No, that is not a partisan statement in that headline. It is a journalistic one.The Wall Street Journal's Stephen Moore has a profile of Sharron Angle up today that is riddled from top to bottom with factual errors, as Jon Ralston noted in a Tweet today. That's shocking enough because the WSJ, while possessing a notoriously conservative editorial page, usually does have some regard for facts even there. This piece is stunning in its misinformation and, clearly, most of it comes from Mrs. Angle, a woman who wears her religion on her sleeve but evidently believes that bearing false witness is cool with God. Angle, of course, is the GOP opponent to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.
It doesn't take long to get to a whopper. There's one big one in the very first paragraph, where Angle is allowed to state as fact that 30,000 people attended the Searchlight tea party in March. That's 50 percent greater than the highest estimates, coming from tea party partisans, of 20,000. The cops put it around 8,000, so does Sharron Angle think the police are dirty liars? Soon more people will allegedly have been at Searchlight than at the Polo Grounds for Bobby Thompson's homer.
Let's see. What else?
* Angle claims Reid's effort to delay a coal plant in 2009 cost 5,000 jobs. The folks in favor of the plant said it would have created 1,600 construction jobs and 200 permanent ones.
* Angle claims she was at the forefront of fighting the 2003 tax increases at the Legislature, that the governor singled her out and that Republican legislative leaders sought her out to try to get her to swing. Fact is, it was Assemblyman Bob Beers who held together the part of the GOP caucus that held back the two-thirds needed to pass the increases. Nobody would have bothered to bargain with Angle as she describes knowing that she was, as she also proudly describes, an unmovable force. Also, I can't find anywhere online where Gov. Guinn said at the time that anyone opposed to the increases was "irrelevant, irresponsible and cowardly," as the WSJ's Moore puts in quotes.
* The following is an unmitigated, total lie: "She spearheaded a movement to get the Supreme Court replaced. In the next election in 2006, voters threw out five of the seven members of the Nevada Supreme Court; the other two had retired." The controversial Guinn v Legislature decision was decided 6-1. Three of the six, Miriam Shearing, Deborah Agosti and Robert Rose, retired at the end of their next terms (2004 for Shearing and Agosti, 2006 for Rose), and one who perhaps Angle thinks she got to retire, Myron Leavitt, actually died. Only one justice from that group was ever unseated by ballot, Nancy Becker in 2006. In 2008, the one justice who dissented -- that is, who voted as Angle would have liked -- retired. Justice Mark Gibbons, who voted in the 6-1 majority but later repudiated it, was re-elected in 2008.
Two other points:
* Someone needs to tell Sharron she can stop bashing Sue Lowden now or Snow White might not help her convince moderates she's not as bat-shit crazy as Harry Reid says. In the WSJ piece, she says: "We had to have a candidate who would offer a sharp policy contrast. Someone who would not just pay lip service to limited government principles, but had a solid record of voting that way time and again."* Moore says Angle "has Irish red hair." Dude, she's almost 61. It's called henna.
10 comments:
But do we know the real causes of Myron Leavitt's death? lol
Ever since Rupert Murdoch bought the WSJ it has turned into the Fox Financial Times. It used to be a pillar and now it is a prop.
It's Thomson.
Sharrontolgy's campaign really is spinning out of control. Maybe that's why Sue Lowden, Dean Heller, and a number of other prominent Nevada Republicans won't even touch her campaign with a ten foot pole? Even her own handlers are realizing this, as they'd rather have her talk to the WSJ Editorialists than any real journalists... Well, that and the horror of NBC not allowing Sharrontology to make a fundraising pitch on "Meet the Press".
Harry Reid is a genius. This woman is self-destructing faster than Sue Lowden. He'll, he's gonna be so far ahead by the end, he can campaign for no last name Rory.
In the interest of fairness, has anyone (hint hint, cough cough) looked into the MGM Mirage Resorts Global Worldwide International claim that Harry Reid saved the jobs of their 50,000 employees by saving CityCenter (and thus the company from bankruptcy)?
Funny... Station Casinos is in bankruptcy but the lights are on at their properties. But the assertion is that if MGM went under, they'd be shutting the doors and putting 50,000 people out of work.
While Angle needs to get her numbers straight, it sounds like she's not the only one.
Anon: The logic MGM provides is as follows: "Senator Reid's support of our significant private investment in Las Vegas came during our company's darkest hour. He saved, not only 10,000 construction jobs and 12,000 permanent private sector jobs at CityCenter, but the jobs of 50,000 employees at our other resorts that would have been jeopardized had our company followed CityCenter into bankruptcy."
It is a tough one. The collapse of CityCenter would have inevitably shoved MGM into bankruptcy -- the stock was below $2 when CityCenter was in danger of not being finished. The company would have had this massive debt AND no new revenue stream nor the promise of one. It's not unreasonable to assume there would have been a ripple effect of some sort.
The difference is, those numbers are ALL speculative. The figures and facts the WSJ allowed Angle to utter as truth were not speculative. There was not, by nobody's estimate, 30,000 people at Searchlight. Five justices of the NV Supreme Court were not defeated in elections in 2006. Etc. These are checkable matters of history.
The impact of CityCenter's bankruptcy is impossible to know. If the largest private employer in the state says that the consequences would have been quite grave, that's compelling AND impossible to either prove or disprove.
That said, the GOP and the right normally gives great credibility to the testimony of big business. Why is it this time when business says that this DEMOCRAT is important to them and their success are their views suddenly so easily dismissed? Lord knows if the MGM CEO said Reid was BAD for business (as he has said Obama is when Obama made his remarks about Vegas), the right would be tooting that horn from here to kingdom come. Why are corporate figures only right when they're attacking Democrats and Democratic policies?
KILLED (not merely delay) three coal plants costing 5,000 jobs. Not talking about KILLING one coal plant. If she's talking about 3 phases of construction, the 5,000 jobs lost is correct. Or maybe not an outright lie.
Where's the shedding of tears over...
"But Severts said the calculation doesn't factor three decades-old plants that Sierra Pacific plans to shut down once the cleaner, more efficient plants are operable."
"We will have five times more energy, and a similar carbon footprint as exists today," Severts said.
http://www.kolotv.com/home/headlines/17202096.html
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Also, losing any jobs in this economy is just ridiculous.
"The cops put it around 8,000, so does Sharron Angle think the police are dirty liars?"
How about the Tea Party Organizers? Are they "dirty liars" too?
The news media has reported from 7,000 to 20,000 attendees. Do you think they checked their facts? The actual attendance is anyone's guess. Guess away.
Angle might have made a mistake, but this is merely a mistake. But the journalists have reported attendance at all ends of the scale. That is the true harm.
"No, that is not a partisan statement in that headline. It is a journalistic one."
I know you want Angle to fail, but you should admit your partisan bias.
Jeez! So when Mr. Steve reports something unflattering about Reid you TPers LOVE it... But when he fact checks Sharrontology's crazy statements, all of a sudden he's pure evil?
Give me a break.
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