Immediately after Obama concluded his acceptance speech, the McCain campaign release a statement calling the speech "misleading" and providing a list of seven allegedly misleading claims made by Obama. McCain's people probably should have spent a bit more time on the response rather than rushing it out the door, because much of this rebuttle doesn't make sense at all (the claims aren't the type that are even subject to being misleading) and much of the rest is pretty unconvincing. Out of seven allegations of "misleading claims," by my count, only one really hits its target. It is a pretty poor performance, indeed, if you can't successfully identify more than one misleading claim in a 50 minute political speech, much of which focused on criticizing the opposing candidate.
"MISLEADING CLAIM #1: Barack Obama Can Bring Democrats and Republicans Together."
It remains to be seen whether he can, of course, but the claim is aspirational, not factual. A claim that he had a record of bringing Democrats and Republicans together would a factual claim, but no such claim was made in the speech. The supposed evidence that the "claim" is misleading are a series of quotes from sources that say Obama takes liberal positions and has a liberal voting record.
"MISLEADING CLAIM #2: Barack Obama Will Ensure That Our Troops On The Ground Have The Equipment They Need In Battle."
It is hard to see how this promise made by Obama during his speech could be true, false, misleading or not misleading, since it is a claim about the future. The supposed evidence is that Obama voted against a particular war funding bill.
"MISLEADING CLAIM #3: Barack Obama Has Not Supported The President."
I'm not sure what to make of this "claim". I think it is a typo, and what is meant is that John McCain has not supported the president, but it is hard to tell because at least one of the pieces of evidence offered to demonstrate that the claim is misleading seems to me to be attempting to suggest that Obama was a frequent supporter of Bush.
"MISLEADING CLAIM #4: John McCain Believes We've Made Great Progress And Families Aren't Hurting."
At least this claim logically could be misleading, but is it? Obama did allege that McCain said he believes the economic has made great progress under Bush. He didn't say that McCain said families were not hurting, although one could infer that from the context of the speech. Interestingly, none of the evidence offered by the McCain campaign on this point even implies that McCain does not in fact believe that economic progress has been made during the Bush years, only that McCain recognizes some people are hurting. If McCain's actual position is that there has been great economic progress but he recognizes some families have suffered, this is only slightly inconsistent with Obama's claim. I don't think Obama was really trying to imply that McCain thinks every single person in the entire country is better off now than 8 years ago, but rather that McCain thinks there has been economic progress generally during the Bush years whereas Obama thinks that there generally has been economic decline.
"MISLEADING CLAIM #5: Barack Obama Will Pay For His Massive Spending."
Fair point here for McCain. The sources that Obama claimed during the speech would pay for his spending priorities certainly would be insufficient to do so.
"MISLEADING CLAIM #6: Under Barack Obama, We Will Achieve Energy Independence."
Obama said he would set a goal of energy independence in 10 years. I can't understand what could be misleading about this. Certainly the McCain response does not challenge the claim that Obama would set such a goal if elected. Sure, this goal might be difficult to achieve, but it was obviously meant to be aspirational. What is misleading about what Obama said?
"MISLEADING CLAIM #7: Barack Obama Will Cut Taxes." Obama claimed that he will cut taxes for 95% of working families. This could potentially be a misleading statement, but the McCain response doesn't argue that Obama's policy proposals would not, in fact, do this. Instead, the evidence cited is that, in the past, Obama voted to raise taxes on middle income workers. Maybe this evidence suggests that Obama could be lying when he promises to cut taxes, or is likely to change his mind, but it doesn't suggest that there is anything misleading about what Obama said during the speech.
You're at best only an infrequent contributor to the Volokh Conspiracy...
Isn't this (and your previous post of a few minutes ago) an abuse of your privileges here? I hope that most of us expect more of the VC faculty than a rehash of an Obama Action Wire.
For instance, take this one:
Maybe this evidence suggests that Obama could be lying when he promises to cut taxes, or is likely to change his mind, but it doesn't suggest that there is anything misleading about what Obama said during the speech.
In the narrow sense that the plan, if implemented, actually would do what he says it does, it's not misleading. But by any ordinary standard, lying about your intent to carry out a plan, while truthfully describing the nature of the plan, is misleading. Claiming that it's not, fools nobody (at least nobody who's paying attention). Come on.
