PolitiFact's Lie of the Year: 'Death panels'

By Angie Drobnic Holan
Friday, December 18th, 2009 

Of all the falsehoods and distortions in the political discourse this year, one stood out from the rest.
"Death panels."

The claim set political debate afire when it was made in August, raising issues from the role of government in health care to the bounds of acceptable political discussion. In a nod to the way technology has transformed politics, the statement wasn't made in an interview or a television ad. Sarah Palin posted it on her Facebook page.

Her assertion — that the government would set up boards to determine whether seniors and the disabled were worthy of care — spread through newscasts, talk shows, blogs and town hall meetings. Opponents of health care legislation said it revealed the real goals of the Democratic proposals.

Advocates for health reform said it showed the depths to which their opponents would sink. Still others scratched their heads and said, "Death panels? Really?"

The editors of PolitiFact.com, the fact-checking Web site of the St. Petersburg Times, have chosen it as our inaugural "Lie of the Year."

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PUPPET VIDEO: Joe Leiberman holds heath reform hostage

Going Rogue Without a Condom (Margaret and Helen)

Margaret.  Chapter One of Going Rogue by Sarah Palin ends on page 62.  That’s about 61 pages after it should have ended.  It  has approximately 19,500 words to it, but not one of them was worth reading. It’s all pure crap.   If this chapter is any indication of what’s ahead, then it appears Mrs. Palin plans to spend the rest of her life getting even with the world by rewriting history.

The very first page of the book is a map of the globe as seen from the North Pole – I guess to emphasize the proximity of Alaska to Russia.  Honestly honey, when is she going to learn that dog don’t hunt?  Her defending us from Russia would be about as effective as Todd Palin’s preferred brand of condoms.   Oh yes –  Track arrived not quite 8 months after they sprinted to the courthouse to elope.  I guess Sarah’s ghost writer didn’t think anyone who reads this book could count.

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(Thanks Sean Wood for pointing this out!)

Dobbs: 2012 presidential run not "crazy" (Politico.com)

By Glen Thrush

Watch your back, Glenn Beck.

Ex-CNNer Lou Dobbs tells WTOP this morning that he feels "liberated and emancipated" since leaving the network — and he's not ruling out the possibility of running for president in 2012.

When one of the WTOP anchors joked that pundits were floating the crazy idea of the immigration-fixated Dobbs running for president, he shot back: "What's so crazy about that?" — and disclosed that he's talking to advisers to suss out his political options.

"For the first time I'm actually listening to [people who want him to run for office]. ... I don't think I have the nature for it. ... But we've got to do something for this country."

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FOX rolls wrong video, heads may roll (SwampPolitics.com)

by Mark Silva

FOX has done it again, and this time, once again, FOX says its misplay of the wrong crowd video was another regrettable mistake.

Today, FOX News host Gregg Jarrett was talking about Republican Sarah Palin's book tour and the crowd she is drawing at the start of it - no small turnout, with some 1,500 people lining up early this morning for a chance to get into this evening's premier book-signing for Going Rogue in Grand Rapids.

"Sarah Palin continuing to draw huge crowds while she's promoting her brand new book,'' FOX's Jarrett told his viewers. "Take a look at -- these are some of the pictures just coming into us... The lines earlier had formed this morning.''

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Oprah Winfrey-Sarah Palin interview for 'Going Rogue' shows TV hostess who's a master of her craft (NYDailyNews.com)

David Hinckley
New York Daily News
Tuesday, November 17th 2009, 5:21 AM

It’s never been clearer how Oprah Winfrey got to be America’s First Hostess of Television than it was when she chatted with Sarah Palin yesterday.


For Palin, this was the start of a week-long mission behind enemy lines. She’s talking with people, like Oprah, who mostly didn’t want her to become vice president. She’s in a forum, the “liberal media,” that she needs her supporters to keep mistrusting.

