TAKS and KKK effects

The TAKS effect: Every state that starts with "T", "A", "K" or "S" voted for McCain. There are 10 such states and they comprise 98 electoral votes. McCain won those states' popular vote by a margin of 14%.

Eliminate TAKS, and the rest of the country voted for Obama by a 10% margin (compared to the 6% for the whole country). The electoral vote count is 349-64 (with 27 yet to be determined).

The KKK effect: Every state with a "K" in its name voted for McCain. There are 8 such states and they have 41 electoral votes; McCain has won 40, while one from Nebraska is still uncertain. McCain won those states by 19%.

Eliminate KKK, and the rest of the country voted for Obama by an 8% margin, with the electoral vote count is 349-122 (with 26 yet to be determined).

Eliminate both TAKS and KKK, and Obama wins by 11% and 349-50 electoral votes (with 26 pending). Additionally, the 55-40 advantage in the Senate becomes 49-21, and the 245-157 advantage in the House becomes 219-121. (Pending seats not counted.)

Well, Mr. President, you may say there are no red states and blue states, but there sure are TAKS states and KKK states, and they don't like you very much. The rest of the country looks pretty normal.

UPDATE (many months later): Oops, not every state with a "K" voted for McCain. Thanks to Samer for correcting me.

Why didn't he steal this?

Why didn't McCain steal Randy Newman's "Rednecks" as his campaign song?

McCain campaign is now officially communist

See about 1:00 into the first video.

WTF?! The entire student population of a school district bused to a McCain rally!? That's Soviet-style forced attendance for propaganda purposes. That is how communist leaders boosted their cheering crowds. It also seems like a blatant First Amendment violation by the school district; parents ought to sue the school board over this.

Why is this not being decried as un-American?

Different-looking people out!

McCain's campaign is now officially fascist.

Of course, that's all Obama's fault. If he had agreed to joint town hall meetings, McCain would not be forced to call the police whenever a slightly darker-skinned person shows up.

My question to everyone who still intends to vote for McCain: Why in the world didn't you vote for Tancredo or Hunter in the primaries?

Who is Maverick?

From Online Etymology Dictionary:

maverick
1867, "calf or yearling found without an owner's brand," in allusion to Samuel A. Maverick (1803-70), Texas cattle owner who was negligent in branding his calves. Sense of "individualist, unconventional person" is first recorded 1886, via notion of "masterless."

Negligent in branding his cattle? Not knowing whom he picks and what they do? Has to say "Oops!" and "I screwed up" a lot? It's beginning to make sense now...

Also note that the original Maverick was born 205 years ago.

Dog almost bites man

John McCain had a prepared response to Colin Powell's endorsement of Obama. He told Chris Wallace that four former Secretaries of State had endorsed him - Henry Kissinger, Alexander Haig, James Baker, and Lawrence Eagleburger. I guess it is breaking news that Republican politicians have endorsed the Republican candidate... But wait! There is something newsworthy in that statement.

Where is George Shultz?

Has he not endorsed McCain? That would be quite interesting. He did sign that "100 Economists for McCain" letter (apparently the most famous document with a number in base 9 in its title). Was he one of the signers who didn't quite read what they were signing?

Or did McCain forget to mention him? That would also be interesting, although for different reasons. If any Republican Secretary of State's endorsement, other than Powell's, would mean anything to independents and moderates, it would be Shultz's.

4 out of 5 economists recommend Obama

The Economist, a conservative publication, says so.

Voters deserve better actuaries

Bragg is promoting his actuarial analysis of McCain and Obama again:

McCain would be the oldest president to begin a first term in office. By the end of a second term, Jan. 20, 2017, he would have a 24.44 percent chance of dying, compared with 5.76 percent for Obama, the firm estimates.

As far as I can tell, those numbers seriously understate the difference in the candidates' respective longevity prospects.

Let's start from the average mortality, given only the candidates' age and sex. McCain is 72 years and 32 days old and he will be 80 years and 144 days old on January 20, 2017. Using Social Security's life tables, his probability of dying before the end of his second term is 32.2%. Barack Obama is 47 years and 57 days old; his probability of dying by the same day, which in his case is age 55 years and 169 days, is 4.3%.

