Candidates leaving out facts in debate

AP | 12/10/03 | NEDRA PICKLER

[kattracks]

WASHINGTON (AP) — It could be embarrassing to have millions of TV viewers think you don't shower. But Lisa and Randy Denuccio say they do in fact wash up, clearing up one of several misstatements by the Democratic presidential candidates in their latest debate.

Facts got most blurred Tuesday night when the Democrats took on President Bush's record, such as when Sen. John Kerry criticized the administration's environmental policies by telling the story of the Salem, N.H., couple.

As he told it, the Denuccios can't drink their water or shower because they live next to a lake contaminated with the gasoline additive MTBE.

But in a post-debate telephone interview, Lisa Denuccio said the couple now showers with the water from their town rather than the old polluted well. "We can't do without that," she said of the showers. However, she says, they still drink bottled water.

Debate viewers got a gloomy picture of the economy and, perhaps predictably, heard about none of the improvements that have come since Bush took office. For example, Sen. Joe Lieberman declared it would take a Democratic president to "get this economy going," but the economy has been gaining momentum over the last several months since Bush's third round of tax cuts took effect.

Weekly claims for unemployment insurance have fallen since April, and economic growth and productivity in the third quarter reached 20-year highs.

Several of the nine candidates criticized the tax cuts Bush pushed through Congress. But none mentioned that Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, who has served both Republican and Democratic presidents, has cited those cuts as a reason for the recent economic growth.

Using a favored attack line against Bush, Lieberman said "3.5 million people have lost their jobs" and Howard Dean commented twice on the 3 million jobs lost under Bush.

While it is true that about 3 million jobs were lost during the early months of the Bush presidency, that trend has been reversing for several months as the jobless rate has dropped from a peak of 6.4 percent in June to 5.9 percent last month.

Kathleen Hall Jamieson, who studies political rhetoric at the University of Pennsylvania, said the debate was filled with hyperbole and exaggeration typical of candidates trying to unseat an incumbent president.

"If you were trying to get facts from this debate, you are going to get confused," she said. "You have the party out of power exaggerating the negative impact of the administration and ignoring the positive impact."

Some of the context also got omitted on foreign policy, as in Wesley Clark's and Dean's arguments that Bush is "not fighting terrorism."

Although al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden remains at large, the administration's war, including the arrest of Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, has substantially thinned the ranks of the terror network. The administration also has thwarted attacks through increased cooperation with allies.

On the Iraq front, Dean declared, "I think we need to bring in foreign troops," although 24,000 soldiers from NATO countries are already fighting with the 130,000 U.S. troops. While some big Western allies, like Germany and France, have refused to send troops to Iraq, the campaign has received support from the likes of Britain, Poland, Japan, Italy, Hungary, Denmark and Ukraine.

The candidates also left out some of the facts when talking about their own campaigns.

North Carolina Sen. John Edwards boasted that he does not take money from Washington lobbyists because they have too much influence on politics. He did not mention that his campaign manager, Nick Baldick, has lobbied for clients like Blue Cross-Blue Shield, Burger King and Northwest Airlines.

Clark, meanwhile, said going to war with Iraq was a "strategic blunder." He also has said he would have voted for the congressional resolution that authorized Bush to use military force against Saddam Hussein.

[South40]

While it is true that about 3 million jobs were lost during the early months of the Bush presidency

Not true

[Always Right]

If there's any more coverage like this, we're going to have to start rethinking the long-held assumption that the press is liberal.

The vast majority of reporters and newspeople are still to the left of center. From this story it seems this reporter would go in the right of center category, but she is still in the 10-15% minority. There is no way an intelligent person could make an honest arguement that the media overall is not left-leaning. The only people who see the media as conservative also believe Bush is the second coming of Hitler. Their views are just too distroted to have a honest rationale discussion with.

[Phlap]

Now this is pretty.

[raybbr]

As he told it, the Denuccios can't drink their water or shower because they live next to a lake contaminated with the gasoline additive MTBE.

Kerry voted for Senate bill 1630 which was part of the Clean Air Act that required MTBE to be added to gasoline. This reporter should have dug deeper. While it is true this shows Kerry in bad light it could have gone further.

[raybbr]

Which one?