Oprah, in turn, played the good hostess. She tried to make her guest comfortable. She kept the conversation focused mostly on “Going Rogue,” the new book Palin is promoting. She steered away from areas of potential personal disagreement.

All that meant she also steered away from news, and she didn’t end up with any.

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Memoir Is Palin’s Payback to McCain Campaign (NYTimes.com)

By MICHIKO KAKUTANI

Published: November 14, 2009

“Going Rogue,” the title of Sarah Palin’s erratic new memoir, comes from a phrase used by a disgruntled McCain aide to describe her going off-message during the campaign: among other things, for breaking with the campaign over its media strategy and its decision to pull out of Michigan, and for speaking out about reports that the Republican Party had spent more than $150,000 on fancy designer duds for her and her family. In fact, the most sustained and vehement barbs in this book are directed not at Democrats or liberals or the press, but at the McCain campaign. The very campaign that plucked her out of Alaska, anointed her the Republican vice-presidential nominee and made her one of the most talked about women on the planet — someone who could command a reported $5 million for writing this book.

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Sarah Palin in 'Going Rogue': John McCain camp set me up for disaster in Katie Couric interviews (NYDailyNews.com)

By David Saltonstall
DAILY NEWS SENIOR CORRESPONDENT

Friday, November 13th 2009, 9:42 AM

Sarah Palin says she was blindsided by Katie Couric's devastating interviews last year because John McCain's aides lulled her into thinking the CBS anchorwoman was a fan.

In Palin's new book, "Going Rogue," the 2008 GOP vice presidential nominee reveals that her handlers talked up Couric as a working mom - just like her - who was struggling with low self-esteem and even lower ratings.

Couric liked and admired her, advised campaign media honcho Nicolle Wallace. The interviews would be a nice favor.

The scouting reports were so sympathetic, Palin writes, that that she almost began to "feel sorry" for Couric.


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Music Video: "Too Big to Fail" by the Austin Lounge Lizards

William Shatner Reads Sarah Palin Farewell Speech (The Tonight Show via YouTube)

Sarah Palin's final speech as Governor of Alaska baffled many. Conan O'Brien realized it was a poem and asked William Shatner to recite it verbatim. Hilarity ensues.

John McCain on Sarah Palin's resignation

Obama: Baby Got Barack (TMZ.com)

Posted Jul 9th 2009 7:20PM

by TMZ Staff

While in Italy for the G8 summit, President Barack Obama checked out the, er, sights. Thanks to Pete Hall for bring this to our attention!



The Prez should know you never look back, only forward.

David Letterman: Top Ten Messages On Sarah Palin's Answering Machine

Watch it here!

Top Ten

"Hi, It's George W. Bush. Why didn't anyone tell me resigning was an option?" "It's John McCain -- why did I call?" "Mark Sanford here. Ever been to Argentina?" "I'm calling from Geico to see if you want to renew your dogsled insurance" "It's Letterman -- we still cool?" "McCain again. Still no idea why I called" "Hi, it's the dry cleaner. Having trouble getting caribou blood out of your Prada jacket" "Hi, it's Sarah...oops...dialed my own number" "Schwarzenegger here. If you want a job, California could use a new governor" "Hey, it's McCain. Who would've thought you'd retire before I did?"

The Uncle Sam Interviews: Carole King (Funny or Die)

The Uncle Sam Interviews: Carole King from Carole King

Sarah 'Barracuda' Palin and the Piranhas of the Press (PoliticsDaily.com)

By Carl Cannon
July 8, 2009

Sarah Palin's rambling abdication speech was hard to follow, let alone acclaim, but in her abrupt announcement that she is withdrawing from public office, the Republican governor of Alaska was hardly the only player in a 10-month drama who demonstrated a lack of self-awareness. Democrats scoffed at her "politics of personal destruction" line, but it's a maxim they originally popularized, and one they will undoubtedly trot out again the next time it happens to one of their own. But the true villains in this political morality play may have been the press.