(Non-geeks may skip this paragraph: I used the 1940 cohort table for McCain and 1960 cohort table for Obama. Those are the closest to their birth years. Those choices favor McCain by the amount of mortality improvement from his 1936 cohort to the 1940 cohort. The difference is hardly negligible: using the 1930 cohort, we'd get 34.7% for the same ages, and linear interpolation yields approximately 33.2%, so the result I used is biased in McCain's favor by about 1 percentage point. Similarly, using 1960 cohort mortality for Obama introduces a slight - although almost negligible in this case - bias against Obama. One further geek note: I derived all survival probabilities by linear interpolation between nearest integer-year ages. That is more than accurate enough for the purpose of this analysis.)

Of course, there is more information available about the candidates, and Bragg lists some factors used:

He classified the Democrat as a smoker with minor upper respiratory problems, probably linked to his smoking. Obama announced in February that he was trying to quit smoking again, with the aid of nicotine gum.

"We don't consider you a nonsmoker until you stay quit for 12 months," said Brooks.

In the spring, the Obama campaign released a letter from the candidate's doctor declaring him to be in excellent health. He had very good cholesterol levels, his EKG was normal, his pulse was 60 beats per minute, and his blood pressure was an outstanding 90 over 60. Obama also exercises regularly.

But Obama has a family history of cancer. His mother died of ovarian cancer and his maternal grandfather died of prostate cancer. Obama's PSA screening test for prostate cancer showed no sign of abnormalities.

For the Republican, Brooks took into account a history of skin cancer, degenerative arthritis from his Vietnam war injuries, moderately high cholesterol, mild vertigo and that McCain is a former smoker who quit in 1980.

McCain allowed reporters to review eight years of medical records, more than 1,000 pages. They show that he is cancer-free, has a strong heart and is generally in good health. As a three-time melanoma survivor, his biggest health worry is a recurrence of that cancer. But he is closely watched by his dermatologist, and any future melanoma should be caught in time to be treated successfully. McCain maintains a healthy weight and blood pressure, and takes medication for his cholesterol.

That is hardly an unbiased account, and the statement that "McCain allowed reporters to review eight years of medical records" is, at best, barely true. In any case, the factors mentioned in the article should be worse news for McCain than for Obama.

Let's start with smoking. It is true that Obama wouldn't qualify for non-smoker rates if he applied for a life insurance policy today, but life insurance underwriting imposes rather crude discrete categories by necessity. (Verification is costly and the potential for cheating is high; for example, someone who smokes two packs a day could claim to smoke one pack a week.) This individualized analysis can do much better than that. Obama's quitting has not been entirely successful, but he is clearly closer to a former smoker than to a current one. McCain stopped smoking years ago, but he used to smoke two packs a day for 25 years. So they have a similar smoking history and quit at a similar age. By itself, this factor would make each of them more likely to die than an average man of their age. The effect is probably greater for Obama mainly because fewer men of his age are smokers, so average mortality for his cohort is based on a higher percentage of non-smokers. I would be curious to see what factors Bragg applied to account for smoking history.

(Another note for wonks: Insurers generally charge smokers double or even higher rates than nonsmokers, and that is soundly based on experience, but those factors apply to a baseline of the insured population, i.e., to the people who have passed other underwriting hurdles. For example, by the Society of Actuaries' 90-95 Basic Select tables, a male smoker of Obama's age would have about 3.5% chance of dying in the next 8 years, which is better than the average from the Social Security tables. Similarly, a smoker of McCain's age would have 23% chance of dying in the next 8 years, again better than in the SSA tables. Another thing to keep in mind is that, in insurance underwriting, smoking also serves as a proxy to other risky behavior, which means that not all of the excess mortality of smokers is caused by smoking.)

The candidates' fitness balances their smoking history. Both candidates seem to have healthy hearts, and Obama's pulse and blood pressure cited by Bragg are impressive. Obama is thin and McCain's weight is normal. They both seem significantly more fit than average men of their respective ages. Fitness-related mortality patterns are far less well known than smoking-related ones, but my guess would be that both candidates make up in fitness about as much as they lose from smoking history. Additionally, both are married and have (as far as we know) healthy spouses, which also improves their longevity prospects. Not to mention that both have access to best available health care.

