Published: October 07, 2008 04:46 pm            

Palin guilty of wrong answers too

In his column of Oct. 7, Smokey Shott makes much ado about erroneous statements made by Sen. Joe Biden during the recent vice presidential debate. On the basis of these statements by Biden, Mr. Shott ventured his opinion that a vice presidential candidate who can’t get the facts straight might not be suitable for the position.

What Mr. Shott failed to mention was that Nancy Palin is also guilty of making numerous misstatements during the debate. Here are a few examples:

Palin mistakenly claimed that troop levels in Iraq had returned to “pre-surge” levels. Levels are gradually coming down but current plans would have levels higher than pre-surge numbers through early next year, at least.

Palin repeated a false claim that Obama once voted in favor of higher taxes on “families” making as little as $42,000 a year. He did not. The budget bill in question called for an increase only on singles making that amount, but a family of four would not have been affected unless they made at least $90,000 a year.

Palin claimed McCain’s health care plan would be “budget neutral,” costing the government nothing. Independent budget experts estimate McCain’s plan would cost tens of billions each year, though details are too fuzzy to allow for exact estimates.

Palin said that Barack Obama had accused American troops of doing nothing but killing civilians, a claim she called “reckless” and “untrue”. Excerpt follows:

Palin: Now, Barack Obama had said that all we’re doing in Afghanistan is air-raiding villages and killing civilians. And such a reckless, reckless comment and untrue comment, again, hurts our cause.

Obama did say that troops in Afghanistan were killing civilians, but here’s the whole quote, from a campaign stop in New Hampshire:

Obama (August 2007): We’ve got to get the job done there and that requires us to have enough troops so that we’re not just air-raiding villages and killing civilians, which is causing enormous problems there.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai has expressed concern about these civilian killings, a concern President Bush has said he shares.

Palin threw out an old canard when she criticized Obama for voting for the 2005 energy bill and said, “that’s what gave those oil companies those big tax breaks.” It’s true that the bill gave some tax breaks to oil companies, but it also took away others. And according to the Congressional Research Service, the bill created a net increase in taxes for the oil industry.

To sum up, both candidates are guilty of mangling some facts during the heat of the debate. For Mr. Shott to insinuate that only Senator Biden did so is just plain wrong.

He asked, “Is it better to have as Vice President someone who doesn’t know all the answers, or someone who knows the wrong answers?”

Would you ask this question of Sarah Palin, Mr. Shott? Evidently not.

Don Zeigler,

Bluefield, WV

        

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