Grading PolitiFact: Joe Biden and the Flint crime rate

To assess the truth for a numbers claim, the biggest factor is the underlying message.
--PolitiFact editor Bill Adair

The issue:

(clipped from PolitiFact.com)

The fact checkers:

Angie Drobnic Holan:  writer, researcher
Sue Owen:  researcher
Martha Hamilton:  editor

Analysis:

This PolitiFact item very quickly blew up in their faces.  The story was published at about 6 p.m. on Oct. 20.  The CYA was published at about 2:30 p.m. on Oct. 21, after FactCheck.org and the Washington Post published parallel items very critical of Biden.  PolitiFact rated Biden "Mostly True."

First, the context:



(my portion of transcript in italics, portion of transcript used by PolitiFact highlighted in yellow):

BIDEN:

If anyone listening doubts whether there is a direct correlation between the reduction of cops and firefighters and the rise in concerns of public safety, they need look no further than your city, Mr. Mayor.  

In 2008--you know, Pat Moynihan said everyone's entitled to their own opinion, they're not entitled to their own facts.  Let's look at the facts.  In 2008 when Flint had 265 sworn officers on their police force, there were 35 murders and 91 rapes in this city.  In 2010, when Flint had only 144 police officers the murder rate climbed to 65 and rapes, just to pick two categories, climbed to 229.  In 2011 you now only have 125 shields.  

God only knows what the numbers will be this year for Flint if we don't rectify it.  And God only knows what the number would have been if we had not been able to get a little bit of help to you.

As we note from the standard Bill Adair epigraph, the most important thing about a numbers claim is the underlying message.  Writer Angie Drobnic Holan apparently has no trouble identifying Biden's underlying message (bold emphasis added):

If Congress doesn’t pass President Barack Obama’s jobs plan, crimes like rape and murder will go up as cops are laid off, says Vice President Joe Biden.

It’s a stark talking point. But Biden hasn’t backed down in the face of challenges during the past week, citing crime statistics and saying, "Look at the facts." In a confrontation with a conservative blogger on Oct. 19, Biden snapped, "Don’t screw around with me."

No doubt the Joe Biden of the good "Truth-O-Meter" rating is very admirable in refusing to back down.  The "conservative blogger" is Jason Mattera, editor of the long-running conservative periodical "Human Events."  You're a blogger, Mattera.  PolitiFact says so.

But back to shooting the bigger fish in this barrel.

PolitiFact:

We looked at Biden’s crime numbers and turned to the Federal Bureau of Investigation's uniform crime statistics to confirm them. But the federal numbers aren’t the same as the numbers Biden cited. (Several of our readers did the same thing; we received several requests to check Biden’s numbers.)

When we looked at the FBI’s crime statistics, we found that Flint reported 32 murders in 2008 and 53 murders in 2010. Biden said 35 and 65 -- not exactly the same but in the same ballpark.

Drobnic Holan initially emphasizes a fact check of the numbers.  Compared to the FBI numbers, Biden inflated the murder rate for both 2008 and 2010, and his inflated set of numbers in turn inflates the percentage increase by 45 percent (or 27 percentage points, going from 60 percent to 87 percent).  So it's a decent-sized ballpark.

PolitiFact:

For rapes, though, the numbers seemed seriously off. The FBI showed 103 rapes in 2008 and 92 rapes in 2010 -- a small decline. The numbers Biden cited were 91 rapes in 2008 and 229 in 2010 -- a dramatic increase.

If inflating the percentage increase in murders by 27 percentage points is not a problem for Biden then this at least sounds like a problem.

After going over some other reports on the numbers and a surprising discussion of how not much evidence suggests that Obama's jobs bill would address the number of police officers in Flint, PolitiFact returns to the discrepancy between the numbers:

(W)e found that discrepancies between the FBI and local agencies are not uncommon, and they happen for a number of reasons. Local numbers are usually more current and complete, and local police departments may have crime definitions that are more expansive than those of the FBI.

All this is very nice, but we're talking about the city of Flint, here.  We don't really need current stats for 2008 and 2010 because they're well past.  Perhaps that affects the completeness aspect of crime statistics also; PolitiFact's description is too thin to permit a judgment.  As for "expansive" definitions, well, there's a problem with that.  Biden's number of rapes in 2008 is lower than the number reported in the UCR (FBI) data.  That is a counterintuitive result for a more expansive definition of rape and ought to attract a journalist's attention.

In short, even with these proposed explanations it seems as though something isn't right.

PolitiFact:

Flint provided us with a statement from Police Chief Alvern Lock when we asked about the differences in the crime statistics, particularly the rape statistics.

"The City of Flint stands behind the crime statistics provided to the Office of The Vice President.  These numbers are an actual portrayal of the level of violent crime in our city and are the same numbers we have provided to our own community. This information is the most accurate data and demonstrates the rise in crime associated with the economic crisis and the reduced staffing levels.

"The discrepancies with the FBI and other sources reveal the differences in how crimes can be counted and categorized, based on different criteria." (Read the entire statement)

This is a city that's submitting clerical errors to the FBI, and we still have the odd problem with the rape statistics.  If the city can provide numbers to Joe Biden then why can't PolitiFact have the same set of numbers?   And maybe the city can include stats for crimes other than the ones Biden may have cherry-picked?  Not that PolitiFact cares about cherry-picked stats, of course.