So far, very similar adjustments to age/sex baseline apply to both candidates, but the rest is all bad news for McCain. Melanoma is a serious type of cancer, prone to metastasizing that is hard to detect and treat. It is true that McCain has been free of symptoms for 8 years and that it improves his prognosis, but the fact that he's had 4 episodes of melanoma, and that the last one was over 2 mm deep, raise additional concerns. For lesions like his last one, 5-year survival rate is 63-79% and 10-year 51-64%. He has survived for 8 years, so the greatest risk is behind him, but he is not out of the woods:

“With melanoma, a patient is never completely clear,” said Dr. Shapiro, the N.Y.U. expert.

If melanomas do recur, standard treatment options are limited for many to surgery and a difficult form of chemotherapy. The chances of long-term survival diminish.

Precise estimates aren't available, but it is hard to see how McCain's chance of dying from this one cause alone would be less than 10% over the next 8 years.

Another issue for McCain is the long-term effects of maltreatment by the Vietcong. Five and a half years of injuries, torture and malnutrition certainly have health consequences. Quantifying the effect is difficult, but that's not a good reason to ignore it altogether.

In summary, there is little reason to think that Obama's probability of dying in the next 8 years exceeds that of an average man of his age - 4.3 percent. In fact, it is probably less than 3.5 percent, the number based on life insurance policy experience. On the other hand, I don't see how McCain's probability of dying in the same period would be much less than one-third. In other words, McCain is at least 9 times as likely to die in office as Obama. Bragg tells us it is not quite 4.5 times. Unless he publishes more details about the calculation and the assumptions, I can't see how his results could be justified.

UPDATE: It is probably wrong to focus on survival to the end of second term. Incumbency is an advantage in an election, but we don't elect a President for 8 years, and we would (hopefully) have updated health information before the next election. Going back to the baseline (Social Security tables), a man of McCain's age has 15.4% chance of dying before January 20, 2013, and a man of Obama's age has 2.0% chance of dying in the same period. By the way, the shorter the period we look at, the more significant a factor McCain's cancer is, because the probability of recurrence goes down the longer he's already survived.

Thoughts on the first BHO-JSM debate

I thought both candidates did well as far as debate performance goes, and they both succeeded in projecting the types of persona that have defined their respective candidacies so far. Obama appeared serious, thoughtful, assertive and "presidential" (whatever that means, but there is nearly a consensus about that characterization). McCain was the same avuncular elder statesman he was in his acceptance speech (which I still think was a success, despite what almost all the pundits say), friendly to the audience but aggressive toward enemies. McCain's problem is that he counts his opponent among those enemies, which works great at the Republican convention, but not so great in front of a diverse audience and face-to-face with the opponent.

My prediction - which now appears too pessimistic - was that the debate would not change the poll numbers. I thought both candidates scored some important points with concerned leaners. Those who already prefer Obama, but worry about his lack of experience and doubt his leadership ability, were certainly reassured by his confidence, poise, and control of issues. And those who already prefer McCain, but worry that he may be losing his mind because of his recent erratic decisions and apparent episodes of confusion, were reassured that he is still able to think quickly on his feet and stay focused for 90 minutes. I thought the two effects would approximately balance and that the free fall of McCain's numbers would end in a cushioned landing (although without a bounce).

In thinking about the effect of the debate on the election, I try to ignore the substantive points because I assume that a vast majority of undecided voters are so uninformed that they are unable to assess those points critically and intelligently. The same holds for McCain's lies and misconceptions - I assume that anybody who has not yet realized that McCain is a pathological liar and that most of his economic and foreign policy ideas are sophomoric is not able to draw any such conclusions from the debate. And I still think those assumptions are correct.

Where I think I was wrong, though, is in discounting the effect of body language. Although early pundits' comments picked up on McCain's avoidance of eye contact, I thought that the significance of body language was hyped up in the media. I based my thinking on the 2000 Gore-Bush debates, when viewers didn't seem to notice Gore's alleged sighs and eye rolling until they were spoonfed those talking points by the media; and I also thought that, as much as McCain has lost the support he once had in "his base", the pundits weren't going to nitpick on his body language as they did on Gore's. What I overlooked was that McCain's physical clues were real, and the kind that people perceive instinctively (as some primate behavior researchers have pointed out).

It was also a rare opportunity to see the candidates standing side-by-side. When you see McCain alone, you can do a mental adjustment for his age and perceive a relatively fit and vigorous man, but that is much more difficult to do when you see him next to his much younger, fitter and - don't underestimate the importance of this - four inches taller opponent.