Whatever your opinions about Prof. Korobkin's posts, presumably the question of whether or not he is abusing his privileges is one that our gracious host Prof. Volkh is in the only position to judge. It's also an exaggeration to say these posts are simply partisan, pro-Obama propaganda. Prof. Korobkin notes in both that Obama's proposed spending reductions are not sufficient to pay for his ambitious policies, which can hardly be construed as anything but criticism of Obama.
Ken Arromdee:
I think the better response would be that the McCain campaign's response did not cite any evidence that Obama is actually lying. He voted for Democrats' FY2009 budget proposals, omnibus resolutions with thousands of provisions, some of which would have allowed Bush tax cuts for middle income families to expire. These weren't even the bills themselves--simply statements of intent upon entering into the budget creation and negotiation process. Very weak tea for a claim of "misleading" voters.
Anyway, on Claim #6, what makes this claim misleading is that it is not realistic (or perhaps even possible) to achieve energy independence in only 10 years given available technology and known resources, so that even saying that we will try to get there in that short a period is disingenuous. Sort of like saying that you will set a goal to pay off the national debt in the next 12 months without significantly raising taxes. Even if you say it's just a "goal," the math makes it impossible to do, so it is a silly thing to say and betrays ignorance about the nature of the problem.
Claim #7 dovetails with Claim #5: I don't think it is mathematically possible to cut taxes on 95% of the population and still pay for the programs Obama has said he wants to implement. Yes, I am taking into consideration that he is likely to raise taxes on the other 5%. But I don't think he could raise taxes high enough on that 5% so that, even coupled with spending cuts, he could actually cut taxes on the other 95% and still pay for his programs. Unless, he is narrowly defining what a "working family" is. However, that would be misleading.
I don't know how narrow Obama's definition of "working family" is. Depending on how cramped his campaign's construction is, that could render the claim in question misleading. But I think it should have been clear to anyone watching the speech that Obama was not promising to cut taxes on 95% of the population. If he had been, he'd have said something like "cut taxes on 95% of Americans families" or "all Americans." The fact that he used the phrase "working families" instead clearly indicates the presence of limiting factors that make this group less than coterminous with the entire population, or even the entire taxpaying population, of the United States.
Put more simply, Obama called McCain a liar and McCain was telling the truth about the economy. That makes Obama's statement "misleading."
The McCain Camp is challenging the ability of Obama's plans to pay for themselves? Senator McCain was as happy as a pig in a poke to take part in The GOP Gone Wild in D.C. 2002-2006. He supports waging war on the installment plan, and foisting off the costs onto the the backs of future taxpayers.
Democrats tax and spend, but Republicans just spend. Which is the lesser of two evils?
Well, when you promise something that simply can not be done, that is a lie, and misleading.
Of course, Nobama also has some insane promises about 'cutting greenhouse gases' - I forget what nubers he uses - something like 50 % of 1990 levels within 10 years - that would basically require that we stop burning ANYTHING, EVER, so I guess maybe if you tie the two togetherm they become achievable in tandem.
Sadly, this country would no longer exist, which might be a bit of a problem, policy wise ....
I view disappointed's post as a counterpoint to the inviolate rule that whenever a conservative-leaning opinion is expressed here, some portion of commenters immediately begin to mourn The Declining Quality Of Posts On This Blog.
Now of course political posts are of fine and worthy quality to be included here. Gee, I wonder what could possibly account for the difference in attitudes?
I think that this critique is petty. "Misleading" implies purposeful deceit. Essentially, Ken is suggesting that Obama's statement is intentionally deceitful because both Ken and McCain "know" that Obama is saying one thing but harboring within his brain the secrete intent to do something else, and that Obama is not telling anyone what his true plan is because he will spring it on the public if he becomes President. That is a great deal of conjecture, and it is a petty weak and ineffective critique of Obama's point.
I didn't think so either. Maybe for the top 5% of working families (full disclosure, I am in the top 5% of earners according to the census)
Hah! I had to read the rest of the post to determine disappointed wasnt being sarcastic. And then I had to read it two more times to make sure.
