Politifact-ish

Last night at the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte former President Clinton gave a terrific (although somewhat bullshitty) speech nominating President Obama for a second term in office. Clinton is a once-in-a-lifetime political talent.  This appearance will likely be his last opportunity to deliver such a high profile performance and he clearly relished it.

This, of course, isn't to say that Clinton was a particularly good President.  His great failure to pass health reform during his first term set the bar low enough for the subsequent Obama compromise legislation to be considered a success.  His welfare reform package punished poor people for being poor while subsidizing the exploitative practices of the companies that employ them. The North American Free Trade Agreement further gutted an already crumbling American industrial base.  His de-regulation of financial services set the stage for the calamitous collapse of 2007-2008.  He hired Rahm Emmanuel, Robert Rubin, and Larry Summers. He launched deadly military attacks in Afghanistan, Iraq, Sudan, and Serbia.  I could go on, but to sum it up, Bill Clinton is a tremendous asshole.

But he's also a gifted politician and he demonstrated this again last night.  Sure he said some things that are just plain wrong.  He defended welfare reform, he made a "structural unemployment" type argument regarding jobs policy, he even praised the Simpson-Bowles "compromise" attack on Social Security and Medicare. But what he did well (and what no other Democrat including Obama will do half as well) was address and explode each and every ridiculous lie put forward by the Republicans during their major speeches last week. In other words... what Digby said.

The best thing about the speech wasn't the content, although much of that (with some exceptions) was good, it was the fact that he showed America once again that you can talk about policy specifics in a political speech in a way that's not condescending but is easy to understand. Nobody thinks it's possible, but he does it. More politicians should try.

I don't know if "more should try" to do what Bill Clinton does on the stump because most just aren't capable.  But I do know that if Obama wants to win this year, he will allow Clinton to do as much campaigning for him as he possibly can.

But getting back to Clinton and the obvious Republican lying last week which was so bad that even FOX News had to call some of it out. Now that Clinton has attacked the lying head-on with a fact-based argument, the "balanced" political press is charged with finding stupid ways to make it seem like he's lying just as much or as badly.

This morning Politifact is already on the job.  Last night, the "Truth-O-Meter" examined this statement from Clinton, "The Recovery Act saved or created millions of jobs and cut taxes -- let me say this again -- cut taxes for 95 percent of the American people."  Last night, that statement was rated as 100% True with the little green light graphic. This morning, Politifact has decided that needed to be fudged a bit.

However, Clinton left out an important qualifier: It’s a tax cut for 95 percent of working families.

Not everyone works -- think seniors or the unemployed, for example -- and when you account for those people, the percentage of people who get a tax cut drops to approximately 75 percent.

That’s still tax cuts for many Americans, but not close to the 95-percent range. We rate Clinton’s statement Half True.

See there.  Clinton, in relaying but misstating slightly, an undisputed fact that 95 percent of working families received a tax cut is telling you a deceptive "Half-Truth"  Both sides do it! Balance achieved.

Update: AP "fact check" gets even dumber