Althouse: NPR decides who told the Lie of the Year.

December 19, 2009

NPR decides who told the Lie of the Year.

Guess who told it?! Sarah Palin!!11!!!1111

ADDED: They forgot to consider "Yes We Can."

61 comments:

Geoff Matthews said...: As soon as they started talking about this, I knew it would be 'Death Panels'. It seemed like such an NPR thing to do.; 12/19/09, 9:28 AM
former law student said...: Except it was PolitiFact.com, a project of the St. Petersburg Times, who decided. NPR merely reported PolitiFact's conclusion.

Remember "Fox reports; you decide"? Like that.; 12/19/09, 9:31 AM
Expat(ish) said...: When I lived in Tampa the Times would give out free copies if the day before there wasn't at least 10 minutes of sunshine.

I recall a few giveaways.

But nothing this obvious.

-XC; 12/19/09, 9:33 AM
Ned said...: Except it's true...gulp; 12/19/09, 9:36 AM
Anonymous said...: I'm afraid I have a very parochial view of lying; to me, telling a lie involves, by definition, an actual intent to lie. If I say the moon is made of green cheese because I truly believe it, I may well be delusional, but I'm not lying, because in my mind, I'm telling the truth.

Which is why I often sigh and shrug when people publicly and privately accuse other people of lying when there's no apparent attempt at deception. You can be misinformed, misled, delusional or just flat out wrong without being a liar.

And I don't think I'm lying when I say that.; 12/19/09, 9:39 AM
Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...: My vote? The entire congress on the (D) side. What a pack of lying, deceptive thieves.

Tax payer funded health care, here we come.; 12/19/09, 9:41 AM
David J. Backes said...: My new political philosophy--vote against incumbents, whoever they may be.; 12/19/09, 9:43 AM
Ricardo said...: I would have given it to American Medical Association President Dr. Nancy Nielsen (among others) for the phony "swine flu" crisis, and rushing everyone into vaccines. Just like Y2K and the computer crisis: the sky is falling, the sky is falling.; 12/19/09, 9:44 AM
Unknown said...: How about that whole jobs created/saved thing?

Or "We have to spend to keep from going broke"?

Or "Not enacting health care reform will bankrupt the country"?

Or "As the first Pacific President..."?

Or...; 12/19/09, 9:46 AM
Fred4Pres said...: Why not Andrew Sullivan on Trig Trutherism?; 12/19/09, 9:49 AM
Chase said...: You can be misinformed, misled, delusional or just flat out wrong without being a liar.

You are correct.

Lying involves intent to deceive.

People on the left use it so freely as to strip it of meaning. Liberals frankly could care less whether they are honest in using the term; the point is to strip away as many gullible suckers as possible.

But that's because the moral center of liberals, Democrats and the left always boils down to one principal:

"Whatever".

Revelation 21: Nothing evil will be allowed to enter[the eternal heaven], nor anyone who practices shameful idolatry and dishonesty [specifically intentional lying to deceive] — but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life.

Ooooooo - not gonna turn out too well for the folks at Media Matters. Or Rachel Maddow.; 12/19/09, 9:49 AM
Matt Eckert said...: How come Tiger didn't even get an honorable mention?; 12/19/09, 10:03 AM
Fen said...: Shameless. NPR tells these kinds of "lies" every day.; 12/19/09, 10:03 AM
Adam said...: President Obama to the U.S. Congress on healthcare change: "...my plan..."; 12/19/09, 10:06 AM
Wince said...: At minimum, "lie" has to be a factual assertion, doesn't it?

Here's what Palin wrote:

The Democrats promise that a government health care system will reduce the cost of health care, but as the economist Thomas Sowell has pointed out, government health care will not reduce the cost; it will simply refuse to pay the cost. And who will suffer the most when they ration care? The sick, the elderly, and the disabled, of course. The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s “death panel” so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their “level of productivity in society,” whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil.

Here's what PolitiFact editor Bill Adair said was the Lie of teh Year:

Death Panels -- the claim by Sarah Palin that the health care bill includes death panels that would make some determination of whether people could live or die...

