Kerryisms — translating truth into falsehood:

Slate‘s Kerryisms originally billed itself as “translat[ing]” Kerry’s quotes “into plain English” by stripping them of “caveats and pointless embellishments.” Now, if Spinsanity has done its factual research right, Kerryisms is translating Kerry’s quotes from truth into falsehood:

Kerry’s original statement, from a February 9 broadcast of National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered,” was the following:

I am the only United States Senator who has been elected four times, currently serving in the Senate, who has voluntarily refused to ever take, in any of my races for the Senate, one dime of political action committee special interest money. The only checks I took were from individual Americans. Now did some individual lobbyists contribute? The answer is, yes, they did.

Will Saletan, the author of “Kerryisms,” edited it into the following form (footnotes representing excised text appear in brackets):

I am the only United States Senator[1][2] who has voluntarily refused to ever take in any of my races[3] one dime of[4] special interest money. The only checks I took were from individual Americans.[5]

By removing “political action committee” with footnote 4 and the clarification about accepting donations from individual lobbyists in footnote 5, Saletan makes Kerry’s precise claim much less clear. But, more importantly, the removal of the text in footnotes 1-3 actually makes the statement untrue.

Kerry is apparently the only senator to be elected in all four of his races without accepting funds from political action committees (a claim he has made numerous times). But he is not the only senator “who has voluntarily refused to ever take in any of my races one dime of special interest money,” as the edited version suggests, even if “special interest money” is read to refer specifically to PAC funds (a clarification Saletan excised). . . .

Go to Spinsanity for more. This is yet further evidence, I think, of how misguided Slate‘s Kerryisms feature has been. As Spinsanity puts it, “Boring as it may sometimes be, accurate political claims often require specifics.” Some caveats and even some things that might seem like “embellishments” aren’t “pointless” — they’re necessary, at least if one cares about being truthful.