 cents per gallon. Actually, the official estimate is 40 cents for most vehicles, and not until the year 2025.”
This Factcheck.org outfit would probably do well to stick to the facts. Romney had his estimate, Factcheck’s “official” estimate was lower. They are both estimates, not facts.