The mainstream media is undergoing its demise, drip by drip, day by day, and its practitioners, which include most of my friends in life, are under considerable pressure. In my opinion, however, these pressures do not excuse the treatment accorded Sarah Palin. On the contrary, to me the entire Sarah saga revealed that it wasn't only the traditional media's business model that is broken. Our journalism model is busted, too.

In the 2008 election, we took sides, straight and simple, particularly with regard to the vice presidential race. I don't know that we played a decisive role in that campaign, and I'm not saying the better side lost. What I am saying is that we simply didn't hold Joe Biden to the same standard as Sarah Palin, and for me, the real loser in this sordid tale is my chosen profession.

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Billions in aid go to areas that backed Obama in '08 (USA Today)

By Brad Heath
USA TODAY
July 8, 2009

WASHINGTON — Billions of dollars in federal aid delivered directly to the local level to help revive the economy have gone overwhelmingly to places that supported President Obama in last year's presidential election.

That aid — about $17 billion — is the first piece of the administration's massive stimulus package that can be tracked locally. Much of it has followed a well-worn path to places that regularly collect a bigger share of federal grants and contracts, guided by formulas that have been in place for decades and leave little room for manipulation.

STIMULUS FUNDS: States aren't using money as intended

"There's no politics at work when it comes to spending for the recovery," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs says.

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Satirist John Breneman Delves Deep into Cyberspace (BlogTalkRadio)

What’s in store for Alaska Governor Sarah Palin after she resigns her seat on July 26?

“She plans to take a brief vacation, shooting media jackals from an airplane.

John: He reports, he derides.

“Then she may hit the paid-speaker circuit with her inane ability to spout random strings of words that underscore her refreshing lack of knowledge and experience.”

The according to “Fox News anchor puppet Deuce Murdoch,” the latest incarnation of BlogTalkRadio’s resident humorist John Breneman.

The Boston Herald blogger, who, as primary alter ego Reid Page, anchor of the 13 O’Clock News, contributes weekly reports to BTR’s Game On!, recently launched a stand-alone Humor Gazette report here on the network.

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Sarah Palin Is a Hit for Vanity Fair. But She’s No Jessica Simpson–Or Miley Cyrus! (D)

by Peter Kafka
Posted on July 6, 2009 at 1:05 PM PT

The punditocracy is still trying to figure out why Sarah Palin is bailing on her day job. But over at Condé Nast’s Vanity Fair, they’ve got better things to do–like tallying page views for Todd Purdum’s buzzy feature story on the soon-to-be former governor of Alaska.

The story went up on VF.com six days ago and has generated just under two million page views since then, says executive online editor Michael Hogan. (Disclosure: I’ve been a free-lance contributor to Vanity Fair’s “New Establishment” list in the past and will be again this year). Had Palin not made her blockbuster announcement on the Friday before the Fourth of July, the piece would be doing even better: Vanity Fair generated more traffic on the Tuesday the story was posted than the day after Palin made her news.

Still, it’s a big coup for the magazine’s site. The only way to generate more attention would be to run a slideshow featuring young attractive women.

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Sarah Palin on her resignation: 'Politically speaking, if I die, I die. So be it' (AP)

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Tuesday, July 7th 2009, 8:04 AM

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Sarah Palin says she's not a quitter, she's a fighter, but adds that, politically speaking, "if I die, I die. So be it."

The Alaska governor spoke in taped interviews on ABC, NBC and CNN broadcast Tuesday morning.

She told CNN that "all options are on the table" for her future.

But told ABC's "Good Morning America" that she recognizes she might not have political staying power after her surprise resignation Friday, which came just as she had been expected to elevate her national profile ahead of a possible 2012 Republican presidential run.

"I said before ... 'You know, politically speaking, if I die, I die. So be it,'" she said.

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Send Carlos Pena to the 2009 All-Star Game!

Uncle Jay Explains the News: 2008 Year-End Edition

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