Lying Liar

In a chapter entitled THE REAGAN YEARS: RUSH LIMBAUGH IS A BIG FAT LIAR Franken accuses Limbaugh of propping up a supposed big lie (that Reaganomics worked) with three legs–each leg a lie in its own right.

The first question we should ask is “why three?” Rush uses multiple lines of evidence to argue Reaganomics worked, so why limit it to three? Because Franken could only successfully manage to distort three.

Among the claims Franken ignores from Rush’s book: “Average real family income grew by well over 15 percent from 1982 to 1989” and “For the poorest fifth of Americans, real income grew almost 12 percent.” That alone shows Reaganomics worked.

As Rush also points out, the rich shouldered a higher share of the income tax burden than before: “The top 1 percent paid more than 25 percent of all federal income taxes in 1990, a 40 percent increase over 1980”.

In addition, the average citizen jumped income brackets. As Rush says, “Between 1983 and 1989, the total population under the poverty line decreased by 3.8 million people”. and “Families earning more than $50,000 (in 1990 dollars) went from less than 25 percent of families in 1980 to 31 percent in 1990“ and “of those who were in the bottom-fifth bracket in 1979, 65 percent jumped at least two income brackets during the 1980s.”

Rush also mentions that 20,000,000 new jobs were created, “82 percent of which were in the higher-skilled, higher-paying occupations.”

Oh, and the stock market “nearly tripled in value.”

Franken does not counter these facts. Nor does he counter the fact that “We experienced sustained economic growth without inflation, low unemployment, and low interest rates.” In short, Franken does not counter the reality that Reaganomics worked. That does not stop him however from claiming to counter it. Here’s a closer look.

The First Leg

Rush admits the federal deficit skyrocketed in the 1980s but blames it on spending. Franken does not dispute this, but blames the spending on Reagan while Rush blames it on the Democratic Congress.

As Franken points out, “the Gipper asked Congress for 16.1 billion more in spending than it passed into law” over the course of his presidency. But Franken is lying. According to Franken himself in a later book, Congress passed 47 billion dollars more than Reagan proposed. (Lies p. 108) So it is Rush who has a point. The question is how strong the point is.

Reagan was focused on defense spending while Congress was focused on what Rush considers wasteful spending. The President and Congress had to concede the others’ demands to get their funds approved. Reagan’s budget proposals reflected long hours of conferencing with Congressmen, working out compromises.

In the end, Rush is right that Reagan’s budget proposals would have been substantially smaller if it were not for differing Congressional priorities and the related politics and compromise. In other words, the deficits do not reflect Reaganomics. So Rush does not blame Reaganomics for them.

But more importantly, the question of who to blame for spending is a side-note at best. Rush never relied on it to prove the efficacy of Reaganomics. This means Franken used the whole argument as a straw man.

The real question about whether Reaganomics created the deficit pertains to revenue. Did we go into deficit because Reaganomics produced insufficient revenue? No. Reaganomics grew the economy and nearly doubled revenue for the federal government. Yet spending skyrocketed. That is true regardless of the reason. The fact is, increases in spending—rather than Reaganomics–caused the deficits.

Even if Reagan were wholly responsible for 80s deficits, it would reflect his spending habits not his economic growth plan (Reaganomics).

Leg Two

Here is Franken goin’ the rounds with his next straw man:

The second leg of the three-legged coffee table that is the Big Lie about Reaganomics is that Reagan’s massive tax cuts were directly responsible for what Limbaugh calls “unprecedented growth and prosperity.” This gets to the heart of supply-side economics: the less you tax the rich, the faster the economy will grow.

Take, for example, the fifties. We taxed the [expletive deleted] out of the rich. The top marginal rate was 88 percent. And the economy grew at an annual rate of just over 4 percent. Then look at the eighties. Reagan knocked the top rate down to 28 percent, and the economy grew at a yearly rate of just under 2.5 percent.

So cutting the marginal rate didn’t give us “unprecedented” growth. What it did give us was “unprecedented” deficits.”

Okay, let’s dissect this. Watch close.

As you recall, “Reaganomics worked” is supposed to be the “Big Lie” Franken accuses Rush of propping up. But the question of whether Reaganomics created growth and prosperity is equal to asking whether Reaganomics worked. Objectively, growth and prosperity were created under Reaganomics. So if Franken were to confront the question directly he would have to explain why he thinks the growth caused by Reaganomics was not enough to “count” as successful. He cannot do that so he dodges the question and obfuscates instead.

That is why Franken talks about the deficit. Still, he cannot ignore the economy altogether–so he says that it is only part of the picture–one of three “legs.” He misleadingly addresses the economy using the words “tax cuts” as though Reagan’s tax cuts were only “about” Reaganomics rather than synonymous with it. In disguising the question of whether Reaganomics worked as a side question of whether tax cuts work, Franken can then get away with less detail while appearing to address the economy of the eighties.

