Blumner heeds own advice, attacks Republicans

Robyn "Blumñata" Blumner, editorial columnist for The St. Petersburg Times (often called The SlantPetersburg Lies by a local radio personality) took this week's column to make herself a living example of her past exhortation that Democrats attack Republicans in order to get their own elected.

This week's lesson consists of calling the Republicans liars.

It doesn't seem to matter what the facts are or how directly they contradict the candidates' claims, the McCain-Palin campaign is sticking with its fantasy version.

You can't reverse the facts opposite the claims much better than Barack Obama's reversal on campaign finance reform. For some reason the Democrats get a pass on that one from Blumñata. Regardless of team Obama's failings, however, legitimate examples of falsehoods by the McCain campaign should interest citizens of good conscience.

Of course, the most obvious example is the leviathan pork-barrel $223-million bridge to nowhere that Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin claims to have opposed. She has put this at the top of her resume for the job of Vice Maverick-in-Chief.

It doesn't seem to matter, as has now been reported endlessly, that when Palin ran for governor she endorsed the bridge project that would have connected a tiny island with few residents to the mainland city of Ketchikan. She only abandoned it when the project became politically radioactive. Then, as governor, Palin kept the hundreds of millions in taxpayer money, redirecting the cash for other transportation projects.

It reflects no inconsistency for Palin to favor infrastructure to link Ketchikan to Gravina Island and its airport and ultimately kill the earmark version of the project, and Palin did voice opposition to the scope of the proposed solution from an early point in her service as governor. Palin did oppose the project, and as a result her statement is true. The lie here is from Blumner for portraying the truth as a lie. See my more detailed analysis of the bridge project and the GOP claims about it here.

We also know that Palin is queen of winning federal earmarks. As mayor of Wasilla, she hired a private lobbyist to help bring in $27-million in earmarks to her town of 7,000. As governor, she has made the largest per-capita federal earmark request in the nation, totalling nearly $750-million.

So when the McCain-Palin campaign runs on an end-to-earmarks message and seeks to tar Barack Obama with his earmark requests that are modest by comparison, it is once again resorting to those Lying Eyes.

It does not reflect any distortion of the truth by McCain/Palin if Palin sought earmarks while mayor of Wasilla or governor of Alaska unless the campaign portrays it otherwise. Somehow Blumner forgets to include any such thing in her column. Did her editor delete that paragraph?

But speaking of lying, note how easily Blumñata downplays Obama's earmarks as "modest by comparison." Blumnata apparently trusts the reader to think in terms of per capita spending, because Obama requested $740 million. That amount is hardly "modest" compared to $750 million over the same span of time. Could that be why Blumñata neglected to reveal the price tag on Obama's earmarks? More importantly, Obama's requests came from within the corrupt congressional system whereas Palin's came from outside.

Senator Barack Obama on Thursday released a list of $740 million in earmarked spending requests that he had made over the last three years, and his campaign challenged Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton to do the same.

The list included $1 million for a hospital where Mr. Obama’s wife works, money for several projects linked to campaign donors and support for more than 200 towns, civic institutions and universities in Illinois.
(The New York Times)

We're halfway through the column and so far Blumñata has nothing to back up her thesis.

Now let's talk about taxes. The campaign of John McCain has put out a series of scary campaign ads about Obama's tax plan. Newsweek has dubbed them a "pattern of deceit."

We now have a nugget of truth. Newsweek did make that claim about the McCain ads, and in fact the claim stemmed from the normally dependable Annenberg fact checkers (FactCheck.org). Newsweek accords them space from time to time. But is it an accurate claim?
Popular analysis of the tax plans offered by the candidates tends to omit the trickle-down effects of higher corporate tax rates on the middle-income earners that Obama claims will get larger tax breaks under his tax plan. Further complicating the analysis, Obama has recently hedged on his intention to raise taxes on high income earners, acknowledging that the move would hurt the economy at an inopportune time. In addition, comparison of the tax plans tends to ignore Obama's spending proposals. Regardless of whether McCain's tax plan results in a larger deficit, Obama more than makes up for it with his proposed spending ($6.9 billion proposed by McCain, $287 billion by Obama, according to the National Taxpayers Union).

Apparently Blumñata used the same faulty reasoning that came from FactCheck.org, which analyzed a McCain ad suggesting "years of deficits" following Obama's prescription solely in terms of tax policy. But the ad copy printed along with the analysis plainly deals with Obama's spending proposals:

Crowd: Obama, Obama…
Announcer: Take away the crowds, the chants. All that's left are costly words. Barack Obama and out of touch congressional leaders have expensive plans. Billions in government spending, years of deficits, no balanced budgets, and painful tax increases on working American families. They're ready to tax, ready to spend, but not ready to lead.
(red emphasis added)

One day even Democrats (perhaps even Blumñata herself) will have to acknowledge that budgetary spending affects the deficit.

She has no more supposed examples of "Lying Eyes" from McCain. What she offered was bogus.

What a disgrace to editorial writing.