Bottom line, why are we trusting the local Flint data sight unseen?

PolitiFact caps Biden's reward with a statement from criminologist and Obama campaign donor James Alan Fox of Northeastern University to the effect that Biden makes a legitimate point that "few police can translate to more violent crime" (PolitiFact's phrasing).  Fox affirms that point, by PolitiFact's account, though it's worth noting that on the record Biden asserted a "direct correlation" between crime and the size of a police force.  The change in wording seems strange for a fact check outfit that maintains that "words matter."

The conclusion gives us nothing new other than the "Mostly True" rating.  Biden was supposedly "largely in line" with the UCR murder data for Flint.  His claim about rape apparently did not drag down his rating much even though PolitiFact admittedly could not "fully" explain the discrepancies.  PolitiFact apparently gave Biden credit for the underlying argument that reductions in a police force "could result in increases in violent crime" despite Biden's rhetoric about a "direct correlation."

The grades:

Angie Drobnic Holan:  F
Sue Owen: N/A
Martha Hamilton:  F

This fact check was notable for its reliance on sources apparently predisposed toward the Obama administration and its relatively unquestioning acceptance of information from those sources.  The Washington Post version of this fact check, for comparison, contacted three experts to PolitiFact's one and none of the three had an FEC filing indicating a campaign contribution to Obama.

And no investigation of whether Biden cherry-picked Flint?  Seriously?  See the "Afters" section for more on that as well as commentary on PolitiFact's CYA attempt.

Grading PolitiFact: Joe Biden & the Iraq partition plan

`When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, `it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less.' 
--Lewis Carroll, "Through the Looking Glass" 

The issue:

The fact checkers

Robert Farley: writer, researcher
Martha Hamilton:  editor

Analysis:

Biden's statement came from his appearance with Jake Tapper on ABC's "This Week":

(TAPPER):  You once advocated for a three way partition of Iraq because you were not confident that Iraq's government was capable of having a strong central government. You said:

"The most basic premise of President Bush's approach that the Iraqi people will rally behind a strong central government headed by Maliki, in fact, looks out for their interests equitably is fundamentally and fatally flawed. It will not happen in anybody's lifetime here including the pages!"

So it's -- that was from 2007.
Is it possible that you were right back then...
BIDEN: No.
TAPPER: -- that it is just impossible...
BIDEN: -- and, by the way...
TAPPER: -- to have a centralized government...
BIDEN: No, it's -- I don't want to debate history here, but I never called for a partition. I called for a central government with considerable autonomy in the regions.
TAPPER: Three provinces.
BIDEN: Well, it was...
TAPPER: I'm...
BIDEN: -- not -- it wasn't even, it was to allow them more autonomy, like what's happening in Kurdistan right now, like what's happening in Anbar Province right now.
(yellow highlights added)

Biden's view on Iraq was routinely called a "partition" over the last few years.  PolitiFact's initial response to Biden's statement reflects that:

Biden responded by taking issue with the word "partition" -- which was often used to describe Biden's plan at the time -- saying it was never about breaking Iraq into three separate countries.

"I don't want to debate history here, but I never called for a partition," Biden said. "I called for a central government with considerable autonomy in the regions."

I searched through the rest of Biden's response to Tapper's question and failed to find the vice president saying that it was never about breaking Iraq into three separate countries.  That statement from PolitiFact must therefore count as a liberal paraphrase of the subsequent quotation of Biden.  That paraphrase apparently finds its justification from taking "partition" according to the dictionary definition "3. To divide (a country) into separate, autonomous nations" and not the dictionary definition "b : to divide (as a country) into two or more territorial units having separate political status."

How does one explain this phenomenon?  Watch PolitiFact try:

Check the headlines in 2007, and it's clear that the word "partition" or "soft partition" was often used to describe Biden's proposal, which called for boundaries to be drawn for the country's Kurdish, Sunni and Shiite populations. And so we decided to check his claim that he never called for a partition.

PolitiFact proceeds to provide Biden's own words on the subject of setting up areas within Iraq under the control of the major factions--things that clearly meet the latter definition of "partition"--and include Biden's contemporaneous protestations that he was not proposing a partition of Iraq:

(O)ur plan is not partition, though even some supporters and the media mistakenly call it that. It would hold Iraq together by bringing to life the federal system enshrined in its constitution. A federal Iraq is a united Iraq but one in which power devolves to regional governments, with a limited central government responsible for common concerns such as protecting borders and distributing oil revenue. 

 The conclusion of the fact check indicates that PolitiFact fully accepts Biden's contention:

So is it fair to call Biden's plan a call to "partition" Iraq? Certainly Biden advocated carving out three semi-autonomous regions. In that sense, we could see why many characterized Biden's proposal as a "soft partition." But the word "partition" carries heavy political implications, namely the creation of three separate nations. And that was never Biden's plan. He consistently upheld the idea of one Iraq with a central government, albeit a more modest one responsible for such things as defense, foreign affairs and sharing oil revenues. That's an important distinction. We rate his claim True.

PolitiFact suggests those who use "partition" to mean something other than the establishment of a new autonomous nation or nations are mistaken, even if that includes "some supporters and the media."  The PolitiFact story represents something of a media mea culpa:  "We goofed, Mr. Biden!"