OK, enough about appearances and the effect on the race; I cannot write a post this long without saying anything about the contents of the debate. But I won't say anything about their disagreements; nobody will be surprised to hear that, whenever the two candidates disagreed, I preferred Obama's position. However, I deplore some of their agreements.

I was disappointed - or rather, I have been disappointed for a while, this is not new - that Obama agreed with McCain on two clearly wrong foreign policy positions: that the surge in Iraq worked, and that Russia bears all the blame for invading Georgia. I am hoping that Obama and Biden are smarter than to adopt those simplistic falsehoods, and that they have only temporarily adopted those talking points because they concluded that now is not the time to try to convince the American people that the conventional wisdom is wrong. Since that would almost certainly be a correct assessment, I have to give them the benefit of the doubt, and hope that the Obama-Biden administration would be more thoughtful than they are willing to show now.

Of course, even in the worst case (that they really agree with those statements), they would not be any worse than the alternative, and on a host of other issues the alternative is simply unthinkable.

UPDATE: Yep, I hear "Horseshit!" in this clip.

Boycott GE!

Pressured by Joseph Goebbles Pravda Bill O'Reilley, MSNBC stopped airing this ad:



MSNBC is owned by GE, and I suspect that this newest chickenshit decision, just like the recent removal of Keith Olberman from the election news coverage, is dictated by the corporate Big Brother. Another step on the road to the fascist-communist Soviet States of America.

It is time to defend freedom of speech. Send the ad to everyone you know and think twice before buying GE products.

Good question

What happened to the 5 guys who graduated below McCain?

War wounds my ass

Another bullshit ad: McCain can't use the computer because of his war wounds, and Obama is an evil ogre for bringing that up.

That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. I know quadriplegic people who use the computer very well. What kind of war wounds prevents McCain from doing so? McCain is a liar and a whiner.

Heads in the sand

While McCain is trying to hide and avoid debating Obama, his supporter Kevin Hassett is trying to hide and avoid debating Brad DeLong.

The sensible bipartisan center is solidly Democratic

A must-read case for Obama (and against McCain) from Brad DeLong, economist and one of the smartest people in America:

What reason could there be not to vote against a candidate who says he doesn't know very much about economics? Not to vote against a candidate whose two chief economic advisors are Phil "What Problems with Deregulation, You Whiners?" Gramm and Carly "H-P Paid Me $21 Million to Go Away" Fiorina. All signs are that McCain economic policy is set to be much worse than even George W. Bush policy--unless Douglas Holtz-Eakin could win the fight inside the White House snakepit. But I don't think he could: McCain regards Gramm and Fiorina--not Doug--as peers to be deferred to. I would be happy to be proven wrong if we take the gamble, but it's not a gamble I want us to take.

McPotemkin

Next time you read a newspaper and see a letter to the editor praising McCain or Palin, beware: it's probably fake.

Actuary? What's that? A place for dead actors?

What does Joe Klein know about actuaries? Apparently no more than one could learn from watching About Schmidt. Otherwise he wouldn't make this ridiculous characterization:

It is appropriate, then, that the American Academy of Actuaries--a group devoted to the precise calculation of death rates--has exposed McCain's extravagant fraudulence of the past week for what it was.

Come on, Joe, you are a political journalist in Washington. Haven't you at least heard of what Social Security actuaries do? Such as producing the system's 75-year financial projections? Have you not heard of Social Security's actuarial balance, a term that means, essentially, financial balance? Wouldn't that give you a hint that actuaries don't just calculate death rates, but are in fact devoted to precise calculation of financial risk associated with uncertain events, of which death is but one example?

Don't mess with actuaries if you don't want to become a statistic.

As for McCain's shooting himself in the foot (What else is new?), the circumstances need to be clarified (although that will not make things any better for McCain). The Academy's journal, Contingencies, asked the candidates to describe their health care plans, and both candidates responded. Thus, the Academy didn't intentionally expose McCain's "fraudulent extravagance", as Klein's wordings might suggest, but merely provided a forum for the candidates to explain their plans directly, rather than through a journalistic filter. The candidates' words speak for themselves and the journal didn't engage in any sort of debunking. This is important because the Academy is the public voice of the actuarial profession, and the profession cares about its reputation and doesn't take impartiality lightly.

P.S. McCain's priceless quote, written when nobody expected the Spanish Inquisition financial crisis, is

Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking, would provide more choices of innovative products less burdened by the worst excesses of state-based regulation.

