1+1=350

I was watching Ken Melman, Bush Campaign Manager, on C-Span last night. There he was, moving down the talking points - Steady Hand, Stong Leader, Growing Economy - and suddenly, the cliche d'jour popped out of his mouth: John Kerry has voted to raise taxes over 350 times. I thought, "That's a lot of votes. I wonder if it's true?"

Of course it isn't. It is the Republicans doing what they usually do, which is take a half-truth, bake it into an official sounding sound-bite and press release and feed it into the media as fact, where the more it is repeated, the "truer" it becomes. It happened to Al Gore over and over again in 2000. It is happening to John Kerry now.

According to this Slate article, "The only actual tax increase on Bush's list (counted twice, but hey … ) is Kerry's support for Clinton's 1993 deficit-reduction plan." The other 349 "votes?" Well, that's just creative accounting.

One wonders why the democrats don't challenge something as basic as math. It's obvious The President is using the same math skills to determine how many times Kerry really voted to raise taxes as he is using to balance the budget.