It's time for yet another review of PoltiFact's rating system:

TRUE – The statement is accurate and there’s nothing significant missing.
MOSTLY TRUE – The statement is accurate but needs clarification or additional information.
HALF TRUE – The statement is accurate but leaves out important details or takes things out of context.
BARELY TRUE – The statement contains some element of truth but ignores critical facts that would give a different impression.
FALSE – The statement is not accurate.
PANTS ON FIRE – The statement is not accurate and makes a ridiculous claim.

Robert Farley and PolitiFact concluded that Biden's account left nothing significant missing.  Unfortunately, that claim can't even stand up to the facts collected in Farley's story.  Biden failed to mention while talking with Tapper that his plan was called a partition plan.  That isn't an important clarification?  If the clarification isn't important then why mention it in the story?  The clairification is important, and as a result Farley's conclusion is self-defeating.  PolitiFact pointed out something important that Biden left out and then proclaimed Biden innocent of leaving out anything important.

But at the bottom line Biden did more than simply neglect to mention that his plan was called a partition plan.  He redefined the word to exclude a portion of its traditional meaning.  For example:

On May 13, 1862, Governor Pierpont of the "Restored Government" of Virginia called his General Assembly into session, and this body promptly gave assent to the partition of the state and the formation of West Virginia.

Note that the division of West Virginia from the original state of Virginia is called a "partition."  It is the type of partition that Biden proposed for Iraq.  Importantly, it was not merely benighted supporters of the Biden-Brownback proposal or unsophisticated journalists who perceived partitioning in the Biden proposal.  It came from experts:

“Federalism” is receiving the bulk of attention in Washington and Baghdad, but it is by no means the only restructuring buzzword swirling in foreign policy circles. Edward P. Joseph, a visiting scholar at the John Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, and Michael O’Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, write in USA Today that they prefer less subtle terminology: “soft partition.”

Paul R. Williams and Matthew T. Simpson, in "Rethinking the Political Future:  An Alternative to the Ethno-Sectarian Division of Iraq":

A number of prominent American law makers and foreign policy shapers have strongly advocated for the soft, and sometimes hard, partition of Iraq—either through the creation of a loose federal structure based on ethno-sectarian lines, or through its outright partition.

Lieutenant Colonel David W. Riggins, in "Ending the Conflict in Iraq--Is Partition the Answer?":

Over a year before the 2006 elections, one such recommendation was raised in foreign policy circles and circulated throughout the media. Senator Joseph Biden of Delaware subsequently endorsed one variant of this recommendation. The plan called for the partition of Iraq into three mainly autonomous federated regions with a “strong” central Iraqi government.

 Major Douglas W. Merritt, in "Is Federalism based on Ethnic Partition a Viable Solution in Iraq?":

Delaware Senator Joseph R. Biden proposed, in a news release on 6 October 2006, a plan to partition Iraq as the new strategy to conclude Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) successfully (Biden Press Release 2006, 1).

Merritt dedicated a section to defining "partition":

The ethnic partition of Iraq does not require ethnically pure provinces. The partition of Iraq refers to the creation of internal borders to establish three ethnic provinces, with a central government headquartered in the city-state of Baghdad. For this thesis, the provinces are Kurdistan, Shiastan, and Sunni-Iraq. The borders shown in figure 3 established a common concept of the partition of Iraq and do not represent draft borders from any official source. The borders represent the well-known rifts between Kurds, Shias, and Sunnis.

These references represent the tip of the iceberg.  Professional literature on international relations abounds with references to "partition" while describing the type of Iraqi governance recommended by Biden and Leslie Gelb.  Perhaps nobody at all mistook Biden's proposal as a suggestion that Iraq divide into three separate nations, at least until Robert Farley started checking the facts.

Biden suggested partition of Iraq, and his denial that he offered partition as a solution was disingenuous from the start.  He apparently deliberately chose to employ euphemisms to avoid the negative connotations that PolitiFact eventually used to justify rating his denial as perfectly true.  "True" is the one rating that cannot apply.

The grades:

Robert Farley:  F
Martha Hamilton:  F

The "Are you kidding me?" Department

Unlike Fox News, real journalism is objective. Or something like that.


Which brings us to the page not found message I just stumbled over at the PolitiFact section of the St. Petersburg Times' system of Web sites:


I think this is not the sort of joke one ought to indulge if the appearance of objectivity matters.

If they provide an image of Joe Biden when they find the missing page, then I suppose it evens things out.

Perhaps this should be filed under "Too clever for their own good."

Legends of the Left: Obama foresaw the subprime mortgage crisis

Presidential candidate Barack Obama appears to have achieved a prophetic status rivaling that of Nostradamus, at least when it comes to having vague statements interpreted as specific predictions.

I first encountered this "Obama knew" claim from an acquaintance. He argued that Obama saw the subprime mortgage crisis coming. I could not induce him to offer any specifics, however.

Senator Biden made the claim during his debate with Sarah Palin.

Barack Obama pointed out two years ago that there was a subprime mortgage crisis and wrote to the secretary of Treasury. And he said, "You'd better get on the stick here. You'd better look at it."

Naturally I developed a curiosity about that letter.