Ouch.

Limits of brand loyalty

I can't think of any respectable reason to vote for John McCain in this election, but, according to the polls, 90% of Republicans will vote for him. Is party loyalty a good enough reason? It is a valid reason to support a candidate generally; I certainly weigh ideological proximity more than apparent objective competence when I decide whom to vote for. But this kind of brand loyalty must have some limits. So the appropriate question is, if a Democrat comparable to McCain ran against a Republican comparable to Obama, whom would I support?

To concretize this question, it would be useful to come up with an analogy involving real politicians. That is difficult and subjective, but I think I have come up with ideological mirror images that aren't too distorting.

McCain is a war hero (at least in the sense the term is commonly used in contemporary America) who has, as a politician, been reliably conservative, but has occasionally clashed with, and annoyed, the establishment of his party. He is a loose cannon, whose temperament cannot be described as diplomatic. And, while he is well known, long present on the national scheme, quite witty, and highly popular in some demographic groups, he hardly shows the grasp of issues and good judgment required of the highest office.

His Democratic counterpart could then be a hero of the Civil Rights movement, reliably liberal but in frequent conflict with the Democratic establishment, a sometimes bad-tempered loose cannon, witty and popular with his base, but probably lacking in the grasp of issues and judgment... and someone like that actually did seek the Democratic nomination in the 1980s.

His name is Jesse Jackson.

Suppose Jesse Jackson had won the Democratic nomination in 1984. And suppose his first executive decision - choosing the running mate - turned out as follows. He chose someone complementing him demographically, an outsider unknown to most of the public, but with some enthusiastic followers. A person with some far-outside-the-mainstream ideas and beliefs, who calls himself a Democrat, but critical observers question that. A maverick who would not hesitate to challenge the "old boy network" in Washington, but who also doesn't have much respect for the law. Someone who will not blink in making decisions, but the prospect of him ever making decisions for the nation would scare the crap out of most prudent people...

Someone like... Lyndon LaRouche.

Forget about the utter implausibility of Jesse Jackson picking LaRouche to be his running mate. McCain picking Palin seemed just as crazy.

Would I vote for a Jackson-LaRouche ticket in 1984, running against the conservative visionary and orator Reagan, suspected by critics to be out of the mainstream, but able to inspire and connect with people across ideologies, and his running mate G. H. W. Bush, the experienced Washington insider with a moderate reputation and strong foreign policy credentials? Would I, first and foremost, vote against Reagan, whose ideology could not be farther from mine, and whom I considered a fake and a lightweight?

Hell no. As much as I disliked Reagan, I still required competency and wisdom of his challenger. Mondale had it. Gary Hart had it. (The Rice scandal didn't come until the next election, and as much as it warned of recklessness, it wasn't necessarily a deal breaker.) Jesse Jackson probably didn't have it. The hypothetical Jesse Jackson with a crazy VP pick like LaRouche would not have been even close to having it.

How many Democrats would vote for a ticket like Jackson-LaRouche? I bet considerably fewer than half. After all, look how poorly even decent, qualified candidates like Mondale and Dukakis did. Brand loyalty is much weaker among Democrats as it is; give them a bad candidate and they'll desert him without, um, blinking.

So no, we would not see this stubborn brand loyalty if the roles were reversed. What we see is that today's Republicans are an uncritical herd even by the notoriously low standards of political masses.

Priceless

Ken Lay: "The underlying fundamentals of our businesses are very strong."



You can't make this stuff up.

The rumor hoax

Beneath the blatant McCain lies that Obama and his campaign are smearing Sarah Palin, there is a much thicker and stickier level of deception, whose theme is that malicious false rumors about Palin circulate on the Internet. That bullshit pretense of debunking rumors is perhaps more dangerous than the obviously mendacious attack ads, because it appears calmer, less confrontational, and more credible. Rather than attacking a named opponent, it defends the candidate from an amorphous virtual mob of accusers. By a sleight of hand, it transplants a meme that fits in a different context - "innocent until proven guilty" - and conjures up an illusion that Palin is on trial (and a politically motivated one to boot) and that we, the voters, are expected to act like a jury and acquit if there is any reasonable doubt.

That's bullshit, but its stealth power is such that it has infiltrated even some brand-name bullshit detectors, such as FactCheck.org.

