When Misinformation Abounds in Election Coverage, the Real Victims are the Voters

Recently there has been a lot of bullshit being fed to the American public. Campaign ads, misinformed media personalities, random internet rumors, and the like have all clouded the pool of truth in the presidential election. From focusing on lipstick to talking about sex with kindergartners, the election coverage has devolved into a daytime soap opera with shittier acting than the actual afternoon dramas. Just because one person says something that is repeated over and over again, it does not make it true. It may have worked for Iraq, but hopefully we're smarter than that now.

That said, let's look at the claims being made on the campaign trail and the realities of the situation.

CLAIM: Sarah Palin stood up to the "big boys" in Juneau and changed the way that Alaska did business. Notably, she cut the fat off of some bogus Alaskan spending (like putting the state's private jet on eBay) and stood up to corruption and "politics as usual."

REALITY: While Palin may have done some fighting of corruption, her record against "politics as usual" is hardly anything to write home about. As mayor of Wasilla, AK (population: ~8,000) she hired a lobbying firm run by a former staffer of Ted Stevens - yes, THAT Ted Stevens - and got about $27 million. While it is unclear how much of that money went to Wasilla specifically, if you divide the money she got earmarked by her constituency, that's $3,375 per constituent. Additionally, a loophole in Alaska's "per diem" allowance system allowed Palin to bill Alaskan taxpayers while she worked from home for "travel expenses." Also, don't necessarily buy the bit that she sold the jet on eBay: she put it up on eBay, no one bought it, so she sold it cheap (at a $600,000 loss). And then, there's the "Bridge to Nowhere."

CLAIM: Obama supported comprehensive sex education for kindergartners as a state senator in Illinois.

REALITY: Obama voted for a bill that outlined sexual education for grades K-12, with age-appropriate topics. The reason that kindergarten was included was to ensure that the young children knew what kind of touching was appropriate between kids and adults; in other words, it was to make the children aware of pedophiles and child molesters. The McCain ad is downright wrong.

CLAIM: Obama took a backhanded swipe at Sarah Palin when he described McCain's policies as putting "lipstick on a pig."

REALITY: Obama was using an age-old phrase that McCain himself had used to describe Hillary Clinton's healthcare plan. In fact, CBS asked that the ad be pulled from YouTube because it used Katie Couric in it in a "misleading" fashion. Couric is seen discussing sexism in the campaign, but was referring to Senator Hillary Clinton and not Governor Sarah Palin.

CLAIM: As mayor of Wasilla, Sarah Palin either tried to band books from the local library or was successful in doing so.

REALITY: There is no proof that Palin did such a thing. While there was a time when banning books was discussed between Palin and Wasilla's librarians, it appears it was more of a general line of questioning to better understand the process than to ban individual books.

CLAIM: Obama's attacks on Governor Palin are "completely false" and "misleading" according to FactCheck.org, a non-partisan site that corroborates or debunks claims made in political campaigns.

REALITY: Obama never made any of the attacks that FactCheck found to be "completely false" and "misleading." The attacks that the FactCheck article quoted in McCain's ad refer to were found in e-mail chains and random internet postings. In fact, FactCheck itself states that "The McCain-Palin campaign has altered our message in a fashion we consider less than honest."

You can see where I am going with this. This is politics; you really think everyone tells you the truth? My advice is this: don't believe everything you see and do a little research of your own to find out the truth about things. I will overwhelmingly recommend FactCheck.org after browsing through it. It's non-partisan, it cites its sources, and it lays everything out very plainly. This is a heated race, and quite honestly, closer than it should be. Like David Eisenbach and Mike Gravel say in their book, if something is repeated in the "media echo chamber" enough, it eventually becomes fact when in reality it is far from the truth. Peace.

Photo - Obama and McCain (abcnews.go.com)

Palin's Daughter Pregnant, Palin's Husband Had Been Arrested for DUI

Today two large announcements were made concerning the family of Sarah Palin, the VP on the McCain-Palin ticket. The first, and most shocking, is that Sarah Palin's daughter 17 year old Bristol is five months pregnant and plans to marry the father of the child. The second revelation, and much less shocking, is that Palin's husband was arrested for DUI twenty years ago when he was twenty-two years old.

Before I get into the nitty-gritty of all of this, I do want to say that I feel for Bristol Palin. To be shoved into the national spotlight as the young daughter of a Vice Presidential candidate is rough enough, but to be known as the unmarried pregnant daughter of the Vice Presidential candidate is even tougher. To make things worse (and really one of the only reasons that I am going into this at all) is the fact that Sarah Palin has, in the past, backed abstinence-only education. At this point it is almost common knowledge that sexual education that incorporates contraceptives education begets lower pregnancy rates among teens.

So where does this leave Palin? Her and her husband put out a statement saying that Bristol will marry the father of her child, saying that Bristol "has our unconditional love and support." While this is the best thing a person can do when they find themselves pregnant and in a "family values" family such as Bristol is, I sincerely hope that this is what Bristol wanted to do and not what her parents wanted her to do. While I do not think that Mrs. Palin is the type of person who would do this (simply because I do not know her), the worst thing to do in this situation is to force one's daughter to do something that she does not want to do to save political face. Hopefully Bristol and her boyfriend are in love and want to marry each other and they are simply not doing it because everyone around them is pressuring them to.

An important thing to remember here is that Sarah Palin is not 100% responsible for her daughter's actions. However, it is also important to note that Palin's support of abstinence-only education contributes to higher teen pregnancy levels (see the report cited earlier). I am not saying that if Palin had supported comprehensive sex education that her daughter would not have become pregnant - no one can paint a direct link without knowing 100% of the facts of what happened (which is really none of anyone's business by Bristol's and anyone else she would share it to). But Palin and other social conservatives who continue to support abstinence-only education can share partial responsibility for unwanted teen pregnancies.

As for the revelation that Todd Palin was arrested for DUI when he was twenty-two: this is not a huge deal in my mind. People do stupid things when they are young, and I cannot imagine that rural Alaska rarely sees these types of things. It's not like he's George W. Bush and did it at the age of 30 when he should have known better or he's Dick Cheney and did not learn from one DUI charge and got two in eight months. If he were running for something, that would be one thing, but he is simply the husband of someone running for something.

But all of this begs the question: why did Palin accept this job? Another question: why did McCain allow her to do this, knowing what he knew? If I were Palin, the last thing I would want to do is put my daughter on the national stage. She had to know that this would get out; why not save her daughter the embarassment? If I were McCain, I would thank Palin for her contributions to Alaska and the Republican Party in general but would not consider her for my VP. Not solely because her daughter was pregnant, but because she clearly had some personal issues to deal with and putting her family in the national spotlight would be unfair. But this choice begs the question: if Palin, given the personal problems that running for VP would probably only exacerbate, was McCain's best choice among the nation's Republicans, how bad were the rest of them? Peace.

Photos - Sarah Palin (www.en.wikipedia.org), McCain and Palin (www.news.bbc.co.uk), Sarah and Todd Palin (www.bostonherald.com)