1.) Palin made no factual assertion about the content of any specific bill, but said what she feared about the ministration of a "government health care system" attempting to reign-in costs.

Obama's prior rhetoric on the "choices" that needed to be made to save costs supported her contention.

2.) Palin never asserted "Death Panels" would "determine whether people could live or die," but might decide whether life sustaining treatments would be paid for under a "government health care system".

wv-"paysided" = what will happen taxpayers who believed their taxes wouldn't go up under Obama; 12/19/09, 10:12 AM
sakredkow said...: How is this NPR "deciding" the lie of the year? Isn't NPR reporting on Politifacts.com's "lie of the year"? Are you lying about NPR?; 12/19/09, 10:14 AM
Gabriel Hanna said...: How is this NPR "deciding" the lie of the year? Isn't NPR reporting on Politifacts.com's "lie of the year"? Are you lying about NPR?

Because out of dozens or scores of organizations that might choose a "Lie of the Year", NPR chose to report THIS one, as opposed to one chosen by, say, the Cato Institute or Planned Parenthood or MediaMatters or MRC.; 12/19/09, 10:38 AM
KCFleming said...: Lie of the Year?

What are they, eight years old?

Nyaaah nyaah nyyaaaaaah.; 12/19/09, 10:41 AM
former law student said...: out of dozens or scores of organizations that might choose a "Lie of the Year", NPR chose to report THIS one

Ah. Just like of the dozens or scores of professional golfers who might have cheated on their wives, the world's media chose to report on Tiger Woods.

Talk about biased. I guess Cablinasians never get a free pass.; 12/19/09, 10:44 AM
vbspurs said...: It reminds me of the street test given out to random passersby during the election, who were asked about Obama's contentious past versus Palin's controversial present. They got all the Obama questions wrong because they didn't know about his positions and his associations, but they when they were asked about Palin, they knew all the gossip and innuendo that has irretrievably become intertwined with reality.

And THAT is because the media refuses to investigate or criticise Obama in more than a cursory fashion, and certainly doesn't cover him in anything but a respectful tone as compared to Palin's treatment.; 12/19/09, 10:47 AM
sakredkow said...: Because out of dozens or scores of organizations that might choose a "Lie of the Year", NPR chose to report THIS one, as opposed to one chosen by, say, the Cato Institute or Planned Parenthood or MediaMatters or MRC.

- Gabriel Hanna's facetious defense of Althouse's smear of NPR.; 12/19/09, 10:50 AM
vbspurs said...: Pogo wrote:

Lie of the Year?

What are they, eight years old?

Nyaaah nyaah nyyaaaaaah.

Oh, good point. It got me thinking if NPR has polled other years' "Lies of the Years" or if this is the debut poll?

Because if it's the first time, and Palin won, it could well have been a poll made specifically with giving Palin the winning "honour" (IOW, it was predetermined by the panelists from the beginning).

I do think this is the first time NPR has done so, because we would've heard of the poll before during the Bush administration -- their editorial board never missed a chance to call Bush a liar.

Cheers,
Victoria; 12/19/09, 10:52 AM
SteveR said...: lie of the year: "Our health care plan will decrease costs, expand coverage and improve quality"; 12/19/09, 11:08 AM
Jason (the commenter) said...: NPR helping hand out "lie of the year" awards? At least we know irony isn't dead.; 12/19/09, 11:10 AM
Fen said...: lie of the year: "the science is settled."; 12/19/09, 11:11 AM
vbspurs said...: Fen wrote:

"the science is settled."

CLEARLY that is the biggest lie of this or any recent year, but you know, one must never pass up a chance to deride Palin.; 12/19/09, 11:13 AM
Jason (the commenter) said...: Obama can't beat Palin in a lying contest, and he's supposed to be the better qualified politician. Pathetic!; 12/19/09, 11:28 AM
Palladian said...: "Gabriel Hanna's facetious defense of Althouse's smear of NPR."

It's impossible to smear an organization that's already a big shit-stain.