Here is an example of how ordinary people propagate this meme, from a recent comment left on this blog:

It is true that, while scrutinizing politicians, we should hold them suspect and investigate any evidence that might shed light on their career or character. But in the end, you must hold them innocent until proven guilty. There is no moral justification for assuming them guilty until proven innocent. Considering the enormous amount of false accusations against Palin (see a debunking of vicious internet rumors against her here at factcheck.org), the burden of proof is on those making the allegations. Until they prove their case or you yourself find corroborating evidence from another source, the voter--and any intelligent being--must dismiss the allegations as lies and slander.

Note the structure of the argument:
1. "Innocent until proven guilty"
2. "False accusations" and "vicious rumors"
3. Therefore, the juror voter must acquit ignore the allegations.

It is relatively easy to explain why steps 1 and 3 are bogus. The analogy between voters and jurors in a civil case would not be a bad one, but the argument relies on the specific features of a criminal trial, and that makes the analogy untenable. In a civil case the jury decides between two parties who are a priori on equal standing, and who would gain similarly from a win and suffer similarly from a loss. That is a lot like choosing between two political candidates. The jury simply decides whose case is stronger. But in a criminal trial, the parties are in a hugely asymmetric starting position, with one party (the state) having all the power and the other (the accused) facing all the risk. Those conditions, which in no way resemble elections, are the reason for presumption of innocence and a high threshold for proving guilt. Asking voters to behave like a criminal jury makes no sense whatsoever.

The structure of the argument is thus debunked and the voters should revert to their natural standard of the preponderance of evidence. Step 2 is still relevant, however, because the information in and about those rumors can tip the scale for some undecided voters. Thus, the rest of this article will examine the claims that the accusations are false and rumors vicious.

Let's be clear: the only candidate in this race about whom there is heavy traffic of vicious and false internet rumors is Barack Obama. I will not repeat any of those rumors here because they don't deserve the minimum level of respect that even the harshest criticism conveys. They have been thoroughly debunked and refuted, and should now be silenced. Nothing comparable to that sludge is being thrown at Sarah Palin. Naturally, some rumors about her are false and some are exaggerated, but that can be said of practically every public person. If rumors about Palin exhibit any unusual pattern, it is in how much truth they may yet turn out to contain.

As the commenter noted, FactCheck.org has compiled a list of "false Internet claims and rumors" about Palin. I have already written about problems with FactCheck.org's coverage of this campaign, and I regret to inform you that they have pooped their pants again. (Why is that happening? I don't think they are intentionally biased in McCain's favor. Rather, they are not immune to the "balance" anxiety of American journalism: when lies are grossly unbalanced, journalists feel compelled to restore the balance by applying uneven standards. But that topic deserves its own post, which I promise will be coming soon.) Let's examine the five items on the list and FactCheck's analysis.

#1: Special needs education

Palin did not cut funding for special needs education in Alaska by 62 percent. She didn’t cut it at all. In fact, she increased funding and signed a bill that will triple per-pupil funding over three years for special needs students with high-cost requirements.

As far as I can tell, the rumor is indeed false. But is it vicious? It is not defamatory: it ascribes to Palin a legitimate (although, I suppose, unpopular) policy position. And it is unlikely that it was launched maliciously, as FactCheck.org traced its origins to what easily could have been an honest mistake:

Those who claim that Palin cut special needs funding by 62 percent are looking in the wrong place and misinterpreting what they find there. They point to an apparent drop in the Department of Education and Early Development budget for special schools. But the special schools budget, despite the similar name, isn't the special needs budget.

By the way, it is possibly misleading to say that she increased funding. The legislature increased funding; she merely signed it. This is not nitpicking, nor is there a symmetry. As governor, she has "line-item" veto power, so she really can cut funding for specific projects, but she cannot singlehandedly increase it. Unless she took some initiative to enact the increase (which she may well have, but no evidence for it is supplied), FactCheck.org has exaggerated a bit in the exonerating statement.

Bullfighter's verdict on this rumor: false, but neither personal nor vicious. Merely erroneous and unremarkable.

#2: Banning books

She did not demand that books be banned from the Wasilla library. Some of the books on a widely circulated list were not even in print at the time. The librarian has said Palin asked a "What if?" question, but the librarian continued in her job through most of Palin's first term.

Here FactCheck errs big time, debunking a straw man and missing the point, with the result of misleading readers.

