AP Fact Checks Palin Lies

The Associated Press finally did its job last night and took the GOP VP nominee to task on her outright falsehoods.

• Palin Claim: Opposed Bridge to Nowhere.
• FACT: Initially supported the plan only recanting after national ridicule.
  

• Palin Claim: Obama hasn't authored any laws or reform.
• FACT: Compared to McCain and his two decades in the Senate, Obama does have a more meager record. But he has worked with Republicans to pass legislation that expanded efforts to intercept illegal shipments of weapons of mass destruction and to help destroy conventional weapons stockpiles. The legislation became law last year. To demean that accomplishment would be to also demean the work of Republican Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana, a respected foreign policy voice in the Senate. In Illinois, he was the leader on two big, contentious measures in Illinois: studying racial profiling by police and requiring recordings of interrogations in potential death penalty cases. He also successfully co-sponsored major ethics reform legislation.

• Palin Claim: Obama will raise taxes.
• FACT: Obama's plan would increase after tax income for middle income tax payers by about 5% over a four year period. McCain's plan would raise taxes by about 3% over the same period. Obama's plan also provides $80 billion in tax breaks and triples the earned income credit.

The AP also did some fact checking on a few of McSame's comments about Palin.

• McCain Claim: Palin is responsible for 20% of our nations energy supply. And that she's in charge of the nations largest state.
• FACT: McCain's phrasing exaggerates both claims. Palin is governor of a state that ranks second nationally in crude oil production, but she's no more "responsible" for that resource than President Bush was when he was governor of Texas, another oil-producing state. In fact, her primary power is the ability to tax oil, which she did in concert with the Alaska Legislature. And where Alaska is the largest state in America, McCain could as easily have called it the 47th largest state - by population.
  

• McCain Claim: Palin is the commander of the Alaskan National Guard and has national security as one of her primary responsibilities.
• FACT: While governors are in charge of their state guard units, that authority ends whenever those units are called to actual military service. When guard units are deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan, for example, they assume those duties under "federal status," which means they report to the Defense Department, not their governors. Alaska's national guard units have a total of about 4,200 personnel, among the smallest of state guard organizations.

The AP gives us more with fact checks on Romney and Huckabee. But the essence is that in one speech Palin gave the country 3 Huge Lies! Republicans do take notice.