Topic: NewsBusters
NewsBusters appears to be opening a new front in attacking insufficiently positive coverage of Sarah Palin -- nitpicking fact-checks of her claims.
A Sept. 5 post by Lyndsi Thomas asserted that a fact-check of Palin's Republican National Convention speech by CNN "needs a little fact checking of its own."
One of the statements in Palin's speech that CNN found "false" was her claim that she "stood up to the special interests and the lobbyists." To negate this claim, Feyerick said, "Palin was the Wasilla mayor to hire a Washington lobbyist, securing $11 million in special funding for the town." However, Palin prefaced this particular statement by saying "This was the spirit that brought me to the governor's office, when I took on the old politics as usual in Juneau," signifying that her claim of standing up to special interests, lobbyists and big oil companies took place when she became governor.
In other words, she was for it before she was against it, and that's a distinction Thomas doesn't think is worthy of note.
Thomas also complains that CNN notes that "as governor, Palin asked Congress for $453 million for earmarks" but "hardly mentions Obama's requests for earmarks, including one for his wife's hospital." But Obama hasn't run an anti-earmark crusade like Palin has.
In a similar nitpicking vein, a Sept. 5 post by Michael M. Bates takes issue with Palin's claim that when she decided to sell a state-owned jet, "I put it on eBay." The Tribune points out that "Palin's statement implied the plane was sold through the online auction site," when in fact it didn't sell on eBay and was ultimately sold through other means. Bates didn't like that approach, choosing to go ultra-literal:
So what part of Palin's claim doesn't fly? She didn't assert the plane sold on eBay, merely that "I put it on eBay." Seems like the Tribune, in its eagerness to expose the "real Sarah," came to an incorrect conclusion and not one supported by the governor's original contention.
Bates might want to mention that to John McCain, who declared that Palin "took the luxury jet that was acquired by her predecessor and sold it on eBay — made a profit." See, he thinks "put on eBay" means "sold on eBay" too!
McCain, by the way, embellished the false claim with a second one -- that plane was sold at a profit. In fact, the state lost a half-million dollars on the deal.