Was this report delivered in the phlegm-cracked self-righteous tones of old commie Dan Schorr?; 12/19/09, 11:52 AM
traditionalguy said...: The best told truth to power of the year is still talked about as if it was a lie by the Big Lie crowd. Palin is smashing them where it hurts the most, by telling the simple truth as an antidote to carefully constructed layers of falsehoods. What will Newsweek and NPR do with a problem like Sarah?; 12/19/09, 12:15 PM
LonewackoDotCom said...: This Althouse post - and probably any other coverage of this story - isn't going to do have any impact. Neither NPR nor Politifact are going to change their ways.

In case anyone would like to actually do something, link to reference individual posts from my Politifact page in your discussion on your blog.

So, you write a post pointing out how PF/NPR are misleading, and you call out the people from NPR/PF who are involved by name. And, you link to one or more posts from the link above in order to show that they have a habit of misleading their audience.

Anything other than that is basically just ineffective entertainment. My goal is to change behavior, and I suggest that others help out.; 12/19/09, 12:37 PM
vbspurs said...: Was this report delivered in the phlegm-cracked self-righteous tones of old commie Dan Schorr?

You can nail Dan Schorr to a plank any day, Palladian. Just don't be touching Carl Kasell.; 12/19/09, 12:47 PM
Palladian said...: "You can nail Dan Schorr to a plank any day, Palladian. Just don't be touching Carl Kasell."

Oh I love Carl. Carl's the real deal and one of the only people on NPR that doesn't make my skin crawl.

Alas, December 30, 2009 is to be Carl's last newscast. He's still going to do "Wait, Wait..." but I can't stand that show and not even Carl and PJ O'Rourke can make it tolerable. I stopped listening to "Morning Edition" when Bob Edwards got canned.

What's left on NPR? I used to like "Car Talk" until I realized that they do a new show like once a month. The rest are all pieced together from old shows, they just insert new bumpers and a new "Puzzler". I suppose they assume that most people won't remember but I remember everything I hear so the ruse isn't effective against my super brain.

What else? Uh, I've always hated the pretentious "This American Life". That show is like everything I dislike about intellectually aspirational upper-middle-class urban liberals packed into a can. Seriously, everything on that show sounds exactly the same to me. Cue quiet hipster ambient music and close-miked, college-student-reading-free-verse-poetry intonation.; 12/19/09, 1:20 PM
Chip Ahoy said...: NPR is surveying, results on Monday. So far, Obama leads the NPR poll with 37%, Palin at 18%.

NPR is including in their post PolitiFact's Lie of the Year article by Angie Drobnic Holan, who apparently has the Palin bug up her arse and decided "death panels" to be the greatest of all lies.

Ha ha ha. That's a good one. It must be great being blinkered and being paid (I'm presuming) for writing blinkered articles.; 12/19/09, 1:34 PM
J. Cricket said...: NPR did not decide whole told the "Lie of the Year." In other words: You lie!

It is a shameless, bald-faced lie.

Are you trying to get on someone's Top Ten list?; 12/19/09, 1:37 PM
Palladian said...: Oh look, it's AJD! Who always tops the top ten lists of boring, psychotic trolls.

Verification word: hamist. Politically and religiously devoted to pork.; 12/19/09, 1:39 PM
LonewackoDotCom said...: I did the work that Althouse and others refuse to do and - while I concentrate on imm. matters and would prefer to avoid most other topics - I spent some time showing how the article is misleading. My goal with that is to influence PF's audience: if I can show their audience that PF is misleading them, PF will lose influence and their other misleading statements will have less impact. That will also send a message to others.

I'm already on the first page of Google results for the PF author's name, but I'd like to do the same for something more common.

So, if you'd like to do something useful - rather than simply entertaining - put a link like the following on your website:

Politifact's "Lie of the Year".; 12/19/09, 1:52 PM
rhhardin said...: Bullshitting isn't lying either. It's just that you don't particularly care about the truth value of what you say.

Listening to bullshit requires the same orientation.

Bullshit is a cooperative genre.

Take NPR.; 12/19/09, 1:54 PM
Titus said...: I would like to see Sara naked.