As you admit. It's certainly not factual. So how did Obama phrase it? If he said he "will" or "can" then it was misleading. If he said he "wishes" or "hopes" then it wasn't.
"Obama said he would set a goal of energy independence in 10 years."
Yeah, and he can set that goal based on the use of perpetual motion machines and it would be even less misleading.
"Obama claimed that he will cut taxes for 95% of working families"
Obama has also promised to pay for massive spending on programs. It's impossible to do both so this is misleading in tandem with other statements. Remember that it's not "cutting taxes on 95% of workers" if you shift the tax burden to future workers by increasing the debt.
Perhaps you could provide some specific examples of what you find to be "spot on."
Actually that is misleading. A quick search of research on the issue shows if you want to do it in 10 years you'd bankrupt the country and even worse run the risks of disruption of food, heat, medicine, etc. You can't just overturn an entire economy. Even Poland's shock therapy really hurt in the short term, much more than we would stand for here. 30 years? maybe. 10 years? no way.
3 Obama has not supported the president
Actually you're right on that, what McCain is saying actions speak louder than words.
'05 bill to give money to oil companys? McCain voted no, Obama voted yes
'07 transportation bill loaded with pork? McCain voted no, Obama voted yes
'08 Fannie/Freddi bailout bill which contained almost no reform but increased the power of government? McCain voted no, Obama voted yes
Lastly of course there is this speech Obama gave in '05: "I don’t think we should have an artificial deadline" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kFrFIFizkU
Looking at Obama's voting record and McCain's, rather than calling him names like "mccsame" and "mcbush" it is quite apparent that McCain has voted against bills Bush supported more often than Obama has.
Peggy Noonan also has an interesting review of the speech here.
JHA
This post is totally gay.
Actually, the law of false advertising (Section 43(a) of the Trademark Act) recognizes two types of false advertising: literally false, and misleading. The latter means an advertising claim that is literally true, but that most people would interpret in a different way than is the literal meaning. When litigating the latter types of claim, you need to produce a consumer survey to prove that most of the public would interpret the advertising in the way which is misleading.
Now let's apply this to a specific example. If Obama promises to cut taxes on "95% of working families" then, as one poster already pointed out, there is a limiting clause -- working families. What does that mean? Anyone define that?
In reality, most of the listeners would believe themselves to be part of "working families." How about a working couple who make a combined income of $75,000? $100,000? $150,00? I would be willing to bet all consider themselves "working families."
If Obama means only anyone making $50,000 or under then the statement is misleading, because he knows most listeners will interpret the statement differently than what he means it to be.
Just a thought by Justaguy.
Nowhere does it say "fact check" or anything like it. The main posting above is highly misleading.
The McCain release is a spot on of Obama's speech, extensively quotes mainstream media sources, and is a rather devastating critique.
Here is the link again: McCain Release
I concur, it is disappointing this appeared on Volokh Conspiracy at all.
MISLEADING CLAIM #1: I'm a big dodohead.
... with something like ...
#1) Barack Obama says I'm a big dodohead, when in fact he's the big dodohead.
Another problem with this document is a failure to consider the audience. The intended audience for this document is reporters trying to file copy quickly. Reporters are generally not going to give prominence criticisms that aren't tangible. Starting off with "MISLEADING CLAIM #1: Barack Obama Can Bring Democrats and Republicans Together" just sounds like sneering. They should have had started with something like "Barack Obama says he wants to bring Democrats and Republicans together, but his voting record shows he votes the Democratic line 98.5% of the time" (or some such figure, I made that one up).
Ramesh only needed to add "and a Muslim" to complete the hyperbole.
But it's hard to argue that the McCain campaign's rebuttal is very strong. And as at least one poster above already noted, Obama phrased even his 'aspirational' claims quite carefully, to avoid just the kind of rebuttal that McCain's people attempted.
Obama did NOT say he would cut taxes on 95% of the population, or of families, as some posters suggest: he carefully said "working families". Perhaps this is a bit of a dodge, but it remains the case — as a forum full of lawyers should recognize — that rebutting a claim someone didn't make in the first place may be rhetorically useful, but is hardly compelling.
