New myths about Obama and Clinton

1. Barack Obama is the most liberal senator according to National Journal. However, the far more sophisticated ranking produced by Keith Poole and Jeff Lewis, which takes into account all the votes in a given Congress, places him as the tenth most liberal -- see here, here, here, and here for more. (We wrote about the similarly misleading National Journal ranking of John Kerry as the most liberal senator at Spinsanity back in 2004.)

2. Bill Clinton called for slowing the economy to fight global warming according to Jake Tapper of ABC News. Actually, Clinton raised that possibility and then rejected it -- for more, see here, here, and here.

Comments

[Rob]

Not only did Jake Tapper completely mischaracterize Bill Clinton's remark, he refused to concede error when it was pointed out to him.

Here's what Tapper wrote after his mischaracterization was crtiticized: "This morning, trying to understand what former President Bill Clinton was driving at when he made a statement about effort to combat global warming, I posted a quote of his, put it in context, provided video links, and asked what he meant. The Clinton campaign did not provide for me, as requested, an explanation of what he meant. . . . Apologies for taking a confusing public comment from a former president about a major world issue and trying to make sense of it."

That's the kind of arrogant, defensive, stubborn, unrepetent response to error that we've come to expect from the MSM. Apparently Jake Tapper (and, let it be said, Clark Hoyt too) are charter members of the Dan Rather Fan Club.