And I quickly ran across a link at The Daily Kos under the headline "Obama saw it coming." The blogger "free speech zone" dressed up a portion of an Obama speech with hotlinks:

If you want to understand the difference between how Senator McCain and I would govern as President, you can start by taking a look at how we've responded to this crisis. Because Senator McCain's approach was the same as the Bush Administration's: support ideological policies that made the crisis more likely; do nothing as the crisis hits; and then scramble as the whole thing collapses. My approach has been to try to prevent this turmoil. In February of 2006, I introduced legislation to stop mortgage transactions that promoted fraud, risk or abuse. A year later, before the crisis hit, I warned Secretary Paulson and Chairman Bernanke about the risks of mounting foreclosures and urged them to bring together all the stakeholders to find solutions to the subprime mortgage meltdown. Senator McCain did nothing.

I infer that "free speech zone" added the hotlinks because they do not occur in the version of the speech to which the post links.

Note that Andrew Sullivan also considers this letter a warning about the subprime mortgage crisis.

So what mounting risks did Obama talk about? It's always wise to get the point rapidly in a letter ...

Dear Chairman Bernanke and Secretary Paulson,

There is grave concern in low-income communities about a potential coming wave of foreclosures. Because regulators are partly responsible for creating the environment that is leading to rising rates of home foreclosure in the subprime mortgage market, I urge you immediately to convene a homeownership preservation summit with leading mortgage lenders, investors, loan servicing organizations, consumer advocates, federal regulators and housing-related agencies to assess options for private sector responses to the challenge.

We cannot sit on the sidelines while increasing numbers of American families face the risk of losing their homes. And while neither the government nor the private sector acting alone is capable of quickly balancing the important interests in widespread access to credit and responsible lending, both must act and act quickly.

There simply isn't anything at all in the first two paragraphs that a reasonable person could take as predicting the subprime mortgage crisis. Obama focuses on the risks of foreclosure, not on the risk of a system-wide dissipation of liquidity.

On the other hand, Obama does express some concern over liquidity at number six among six bullet points where he recommends a direction for a summit between private entities and regulators:

• How to ensure adequate liquidity across all mortgage markets without exacerbating consumer and housing market vulnerability.

Sounds a bit vague, doesn't it? But here's the kicker: Obama wasn't foreseeing anything. He wrote his letter after the crisis had already hit. His letter is dated March 24, 2007. The Telegraph (UK) provides a timeline of the crisis showing how Obama predicted a crisis that had already occurred.

30 June 2004 The US Federal Reserve starts a cycle of interest rate rises that will lift borrowing costs from 1%, their lowest level since the 1950s, to the current level of 5.25%.

The central bank will go on to increase interest rates 17 times in a row as it tries to slow inflation. It pauses in June 2006, and has not lifted borrowing costs from 5.25% since then.

August 2005 through 2006 Higher borrowing costs start to impact on the US housing market and the property boom starts to unwind.

Building rates drop sharply to decade lows and prices also start to come down.

Defaults on sub-prime mortgages - where lenders give cash to people with poor or no credit history at higher than normal repayment levels - start to increase.

12 March 2007 Shares in New Century Financial, one of the biggest sub-prime lenders in the US, are suspended amid fears it may be heading for bankruptcy.

It's generally easier to predict things that have already happened, obviously.

What we have here, it seems, is an Obama trying to burnish his reputation for good judgment despite having no real foundation in fact. Biden goes along for the ride, parroting the campaign talking point for the sake of higher office. Andrew Sullivan ... I'm not sure what he gets out of the deal.

Gaffemaster Biden spins another hit

Power Line points out another delightful gaffe by Sen. Joe Biden during last night's vice presidential debate:

I wanted to read the transcript before commenting; here was Gwen Ifill's question:

Governor, you mentioned a moment ago the constitution might give the vice president more power than it has in the past. Do you believe as Vice President Cheney does, that the Executive Branch does not hold complete sway over the office of the vice presidency, that it it is also a member of the Legislative Branch?

Here is Biden's answer, in full:

Vice President Cheney has been the most dangerous vice president we've had probably in American history. The idea he doesn't realize that Article I of the Constitution defines the role of the vice president of the United States, that's the Executive Branch. He works in the Executive Branch. He should understand that. Everyone should understand that.

And the primary role of the vice president of the United States of America is to support the president of the United States of America, give that president his or her best judgment when sought, and as vice president, to preside over the Senate, only in a time when in fact there's a tie vote. The Constitution is explicit.

The only authority the vice president has from the legislative standpoint is the vote, only when there is a tie vote. He has no authority relative to the Congress. The idea he's part of the Legislative Branch is a bizarre notion invented by Cheney to aggrandize the power of a unitary executive and look where it has gotten us. It has been very dangerous.

For a man of Biden's experience, this is a surprising series of misstatements. First of all, he gets wrong one of the most basic facts about the Constitution: Article 1 establishes the legislative branch, not, as Biden said, the executive branch. This is not exactly an obscure fact; my 17-year-old daughter pointed it out at the time.

Click the link and read more about Biden's difficult-to-understand failure to understand the vice president's role in the Senate after spending over a quarter century serving in that body.

St. Petersburg Times declares Biden winner of VP debate

Not the sort of thing that will cause me to fall out of my chair or anything like that.

The St. Petersburg Times found Biden simply vonderful:

The much-anticipated debate between vice presidential candidates Thursday night provided a stark contrast. Delaware Sen. Joe Biden, the running mate for Sen. Barack Obama, is well prepared to be vice president. Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the running mate for Sen. John McCain, clearly is not prepared. This is the rare election where voters should give serious consideration to the bottom of the ticket before casting their ballots for president.