Likewise, I heard Obama say he wanted to cut US "dependence on oil from the Middle East" in 10 years, rather than to establish "energy independence." Again, a fair critique would point out the fungible nature of oil and gas, and similar factors. Still, ensuring that US imported oil and gas in 10 years come entirely from Venezuela, Canada, Mexico, Nigeria and other non-Mideast sources is a less ambitious claim than ensuring that the United States is not a net energy importer. It makes Obama's actual claims more plausible, even if the assumptions it involves are open to fair question.
Still, what I take away from the thread is how heated everyone has become, and how touchy. To what extent is that a consequence of blogs' 'hot' characteristics, which encourage off-the-cuff replies and spiraling denunciation? Could the structure of blog comments be changed to cool the medium, and would that lead to better discussion? (The Volokh comment threads are usually a tranquil oasis compared to some blogs, but even here, the crankiness is on the increase, it seems to me).
On taxes, national security, race relations, the budget, and more, Obama is a walking contradiction, dripping hauty condescension, fierce anger and dismissal, whenever he's called on it.
You wanted to know what of the claims are true?
Aside from the obvious typo in #3, I think they are all accurate. This "it's a prediction about the future so it can't be misleading" is obviously wrong. If you wanna talk law, put some overly optimistic claims in a securities circular and see how fast you get sued. "It was gonna happen in the future so I wasn't misleading!!!" ain't much of a defense.
"MISLEADING CLAIM #6: Under Barack Obama, We Will Achieve Energy Independence."
Anyone who claims that we will do this is either ignorant or lying (or both).
If I claimed that I would quadruple real incomes in America in 4 years, that would be a misleading claim because it would be impossible to achieve, given what is politically and economically possible.
Of course, energy independence could be achieved if we executed half the population, but nothing that is even remotely possible to do -- and nothing that Obama is actually proposing to do -- could achieve energy independence in 10 years.
Obama's claim #6 is highly misleading because it's not reasonably possible.
But -- based on my understanding of the word "misleading" -- sure they are! Isn't it misleading to say you'll "set a goal of energy independence in 10 years" when you know there's no imaginable way you can meet that goal? It may be literally true you can set such a goal, even though it's a sham but... it's MISLEADING to make the claim in that way.
I don't know that the McCain response is 100% solid, but the main point -- showing the large disconnect between Obama's claims for the future and what you can reasonably expect from his past, and from the realities of the physical world we inhabit -- is pretty solid.
It remains to be seen whether he can, of course, but the claim is aspirational, not factual. A claim that he had a record of bringing Democrats and Republicans together would a factual claim, but no such claim was made in the speech. The supposed evidence that the "claim" is misleading are a series of quotes from sources that say Obama takes liberal positions and has a liberal voting record.
This claim is a promise.
With promises, one can look to past acts to determine whether the candidate making the promise will act on it. Mr. Obama has had ample opportunity to cross the aisle and work on compromises with the other side and has almost never done so. His voting record is quite uncompromising apart from his joining President Bush in voting for subsidies for oil companies.
We can also look at the proposals advanced by Mr. Obama in his speech. There are no bipartisan proposals here that break with the party orthodoxy ala Clinton's welfare reform, Bush's medicare drug program or any number of McCain's apostasies from conservatism.
Thus, this promise is most likely false, not misleading.
"MISLEADING CLAIM #2: Barack Obama Will Ensure That Our Troops On The Ground Have The Equipment They Need In Battle."
It is hard to see how this promise made by Obama during his speech could be true, false, misleading or not misleading, since it is a claim about the future. The supposed evidence is that Obama voted against a particular war funding bill.
This is a misleading statement because it implies that Mr. Obama would provide equipment to the troops which Mr. McCain would not. Mr. Obama is again running against Mr. Bush again.
"MISLEADING CLAIM #3: Barack Obama Has Not Supported The President."
I'm not sure what to make of this "claim". I think it is a typo, and what is meant is that John McCain has not supported the president, but it is hard to tell because at least one of the pieces of evidence offered to demonstrate that the claim is misleading seems to me to be attempting to suggest that Obama was a frequent supporter of Bush.
This argument is indeed mangled.
Mr. Obama's claim that McCain supported the President 90% of the time in the Senate is both factually false as it cherry picks one year out of eight and is misleading because many of these Senate votes are unanimous resolutions on irrelevant topics for which Mr. Obama also voted when he bothered to show up to vote. This Congress has not accomplished much of any substance with which to make this argument.
