It wouldn’t be a bad idea to bookmark Factcheck.org to stay abreast of the various rumors and charges that have arisen so far and are likely to surface as the campaign (which looks to be pretty close) gets weirder. A “consumer advocate for voters” run by the U. Of Pa.’s Annenberg Public Policy Center, it’s been pretty impartial, reporting that both McCain and Palin made some factual errors in their convention speeches, that a recent McCain ad was careless with facts, as was a recent Obama ad and that those still-circulating rumors about Obama being a Muslim are flat-out false, and a great deal more.
Anyway, Factcheck has looked into the rumors about Sarah Palin and discerned:
- “Palin did not cut funding for special needs education in Alaska by 62 percent. She didn’t cut it at all. In fact, she tripled per-pupil funding over just three years.
- She did not demand that books be banned from the Wasilla library. Some of the books on a widely circulated list were not even in print at the time. The librarian has said Palin asked a “What if?” question, but the librarian continued in her job through most of Palin’s first term.
- She was never a member of the Alaskan Independence Party, a group that wants Alaskans to vote on whether they wish to secede from the United States. She’s been registered as a Republican since May 1982.
- Palin never endorsed or supported Pat Buchanan for president. She once wore a Buchanan button as a “courtesy” when he visited Wasilla, but shortly afterward she was appointed to co-chair of the campaign of Steve Forbes in the state.
- Palin has not pushed for teaching creationism in Alaska’s schools. She has said that students should be allowed to “debate both sides” of the evolution question, but she also said creationism “doesn’t have to be part of the curriculum.”
We’ll be looking into other charges in an e-mail by a woman named Anne Kilkenny for a future story. For more explanation of the bullet points above, please read the Analysis.”
I find it troubling that she even raised the issue of keeping books out of the library (although no library could possibly carry all possible books and there has to be a selection process), but she apparently did so in a hypothetical manner and didn’t fire the librarian. The supposed list of books she “wanted” to ban (I followed a link one commenter provided) was strictly theoretical, based on books others had gone after, and included the Harry Potter books, which hadn’t even been published at the time.
And, of course, she did support the Bridge to Nowhere before she opposed it, and did hire lawyers to get earmarks for Wasilla. So she’s hardly Little Miss Perfect, but can we at least try to stick to the facts?