That would be totally hot.; 12/19/09, 2:24 PM
Kurt said...: former law student: I'm still waiting for the big NPR expose on ClimateGate--not just that it involved e-mails, but also a discussion of the Harry_Read_Me file and the many programming glitches, and the recent Russian charges about cherry-picked data.

In the meantime, it's safe to conclude that NPR is cherry-picking its news stories in a way that best fits its agenda. (Palladian said it with more color, though!); 12/19/09, 2:31 PM
Alex said...: FFS - isn't it East Anglia the slam-dunk winner? Sarah Palin is trying to save people from ObamaNazis's death panels and these idjiots are trying to confiscate trillions of our GDP!; 12/19/09, 2:42 PM
BrianE said...: Adding to EDH's comments at 10:12

It was my understanding that the death panel comment was related to two Lancet articles written by Zeke Emmanuael favoring spending health care dollars on certain age groups and restricting access to others.

From the Washington Examiner:

No wonder President Obama is in such a rush to get his health care reform package through Congress before the August recess. And before the public finds out about Ezekiel Emanuel, special advisor to Peter Orzag, Obama's director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), and brother to White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel.

Emanuel has written in medical journals of how health care should be rationed, with priority given to younger people over seniors and over those suffering from dementia, according to John Goodman, president of the National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA). Ezekiel also believes that very young children should be lower on the priority list than younger people who have received public educations.

Goodman cites an article Ezekiel co-authored with two other men that appeared in the January 31, 2009, edition of the British medical journal, The Lancet. Goodman also cites a 1996 article by Ezekiel that appeared in The Hastings Report. In the latter, which was titled "Where civic republicanism and deliberative democracy meet," Ezekiel argued for limiting health care for “individuals who are irreversibly prevented from being or becoming participating citizens.” He cited "not guaranteeing health services to patients with dementia” as an example.; 12/19/09, 2:51 PM
BJM said...: Gees, didn't see that one coming.

When will the media realize they are turning off moderate voters with this petty BS?

Any one on Medicare, with a parent on Medicare, a disabled family member, or on Tricare understood Palin's reference perfectly.

Why would anyone think Obamacare would be any different than other govt health care programs?

We've been dealing with govt health care bureaucrats deciding which protocols are eligible for years. Medicare refuses more reimbursements and requires higher copays than the private sector, which is why seniors carry private supplemental policies.; 12/19/09, 4:26 PM
JAL said...: The irony, of course, is that what Palin said, in the grand scheme of Barack Obama for the world that used to be the United States of America, is true.

In 10 years, without a radical AMERICAN exceptionalism movement to reinstate and act in accordance with the Consitution and keep the powers balanced and separate, there will be health care rationing.

Old people and the disabled will get the short end of the stick.

They will die before they have to and be more miserable.

So yeah -- death panel fits with what has come out of this administration when they aren't lying.

I cannot believe I have become such a cynic is such a short period of time. I knew it was going to be bad, but I really did not imagine that it would be like this.

Reading the comments on the NPR site was enough to make me think I am living in a different world than those people.

Come 2010.; 12/19/09, 4:39 PM
AST said...: I guess Sarah isn't smart enough to be a member of her NPR station. So she'll never know.

I too wondered where the AGW science assurances were, or Obama's pledge of complete transparency. Or how about the Nobel Committee's assertion that Obama, merely by not being George Bush had done the most to promote peace in the world.

distheac: One afflicted by obsessively mispronouncing "the"; 12/19/09, 4:40 PM
Tim Morris said...: What I found amazing was the poll numbers from the visitors to the page - The president gets 38% with Palin in fourth or fifth place. I wonder if visitors reaching the NPR story via Althouse are distorting the numbers? [-); 12/19/09, 5:01 PM
Palladian said...: "What I found amazing was the poll numbers from the visitors to the page - The president gets 38% with Palin in fourth or fifth place. I wonder if visitors reaching the NPR story via Althouse are distorting the numbers?"

It's probably more that Obama isn't nearly left-wing enough for them.

I mean, just the fact that he's the President of the USA is a big strike against him in the minds of that crowd.; 12/19/09, 5:08 PM
rcocean said...: NPR plans to replace Dan Schorr soon with a new fresh face like Sam Donaldson or Lesley Stahl.