"MISLEADING CLAIM #4: John McCain Believes We've Made Great Progress And Families Aren't Hurting."
At least this claim logically could be misleading, but is it? Obama did allege that McCain said he believes the economic has made great progress under Bush. He didn't say that McCain said families were not hurting, although one could infer that from the context of the speech. Interestingly, none of the evidence offered by the McCain campaign on this point even implies that McCain does not in fact believe that economic progress has been made during the Bush years, only that McCain recognizes some people are hurting. If McCain's actual position is that there has been great economic progress but he recognizes some families have suffered, this is only slightly inconsistent with Obama's claim. I don't think Obama was really trying to imply that McCain thinks every single person in the entire country is better off now than 8 years ago, but rather that McCain thinks there has been economic progress generally during the Bush years whereas Obama thinks that there generally has been economic decline.
Mr. McCain is tap dancing around an Obama lie.
As is the wont of the Dem left, Mr. Obama painted a utterly false picture of an America in an economic depression and he outright lied when he claimed that average wages decreased during the past 8 years. In fact, the latest data indicate that real wages have recovered and surpassed the trough caused by a recession which Mr. Bush inherited in 2001 and the economy grew by a healthy 3.3% last quarter.
However, when the Dem media narrative is that we are in recession, it would appear impolitic for McCain to claim that the economy is actually doing well. The minority of the citizenry who are hurting vote and those who actually believe the press would think that McCain is being insensitive.
"MISLEADING CLAIM #5: Barack Obama Will Pay For His Massive Spending."
Fair point here for McCain. The sources that Obama claimed during the speech would pay for his spending priorities certainly would be insufficient to do so.
Actually, Mr. Obama's fiscal plans are worse than generally recognized.
Tax increases as those proposed by Mr. Obama have never eliminated deficits. Rather, as we learned with Mr. Clinton, even relatively modest tax rate increases slow growth, slow tax revenues and give us large deficits for as far as the eye can see. The revenues actually generated by the Clinton tax rate increases were about half that projected under static scoring by OMB and CBO. In fact, the budget was only briefly balanced after Clinton and the GOP Congress agreed to slow the growth of entitlement spending.
Mr. Obama plans to far exceed Clinton's modest marginal tax rate increases with an over 20% increase in the marginal tax rates of those earning more than $90k through a combination of extending social security taxes and increasing income tax rates. Moreover, if your are one of the well over half of Americans who have retirement investments in stocks and bonds through pensions, 401Ks, IRAs or direct investment, look for your capital gains taxes to soar and the subsequent value of your stocks and bonds to fall under Mr. Obama's plans. When stocks and bonds decrease in value, capital gains tax revenues dry up regardless of how high the rate is.
"MISLEADING CLAIM #6: Under Barack Obama, We Will Achieve Energy Independence."
Obama said he would set a goal of energy independence in 10 years. I can't understand what could be misleading about this. Certainly the McCain response does not challenge the claim that Obama would set such a goal if elected. Sure, this goal might be difficult to achieve, but it was obviously meant to be aspirational. What is misleading about what Obama said?
This is not misleading nor aspirational. Things are only aspirational if they are possible. This whopper is either an outright lie or a tribute to Mr. Obama's staggering ignorance of our economy.
"MISLEADING CLAIM #7: Barack Obama Will Cut Taxes."
Obama claimed that he will cut taxes for 95% of working families.
See above. This is not misleading, it is a lie.
My tuition is that the McCain campaign does not want to use the harsh term "lie" and is instead soft peddling the attack with the inaccurate term "misleading."
BTW, I too thought that the criticism of Russell for posting was a joke.
I'm VERY happy to see Russell posting again.
Fox News is reporting that Sarah Palin will be John McCain's running mate.
Hoosier will be thrilled.
As for Obama's spending proposals, this is my fifth Presidential campaign, not counting the ones I was too young to understand. In those elections, every candidate has proposed more new spending than his proposed tax increases and/or spending cuts would have paid for. That's why they fall back on voodoo economics and imaginary cuts in unspecified programs.
For flat-out false claims, my favorite was "this election has never been about me: it's about you."