Why should voters give the under ticket such serious consideration? Perhaps because the top of the Democratic ticket is woefully inexperienced compared to the top of the GOP ticket? The Times editor would have us guess, for no explanation follows.

Biden demonstrated a strong command of economic issues, health care and foreign policy. He cited specifics and offered unusually sharp responses, in contrast to his reputation for rambling answers. He made a coherent case against the Bush administration for its handling of the economy and the war in Iraq, and he effectively linked McCain's proposals to the unpopular incumbent.

No explanation follows for this glowing review of Biden's performance. Fact-checking will reveal that Biden played fast and loose with the truth on a number of key points, which leads me to believe that this editorial reflects a tendency I've noted before: Editorialists sometimes take the things they believe as facts. When a news outfit tilts left, some "left" facts that are not true end up getting repeated and reinforced in the the news.

I will grant the last point, however. It has been the Obama-Biden strategy to tie McCain to Bush at every opportunity (whether legitimate or not), and the repetition seems to be working.

Let's get to the Palin-bashing, though:

Palin often talked in circles. In one sentence, she declared "darn right it was the predator lenders'' who have caused the economic crisis. Then she talked about the need for more regulatory oversight. Then she talked about the need for people to be responsible and avoid getting into debt.

How is that talking in circles? Gwen Ifill asked who was responsible and mentioned both the lenders and homebuyers in separate parts of the same question. Apparently the editorialist sees the question as a dilemma. Palin must pick one. Once Palin has picked one, the other is implicitly absolved of any blame. But that's stupid. Both can be (and were) to blame and it is nonsense to suggest that Palin talked in circles simply by spreading the blame, though it's questionable whether she even did so. More interesting is the entity that was never mentioned in Ifill's phrasing of the question, namely government regulators who created the subprime market by incentivizing loans to high risk borrowers.

What's up with that, Ifill?

So, the Times strikes out with its lone example of Palin talking in circles. It's certainly true that Palin kept her answers fairly simple and reiterated points she had already made, but that is simply a well-known method of effective communication. A very effective method of communication, if you see what I mean.

At other points, she was absolutely incoherent. She lost herself in a rambling response about nuclear weapons. She was inarticulate at best about the causes of global warming — probably because she previously has questioned whether humans have contributed to the problem. Responded Biden: "I think it is man-made. … If you don't understand what the cause is, it's virtually impossible to come up with a solution.''

Nuclear weapons, global warming.

Regarding Palin's treatment of nuclear weapons, Gwen Ifill served up a confused question, mixing "interventionism" with the use of nuclear weapons.

IFILL: Governor, on another issue, interventionism, nuclear weapons. What should be the trigger, or should there be a trigger, when nuclear weapons use is ever put into play?

PALIN: Nuclear weaponry, of course, would be the be all, end all of just too many people in too many parts of our planet, so those dangerous regimes, again, cannot be allowed to acquire nuclear weapons, period.

Our nuclear weaponry here in the U.S. is used as a deterrent. And that's a safe, stable way to use nuclear weaponry.

But for those countries -- North Korea, also, under Kim Jong Il -- we have got to make sure that we're putting the economic sanctions on these countries and that we have friends and allies supporting us in this to make sure that leaders like Kim Jong Il and Ahmadinejad are not allowed to acquire, to proliferate, or to use those nuclear weapons. It is that important.

(CNN transcript)

I don't see any sense in framing the use of nuclear weapons in association with interventionism. Ifill flubbed up on that one. Palin reasonably took the question in terms of interventionist response to the attempts of irresponsible nations to acquire nuclear weapons. In that context, Palin's response is coherent. Biden's only attempt to address the issue was to try to give Obama undeserved credit for Sen. Richard Lugar's nuclear materials bill. I'm sure in the writer's eyes Sen. Biden's response was finely nuanced brilliance.

As for global warming, Palin's response was fine. Ifill arguably asked the question specifically to draw out Palin regarding past expressions of anthropogenic global warming skepticism. Palin did not take the bait. McCain buys into anthropogenic global warming, so Palin simply offered that she did not want to get into the issue of cause but instead focus on solutions.

IFILL: Governor, I'm happy to talk to you in this next section about energy issues. Let's talk about climate change. What is true and what is false about what we have heard, read, discussed, debated about the causes of climate change?

PALIN: Yes. Well, as the nation's only Arctic state and being the governor of that state, Alaska feels and sees impacts of climate change more so than any other state. And we know that it's real.

I'm not one to attribute every man -- activity of man to the changes in the climate. There is something to be said also for man's activities, but also for the cyclical temperature changes on our planet.

But there are real changes going on in our climate. And I don't want to argue about the causes. What I want to argue about is, how are we going to get there to positively affect the impacts?

We have got to clean up this planet. We have got to encourage other nations also to come along with us with the impacts of climate change, what we can do about that.

As governor, I was the first governor to form a climate change sub-cabinet to start dealing with the impacts. We've got to reduce emissions. John McCain is right there with an "all of the above" approach to deal with climate change impacts.

We've got to become energy independent for that reason. Also as we rely more and more on other countries that don't care as much about the climate as we do, we're allowing them to produce and to emit and even pollute more than America would ever stand for.