Its all part of their youth movement.; 12/19/09, 5:40 PM
hdhouse said...: Palladian....its Floriduhh. Lots down there think Palin is Joan of Arc but not as a catholic or a Frenchie or an activist...just someone they associate with a beam of wood burning in a bonfire (bund-fire?).....

oh wish that it were so...; 12/19/09, 5:46 PM
Jeremy said...: Maybe they should have waited for Princess Sarah's latest bullshit lie: That she blacked out McCain on her hat...so she could stay..."incognito."

They evidently don't sell hats in Hawaii.

The woman is pathological.; 12/19/09, 7:01 PM
Jeremy said...: "it's Floriduhh."

Actually more Southern Georgia.; 12/19/09, 7:03 PM
kentuckyliz said...: transparency

hiking the appalachian trail

global warming

free health care for all; 12/19/09, 7:19 PM
Paul Kirchner said...: BrianE said...
Emanuel has written in medical journals of how health care should be rationed, with priority given to younger people over seniors and over those suffering from dementia. . .

I also heard something like this in an NPR interview with Princeton Bio-Medical Ethics Professor Peter Singer. If you follow the logic, doesn't it mean that less medical care should be allotted to obese people, the mentally retarded, sexually promiscuous gays, gang members who've been wounded in shootouts, and people who've been on public assistance for 25 years? I mean, do liberals really want to start a conversation about who in this society is costing us more than they're contributing?; 12/19/09, 7:35 PM
bagoh20 said...: What they meant was: The lie that pissed them off the most. But all you have to do about a lie is prove it wrong. Not being able to clearly do that for all the reasons mentioned above is what really pisses them off and so this is yet another attempt to discredit the idea, because many Americans still suspect it is likely true in some form. This story is continued water carrying for the President. He sure got a lot of water carriers.; 12/19/09, 11:23 PM
jaed said...: It got me thinking if NPR has polled other years' "Lies of the Years" or if this is the debut poll?

A quick googling with search strings such as

"lie of the year" politifact -palin -"death panel" 2008

indicates this is the first time Politifact has announced a "Lie of the Year". Surprise, surprise.; 12/19/09, 11:38 PM
former law student said...: ADDED: They forgot to consider "Yes We Can."

There are two significant problems with Althouse's addendum: The statement dates back to 2008, so it is out of contention for Lie of the Year 2009. Second, the statement referred to Obama's winning the White House, which he did. So PolitiFact could have named it "Correct Assertion of the Year," for 2008 but that would be it.; 12/20/09, 10:02 AM
former law student said...: From the announcement:

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

PolitiFact readers overwhelmingly supported the decision. Nearly 5,000 voted in a national poll to name the biggest lie, and 61 percent chose "death panels" from a field of eight finalists.; 12/20/09, 10:05 AM
BrianE said...: I mean, do liberals really want to start a conversation about who in this society is costing us more than they're contributing?- Paul

Touche.

Unforetunately, the country never got to try high deductable health insurance coupled with HSA's, which would have done much to help. HSA's have only been around for 6 years and many people still don't know the benefits.

Allow purchase of insurance across state lines, decouple insurance from employment, comprehensive tort reform-- all things that would have helped.

But none of this stuff advances the progressives wet dreams of controlling more of our lives.

Liberals can't even tell the difference between a lie and the truth.; 12/20/09, 10:49 AM
Synova said...: I got a mailing from our local Congressperson yesterday with the original version of health care reform plans that included the classic... "If you like your present health insurance, you can keep it."

"The science is settled" and "the time for talking is over" are probably bigger lies.; 12/20/09, 2:00 PM
former law student said...: Liberals can't even tell the difference between a lie and the truth.

If a conservative says it (not counting WFB or Goldwater, who are in Heaven) it's either a lie, or a gross distortion of the truth.; 12/20/09, 6:51 PM
Gina said...: "Obama is a centrist"; 12/23/09, 1:58 PM
Anonymous said...: мультфильм
электронная почта без регистрации; 1/25/10, 3:43 PM