Then why are the Bush tax cuts called tax cuts? Because all they did is "shift the tax burden to future workers by increasing the debt."
You're joking, right? factcheck.org is one of McCain's favorite sources. He cited them several times in this document. Here's what they say regarding the claim you just made:
McCain defined "rich" as an income of $5 million, so that's a clue as to his thinking on this subject.
I wouldn't say "nowhere," since several times it refers to the site factcheck.org.
That's lawyering again. Both of those sets of words, in the context of a campaign speech, will give a similar impression to the audience, so using either one would be equally misleading. The fact that one is literally accurate and another isn't has no bearing on that.
No, but he is calling for a $1000 fully refundable tax credit to offset them and income taxes for working families, which is economically the same thing.
Your attitude towards textual interpretation is highly selective (I mean 'you' collectively). When Bush said his famous 16 words, he was clearly giving the "impression to the audience" that Saddam had sought yellowcake, and that Bush thought that Saddam sought yellowcake, and that Bush was endorsing the claim that Saddam sought yellowcake, and that Bush was trying to convince us that Saddam sought yellowcake.
However, Bush's defenders have made zillions of statements that go something like this: 'Bush didn't say Saddam sought yellowcake; he only said that UK said that Saddam sought yellowcake; therefore Bush's statement is true and literally accurate, because UK really did say that Saddam sought yellowcake.'
Did you then speak up and say "that's lawyering?"
There are other examples that are even worse, like claiming that Bush et al didn't call the threat "imminent," even though they used the word "immediate." As if the words aren't synonyms. (Aside from the fact that the word "imminent" was used, too.)
the only change is that all those big liberal special interests like Big Labor, the Greens, the anti-God judicial zealots, the racial quota crowd, and abortion lovers will get more of what they want. That isn't change, it's more of the same.
What's a working family? Who is not included?
[Important Note to Helpful Readers: If we have confusing typos and especially ugly formatting errors, such as an unclosed underline or bold tag, we'd love to hear from you about them -- but please e-mail the author about this, rather than leaving a comment. We often won't read the comments for a while after the post, and if there's a glaring formatting error, we'd see it quickly when we revisit the post, even without the comment; and in any event the comment likely isn't going to be that helpful to your fellow comment readers. So please e-mail us directly about glitches like this. Thanks!]
Comment Policy: We'd like the posts to be civil, of course (no profanity, personal insults, and the like), but we're also hoping that people try to be as calm, reasoned, and substantive as possible. So please, also avoid rants, invective, substantial and repeated exaggeration, and radical departures from the topic of the thread. Sticking with substance -- and staying on-topic -- will make the comments more helpful to other readers, and more pleasant.
As editors, we reserve the right to delete posts, and even to kick out posters, though we hope that both of these will be exceptional events. (We also reserve the right to be busy with other things, and therefore (1) not remove all the posts that might merit removal, and (2) ignore demands such as "You should remove A's posts, because they're just as bad as B's!")
Here's a tip: Reread your post, and think of what people would think if you said this over dinner. If you think people would view you as a crank, a blowhard, or as someone who vastly overdoes it on the hyperbole, rewrite your post before hitting enter.
And if you think this is the other people's fault -- you're one of the few who sees the world clearly, but fools wrongly view you as a crank, a blowhard, or as someone who overdoes it on the hyperbole -- then you should still rewrite your post before hitting enter. After all, if you're one of the few who sees the world clearly, then surely it's especially important that you frame your arguments in a way that is persuasive and as unalienating as possible, even to fools.
Our goal is to provide an interesting and pleasant environment that can help inform readers. To do that, we'll occasionally have to exercise our editorial discretion. Think of this as an in-person discussion group, where having different voices is critical to a great conversation -- but where sometimes the leader has to deal with cranks who sour the conversation more than they enliven it.
Naturally, there's always a risk that this discretion will be used erroneously, no matter how well-intentioned the editor. But discussion groups (especially on the Internet, but also off it) generally need an editor who'll occasionally make such judgments.
And, remember, it's a big Internet. If you think we were mistaken in removing your post (or, in extreme cases, in removing you) -- or if you prefer a more free-for-all approach -- there are surely plenty of ways you can still get your views out.