So even in dealing with climate change, it's all the more reason that we have an "all of the above" approach, tapping into alternative sources of energy and conserving fuel, conserving our petroleum products and our hydrocarbons so that we can clean up this planet and deal with climate change.

Biden, in contrast, signed on unequivocally with the anthropogenic climate change camp. I think only time will tell which candidate answered with better judgment. Probably Biden's answer pleased a higher percentage of the electorate, however--that percentage that takes anthropogenic global warming as a type of gospel.

Here is the extent of Palin's explanation of energy policy. When Biden referred to Republican chants of "drill! drill! drill!'', Palin corrected him. "The chant is, 'drill, baby, drill,' '' she said.

Hmmm. The editorialist is either lying or engaging in a very misleading bit of hyperbole.

IFILL: Well, clear it up for us, both of you, and start with Gov. Palin.

PALIN: Yes, Sen. McCain does support this. The chant is "drill, baby, drill." And that's what we hear all across this country in our rallies because people are so hungry for those domestic sources of energy to be tapped into.

They know that even in my own energy-producing state we have billions of barrels of oil and hundreds of trillions of cubic feet of clean, green natural gas. And we're building a nearly $40 billion natural gas pipeline which is North America's largest and most you expensive infrastructure project ever to flow those sources of energy into hungry markets.

Barack Obama and Sen. Biden, you've said no to everything in trying to find a domestic solution to the energy crisis that we're in. You even called drilling -- safe, environmentally-friendly drilling offshore as raping the outer continental shelf.

There -- with new technology, with tiny footprints even on land, it is safe to drill and we need to do more of that. But also in that "all of the above" approach that Sen. McCain supports, the alternative fuels will be tapped into: the nuclear, the clean coal.

I was surprised to hear you mention that because you had said that there isn't anything -- such a thing as clean coal. And I think you said it in a rope line, too, at one of your rallies.

Big score for Palin with that last line, not that a blinkered editorialist at the Times would notice.

But let us once again share the blinkered point of view:

Her message on the Iraq war was similarly simplistic. She said it would be a "travesty if we quit now in Iraq'' — which no one advocates. And Obama's call for a gradual withdrawal of troops, she said, is waving a white flag of surrender. Such responses lack depth or a grasp of reality.

One wonders on what basis the Times editorialist feels entitled to judge.

Palin, in fact, took the opportunity to take another "Gotcha" type question from Ifill ("You both have sons who are in Iraq or on their way to Iraq. You, Gov. Palin, have said that you would like to see a real clear plan for an exit strategy. What should that be, Governor?") and turn it into an expose of Biden's past criticisms of Obama's approach to Iraq. Certainly Palin couldn't trust Ifill with that sort of thing. Palin's grasp on reality is firm: A withdrawal plan not based on the success of security capability in Iraq is foolishness. And that type of plan is exactly what Biden offered to the apparent drooling admiration of certain Times staffers.

Palin was clear on at least one point, and the Obama campaign will wrap it around McCain. In a discussion in which Biden described Obama's plan to keep tax cuts for the middle class but not for wealthier Americans, Palin suggested she was not on board with such a "redistribution of wealth.'' That was an easy shot for Biden, who noted that helping middle class families in Scranton, Pa., and other places send their children to college is not a redistribution of wealth.

Message to the editorialist: If you tax one group of people (say, "the rich") and use that money to put into effect the aforementioned "helping middle class families" then you're engaged in the redistribution of wealth. QED. Biden can fool these people with a euphemism?

Palin often chided Biden for looking backward instead of forward. No wonder, since she conceded the Bush administration has made "huge blunders'' on Iraq and the economy. "We're gonna forge ahead,'' she said. The problem, of course, is that McCain's vision on tax cuts, health care and the ongoing war in Iraq is virtually identical to Bush's. That makes it harder to build on McCain's reputation as a maverick, which Palin repeated as often as she could.

The editorialist made up the part about Palin conceding blunders on the economy, unless it is drawn from some non-debate statement. The problem with the Times' criticism is that Bush's economic policies and Iraq policies (in the Petraeus era, at least) have been good. On health care, at least Bush is better than Obama-Biden. Again, bias guides the editorialist's judgment.

Biden was the clear winner of the only debate between the candidates for vice president. But the night was really about Palin, who on Monday will visit Clearwater. She proved to be disarmingly charming. When she's not fumbling for specifics or repeating generalities about fighting big government, opposing taxes and embracing patriotism, her folksy cadence sounds warm and approachable. It's clear why she connects with many Republicans eager to hear from someone who sounds familiar and informal.

But the Alaska governor said nothing to reassure Americans she is prepared to be a heartbeat away from the presidency.

The editorial simply provides evidence of poor judgment at the Times. It makes no informed judgments on Palin. Palin did plenty to establish herself politically, for she kept the uber-experienced Biden on the defensive for virtually the entire debate in spite of Ifill's helpful attempts to guide the debate in Biden's favor. She hammered Biden on his differences with Obama with class, style and a disarming smile. She called Biden on one of his erroneous claims, pointing out that while a surge strategy patterned after the one in Iraq was unsuitable for Afghanistan that none the less a COIN strategy would be suitable for Afghanistan--no mean feat for a supposed foreign policy neophyte going up against one of the stronger Democrats on foreign policy.

