McCain and the Fact-Checking Fallacy

As soon as the words came out of Palin’s mouth, the factcheckers were on the story. USA Today quoted the nonpartisan FactCheck.org calling Palin’s claim “inflated and misleading.” The FactCheck website itself had analyzed the claim months before, when it was made by the McCain campaign and the Republican National Committee. “We find that their count is padded,” FactCheck wrote. “By repeating their inflated 94-vote figure, the McCain campaign and the GOP falsely imply that Obama has pushed indiscriminately to raise taxes for nearly everybody.

”What were the actual figures? After going through all the claims, FactCheck wrote that “in the end, we listed votes on 54 measures under the ‘for higher taxes’ category (and another seven votes in favor of lowering some taxes and increasing others).”