The relevant story here doesn't involve actual banning of books, but a loyalty test for the librarian. The allegation is that, when she took over as mayor, she asked the librarian how she would feel about a request to remove objectionable books from the shelves. The librarian answered that she would not remove any books, and that was apparently the wrong answer, because Palin subsequently fired her (although she relented when people protested). In the in-depth analysis, FactCheck confirms those facts and even Palin seems to have no objections:

Palin told the Daily News back then the letters were just a test of loyalty as she took on the mayor’s job

The real issue is that such a loyalty test - requiring the librarian to put loyalty to authority above her professional duty and possibly the law - is completely inappropriate, and there is no legitimate reason for the mayor to ask that question. Its chilling effect may be sufficient to raise First Amendment concerns, and it speaks a lot about Palin's attitude to public service.

FactCheck.org acted irresponsibly by focusing on derivative rumors - purported lists of banned books pulled out of some prankster's ass. I don't even believe those rumors are widespread; I haven't seen any such list although I dig through news and blogs excessively. But by prominently debunking some amateur's nonsense and burying the relevant facts where few people will read them, FactCheck contributed to the impression that the entire issue of Palin's censorship tendencies is a hoax.

Bullfighter's verdict: FactCheck committed the equivalent of breaking a Ming vase while trying to dust it. Despite some ridiculous pranks inspired by it, the relevant main story is true.

#3: AIP

She was never a member of the Alaskan Independence Party, a group that wants Alaskans to vote on whether they wish to secede from the United States. She’s been registered as a Republican since May 1982.

As I noted before, this gun is still smoking. Palin has been "cleared" on the narrow issue of her own membership (which was never a mere rumor - the allegation was made by AIP's top officials), but that is an irrelevant bit in a potentially extremely damning case. FactCheck's mistake is similar to that in #2, but far more dangerous, for two reasons. First, this is by leaps and bounds more serious issue than local library censorship; the worst case here may involve flirting with treason. Second, the "debunking" doesn't merely wander into the irrelevant, but consciously emphasizes the only detail of the story where evidence favors Palin and hides or ignores everything else. And, by the way, her husband's membership may be as relevant as her own.

Bullfighter's verdict: FactCheck fucked up.

#4: Endorsing Buchanan

Palin never endorsed or supported Pat Buchanan for president. She once wore a Buchanan button as a "courtesy" when he visited Wasilla, but shortly afterward she was appointed to co-chair of the campaign of Steve Forbes in the state.

So she never endorsed Buchanan, but she contributed to the appearance that she did. In her own words (quoted deep down in the FactCheck article):

As mayor of Wasilla, I am proud to welcome all presidential candidates to our city. This is true regardless of their party, or the latest odds of their winning. When presidential candidates visit our community, I am always happy to meet them. I'll even put on their button when handed one as a polite gesture of respect.

Really? Regardless of the party? She would welcome the candidate of the Communist Party? How about the Nazi Party? If we take her explanation seriously, it raises some interesting questions.

Now it is true that the meme of "Palin for Buchanan" is potentially very damaging - Buchanan is widely regarded as an anti-Semite - so one could suspect its malicious origins, were it not for the fact that it was Pat Buchanan himself who launched it nationally. While some Democrats have used it (e.g., Congressman Wexler), no one can say that a Democrat or a liberal started it.

#5: Creationism

Palin has not pushed for teaching creationism in Alaska's schools. She has said that students should be allowed to "debate both sides" of the evolution question, but she also said creationism "doesn't have to be part of the curriculum."

This doesn't even make sense; it is self-contradictory. If she said that students should be allowed to "debate both sides", then, by definition, she supported teaching creationism. So what is FactCheck's point? That "supported" doesn't necessarily mean "pushed for"? Did anybody use those words? Is that worth FactCheck's attention? Please.

Oh, and what does FactCheck say in the detailed analysis? Basically, that their own summary is full of shit:

On Aug. 29, the Boston Globe reported that Palin was open to teaching creationism in public schools. That's true. She supports teaching creationism alongside evolution, though she has not actively pursued such a policy as governor.

This is embarrassing. FactCheck says FactCheck is wrong.

Bullfigher's verdict: The "rumor" is true, and FactCheck shot itself in the foot.