That's why pundits right and left are calling the debate a win for Palin.

Not that the editors at the Times will notice. Is any opinion important apart from their own?


***

Roger Simon's observations of the media lens overlap with mine:

Tonight, Sarah Palin drove another stake in the heart of those fuddy-duddy reactionaries that constitute our mainstream media. Going toe-to-toe with a senator with decades of experience, she more than held her own, giving lie to the media constructed narrative that she was an inexperienced hick from nowheresville Alaska. It demonstrates once again why the media is held in such contempt. For economic and ego reasons, they consider themselves to be our gatekeepers, but frankly they are not that smart. They are not rocket scientists – figuratively or literally. They are certainly no smarter than Sarah Palin. I would be willing to bet that in a free debate with Katie Couric, Palin would come out the victor.

Democratic debate at UNLV

I didn't catch absolutely the entire thing, but I did hear most of it. A few notes:

Sen. Clinton did not address the accusation that she fails to address issues. Her insinuation that 35 years in public life serves to make her stance on issues clear (and consistent?) didn't cut it.

A number of the candidates, including Barack Obama, suggested that the surge strategy is failing. Obama acknowledged some improvement in the security situation, but asserted that the political situation has not changed (is he paying attention?) and on that basis called for withdrawal of U.S. troops. This group of candidates is ready to wrest defeat from the jaws of victory.

John Edwards joined others in calling NAFTA a failure, talking about the loss of jobs that occurred as a result. Isn't he aware that agreements like NAFTA increase the buying power of Americans across the board? I get no hint of that type of realization from him. Sen. Dodd gave the closest approximation of sanity on trade issues.

Sen. Clinton, addressing her "boy's club" remarks and the suggestion that she was playing the gender card, took a page from hubby's book, saying "I'm not exploiting anything at all."
Depends on what "exploiting" is, I suppose. Her Oct. 31 cackle came out when Wolf Blitzer engaged in word play on the boy's club phrase.

I must have heard this wrong, but it sounded like Edwards jumped at the chance to follow Hillary on the gender issue (Paul Shanklin, anyone?). And again, maybe I heard it wrong, but it sounded like Edwards addressed a male soldier (home from a third Iraq deployment) with "many women like you." I was blinking my eyes in disbelief during this segment, having difficulty believing I'd heard rightly. Edwards finished with a strong statement in favor of withdrawal, which I marked down in my notes as "standing up for spinelessness."

Bill Richardson addressed a question from the audience regarding disparity in pay between private security companies and U.S. soldiers. Richardson showed his fiscal restraint by calling for increased pay for U.S. soldiers across the board as well as calling for a boost in the size of our armed forces. The cameras showed the face of the person who asked the question after he finished with that part of the response. A look of doubt crossed her face on that one.

Barack Obama said he would save Social Security by keeping Bush from raiding the Soc. Sec. trust fund to get money for the war. Come on, Sen. Obama. You know that the Congress controls the purse strings, and you know that the Congress doesn't bother keeping track of which expense uses funds borrowed from Social Security. Obama's other great idea was to remove the cap on Soc. Sec. payroll taxes. Clinton criticized him for advocating a tax hike after that one, then she did her imitation of Internet spelling police by correcting a misstatement by Obama (he twice called the payroll tax increase a tax cut).
Clinton could have pulled that off without sounding petty, in my opinion, but she didn't do it.

Almost forgot: Obama had a third great idea. He thinks that preventative medicine saves on Medicare expenses. President Bush was blowing the same horn when he stumped for his Medicare prescription drug plan. I strongly doubt that it works that way. The longer people stay alive, the more medical expenses they incur. Die of a heart attack at 60 and you might save the government the expense of two hip replacements when you hit your 70s. I'm certainly not recommending euthanasia for sexagenarians; I'm just pointing out that it doesn't work that way in terms of economics. Both Obama and Bush are almost certainly wrong on this point.

My last notes concern Supreme Court nominations. Some of the nominees explicitly favored a Roe v. Wade litmus test (Richardson, if I remember correctly). Most said they'd insist on a recognition of the right to privacy, a some of those (including Clinton) went on to intimate that recognition of the right to privacy led to a recognition of the legitimacy of Roe. That's a load of hooey. One of President Bill Clinton's Supreme Court nominees (Ginsberg, if I remember correctly) questioned Roe's basis in the right to privacy, advocating an alternative basis in the right to self-defense.

The reasoning of Roe v. Wade is an embarrassment to those who take constitutional law seriously, even to many scholars who heartily support the outcome of the case. As John Hart Ely, former dean of Stanford Law School and a supporter of abortion rights, has written, Roe "is not constitutional law and gives almost no sense of an obligation to try to be."
(Opinion Journal)

This is a terrible group of candidates, based on their answers to the questions. The best hope is that they know good policy but lie through their teeth about what they'd do just to capture the nomination.

Kucinich was a joke again, but that isn't news.

*****

Death toll in Iraq continues to drop

"I've never been more optimistic than I am right now with the progress we've made in Iraq. The only people who are going to win this counterinsurgency project are the people of Iraq. We've said that all along. And now they're coming forward in masses," Lynch said in a recent interview at a U.S. base deep in hostile territory south of Baghdad. Outgoing artillery thundered as he spoke.

Lynch, who commands the 3rd Infantry Division and once served as the military spokesman in Baghdad, is a tireless cheerleader of the American effort in Iraq. But the death toll over the past two months appears to reinforce his optimism. The question, of course: Will it last?

(Yahoo!News)

Why shouldn't it, other than the fact that the U.S. cannot possibly succeed in Iraq?

The American force will pursue a new strategy of counter-insurgency by placing regional "police stations" and "outposts" where platoons of American soldiers will be assigned to provide security for some of the most volatile areas of the capital. Unfortunately for President Bush, the still-confident neo-conservatives and, more importantly, the United States military and the Iraqi people, this new attempt to secure the capital is also guaranteed to fail (and to fail badly).

(The Davidsonian)

Guaranteed.

Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.) said yesterday that the Bush administration's "surge" strategy in Iraq is doomed to fail and criticized Gen. David H. Petraeus for offering what he called an overly optimistic assessment of the situation on the ground.
(Washington Post)

Doomed.

The war in Iraq "is lost" and a US troop surge is failing to bring peace to the country, the leader of the Democratic majority in the US Congress, Harry Reid, said Thursday.

"I believe ... that this war is lost, and this surge is not accomplishing anything, as is shown by the extreme violence in Iraq this week," Reid told journalists.

(Breitbart.com)

Lost.
Not accomplishing anything.

It might not be too late to cut off funding, Sen. Reid. You can still make your prediction come true.

*****

USA Today: Army wants more MRAPS

WASHINGTON — The Army has decided to ask for 10,000 Mine Resistant Ambush Protected armored vehicles to counter the threat of makeshift bombs in Iraq, according to one of the program's top congressional supporters.

The new request is nearly four times the 2,700 vehicles, known as MRAPs, that the Army had sought. That's still not enough, said Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., who was briefed on the change by the Defense Department. Biden cited a request this year for 17,770 of the vehicles for the Army by Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno, the No. 2 military commander in Iraq.

"Until every soldier and Marine has the best protection we can give them, we must keep pushing," Biden said.
(USA Today)

Credit to Democrat senator Joe Biden for advocating for the troops. Biden might be the most serious Senate Democrat on defense issues now that Joe Lieberman is an independent.

The news is good for at least one manufacturer of MRAPs. Ceradyne is in a good position to push its "Bull" MRAP, but the winners in MRAP I can point to past success to bolster their chances of scoring some fat contracts on this one.

One caveat, however. These MRAPs do not replace Humvees in the tactical sense. It seems that vehicles like Force Protection's Cheetah or Protected Vehicles' Protector will be needed to provide the kind of mobility that Donald Rumsfeld hoped to make a hallmark of the US armed forces. Whatever you think of his handling of post-Saddam Iraq operations, his vision of the application of U.S. military might represents an important transformation.

*****

Listen to the generals ...

"I really respect him, but I think he's dead flat wrong," Biden said.
(Breitbart.com)

That's Senator Joe Biden, before he has listened to General David Petraeus' testimony before the Senate.

Of course, some distinct hints of Petraeus' intent have been made known through prior interviews and preliminary leaks, but the "listen to the generals" ploy does not ring true, here--not that it ever did.

Bill to end "sanctuary cities" fails in the Senate

My senator, Mel Martinez, voted with six other Republicans (mostly RINOS) against Senator Norm Coleman's bill.
I've e-mailed a message expressing my disappointment to Mr. Martinez.

It's inexcusable that cities can assist lawbreakers in avoiding apprehension by the federal government through a policy of non-enforcement. And the threat of foreign terrorists among illegal aliens makes the vote even more ridiculous.

Here's the list of Republicans joining a whole bunch of Democrats on this one (hat tip to Captain's Quarters):

Graham (R-SC)
Hagel (R-NE)
Lugar (R-IN)
Martinez (R-FL)
Snowe (R-ME)
Specter (R-PA)
Voinovich (R-OH)

Selected Democat votes:
Bayh (D-IN), Yea
Biden (D-DE), Nay
Clinton (D-NY), Nay
Obama (D-IL), Nay

Reads like soft on illegal immigration is expected to be a hit with Democrat voters, doesn't it?

Too late! Iraq, England, Philadelphia, Miami ...

I had my next post planned. Terrorist activity in England cannot be stopped (the U.S. has maintained a military presence there, but radical Islam continues to grow in Great Britain), so it's time to bring our troops home now.

Rush Limbaugh beat me to it, and then some.

On today's show, Limbaugh noted the death rate in Philadephia, using the occasion to call for benchmarks for the largely Democratic leaders and suggested that all federal funds be cut off if those leaders do not hew to the benchmarks.

Then he outdid himself.

Referring to the Super Bowl, Limbaugh said that he supports the Bears, but he wishes they were not playing in the Super Bowl.
Support the Bears! Bring them home now!

Funny stuff, Mr. Limbaugh.

I'm also enjoying the fact that the Democratic presidential candidates are taking swipes at one another on Iraq--at last the Democrats are at the point where they are forced to do something other than criticize Republican policies.

Limbaugh took note of that as well on his program, and made appropriate fun of Senator Joe Biden, who hilariously referred to Barack Obama as "the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy."

Talk about stumbling out of the blocks! Biden just formally announced his candidacy, and Editor & Publisher is already speculating that the comment will tank his chances of securing the nomination.