Scoreboard: of the five "debunked" rumors,
one is completely true,
one is generally true (and well-documented), but one detail turned out to be false despite testimonies,
one is based on a true story, but FactCheck focused on a prank inspired by it,
one is false but based on an understandable mistake,
and one is false and potentially harmful, but came from a conservative source, and Palin herself contributed to its creation.

There has actually been another rumor out there, not mentioned by FactCheck, which might have a much stronger claim to the "vicious rumor" title than any of those five. That is the rumor that Palin's youngest child was actually her daughter's, and that she faked pregnancy to cover up her daughter's. The McCain-Palin campaign blamed this one on "liberal bloggers":

ST. PAUL, Sept 1 (Reuters) - The 17-year-old daughter of Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin is pregnant, Palin said on Monday in an announcement intended to knock down rumors by liberal bloggers that Palin faked her own pregnancy to cover up for her child.

Actually, that wasn't a quote, that's Reuters drinking the Republican Kool-Aid. The campaign was more insidious, and make sure Obama's name got mentioned although there was no logical place for it:

"The despicable rumors that have been spread by liberal blogs, some even with Barack Obama's name in them, is a real anchor around the Democratic ticket, pulling them down in the mud in a way that certainly juxtaposes themselves against their 'campaign of change,'" a senior aide said.

Yes, the rumor was all over the Internet during the Labor Day weekend, but its treatment on the liberal blogs I read ranged from suspicion to dismissal, and many ignored it completely. There were several diaries posted on Daily Kos that perpetuated the claim, but every one of them received negative comments, warning about the lack of evidence or implausibility of the story; there were also diaries debunking the rumor. In other words, this was never a story that got significant traction in the liberal blogosphere.

There were speculations on Daily Kos that the rumor was planted by the Republicans as a bait to accuse librals/Democrats/Obama of smearing Palin. In light of the announcement of Bristol's pregnancy, that seems very plausible. They needed to create a context in which the pregnancy (which couldn't be hidden until November) would be announced as something relatively favorable. That doesn't necessarily mean that the Republicans planted the rumor (I've also heard that it had been all over Alaska since Trig Palin's birth), but it was definitely convenient to them.

What is rarely mentioned is that Palin's own behavior helped build the rumor. She kept her pregnancy secret until the seventh month, flew from Texas to Alaska after her water broke, didn't tell the airplane crew that she was in labor, and returned to work unusually fast after giving birth. None of those claims are disputed, and the source for most is Palin herself. There is a related rumor about Bristol missing several months of school due to mono, but I haven't seen any supporting evidence for it, and without it the story didn't work. But what made the rumor even more implausible was that a 44-year old mother has some 30 times greater risk of having a Down syndrome baby than a 17-year old. There were too many holes in that rumor even before the announcement (which by itself didn't actually refute anything). But Palin's adventurous travel from Texas to Alaska with leaking amniotic fluid, unless it is just another of her serial lies, raises questions about her judgment and responsibility.

So, the final verdict: there was one short-lived rumor that could have qualified as "vicious", but it never really caught on, it might have been planted, and it was only possible because of Palin's inexplicably odd behavior.

I'd like to know which major-party candidate for President or Vice President was the subject of fewer false accusations and vicious rumors than Sarah Palin.

Obama: "Read my lips!"

I don't like this pledge not to raise taxes. You can't restore fiscal balance by taxing only the rich, and then not even them too much. Are Americans really that stupid and immature that they won't vote for anyone who doesn't promise to burden their children with huge debt cut their taxes?

Yes, Obama's plan is a lot better than McCains. Trillions better. The choice between the two is clear. But it is sad that we are not even offered the choice of a fiscally responsible plan. It's like a small car in the 1990s - there just isn't a market for that product in America. It took $4 gas for Americans to discover small cars; what amount of national debt will it take to discover fiscal discipline?

According to Tax Policy Center, Obama's plan would increase revenues by $600 billion over the next 10 years relative to "current policy", while McCain's plan would reduce revenues by a similar amount. Here, "current policy" means extending the Bush tax cuts; if we compare to current law, in which those tax cuts expire in 2011, we are talking about revenue losses of $2.9 trillion (Obama) or $4.2 trillion (McCain). And that's not even counting their health care proposals, which are harder to compare side-by-side (McCain's would lose another $1.3 trillion in revenues; Obama's would mostly affect the spending side).

My message to whoever gets elected: please, please break your tax promises!