Then, Franken relies on illusion. He comes right out and says the economy grew under Reagan but he contrasts it with the fifties—a unique situation in which goods and services were finally returning to the market after having been on hold during the war and trade as usual was resuming. The whole world relied on the U.S. dollar since the U.S. had avoided structural damage during the war thanks to our isolation.

Furthermore, why did Franken have to cite a unique situation to state a case for high taxes? Considering that the top marginal rate was 70 percent when Reagan took office, why did Franken not point to the Carter years? Was it because of the interest rates, inflation rates, unemployment rates or all of the above?

The comparison to the fifties is not only misleading, but also unnecessary. Franken essentially argues that Reaganomics was a failure because it was not the greatest success in history. Franken gets away with it by drudging up a quote from Rush about “unprecedented” growth so it looked like Rush was the one setting it as the standard of success for the tax cuts.

However, Rush was not claiming that the growth rate was at a higher percent than ever before. What he did say, and on the very first page of the chapter no less, was that the eighties had “the longest period of peacetime growth in this nation’s history.” Then, in the paragraph after the “unprecedented” claim that Franken picked out of context, Rush went on to repeat the context of his statement, that the U.S. experienced “the longest peacetime expansion in history”.

Did Franken not see it? Did Rush not emphasize it enough? Don’t think so. After Rush repeated the statistic, he then wrote:

Did I already say that? Good. It needs to be repeated and repeated to counter the lies.

Yet Franken left out that context entirely.

Leg Three

This leg is the big diversion. Out of a bulleted list of 16 statistics in Rush’s book, Franken picks out one of the less critical claims and spends five pages attempting to refute it. He tries to turn Rush’s icing-on-the-cake into a main course.

According to Franken, the third leg is that “Reagan’s economic policies were just as good for the poor as they were for the rich.” That could mean anything and it’s not what Rush said. What Rush actually said was that the poor received the most relief as a percentage of their income.

More specifically, Rush claimed that between 1980 and 1992, “income taxes as a percentage of their income of all income groups was reduced, with each of the four lowest quintile groups experiencing greater percentage reductions than those income groups above them.” Franken conveniently skipped that part and quoted the next sentence from Rush

In other words, all income groups paid less taxes as a percentage of their income during the Reagan years, but the poor received the most relief, the middle class the next, and the rich, the least.

That is a cool point to make. Rush even put it in bold. It is not however necessary to the argument that Reaganomics worked. It just shows that tax relief for the rich was far from being the sole focus of Reagan’s methods.

Franken can’t really argue that this particular point is all that critical, so he creates the illusion that Rush was the one holding this up as central criteria. Franken says, “In 725 pages of opinion-barfing spread over two books, only once does Rush consider a point important enough to trot out a visual aid.” [p. 126]

Franken is referring to a chart Rush had used to show the reduction of tax rates.

Franken claims the numbers are cooked. What is his big problem with them?

He [Rush] leaves out payroll taxes!

[p. 127]

That means Social Security and Medicare taxes; which is interesting, because Rush specifically said the numbers are in reference to income tax. Remember the line that Franken didn’t quote, but I did, where Rush said he was talking about income taxes? That made clear what he was talking about–right?

I thought so but just to make sure, let’s look at the line before it: “…between 1980 and 1992 the wealthy not only paid more income taxes in actual dollars, but they paid a greater share of income taxes as a percentage of their income, compared to other income groups.” Wow, he mentioned “income taxes” twice in that one. Franken must have known that Rush was talking about income taxes.

So Rush did not dishonestly “leave out” other taxes. That’s like saying if someone talks about baseball they are dishonestly “leaving out” football.

Social Insurance taxes are irrelevant anyway, because they are benefit programs for the poor. What the poor pay into them is for their own use. What the rich and middle class pay is also for the poor, with little for themselves.

If we do look at them, we find that, the share of Social Insurance taxes paid by the top 1 percent rose 50 percent during the eighties while the share paid by the lowest 20% went down.

Franken also objects to using the year 1992. However if we use a different year— 1990 or 1989—the point still stands. The gap is not as wide but the poor still receive a greater percentage of income tax cut than the Rich.

Regardless, there is nothing wrong with using 1992. It concluded the Reagan/Bush era. Rush did say that Reaganomics ended in 1990 but that was in reference to the tax increase that year, which had negligible effect on Limbaugh’s numbers. The larger difference in numbers is from the increase in the Earned Income Tax Credit, a credit that was championed and expanded by Reagan.

A study conducted at the University of Pennsylvania [Call-In Political Talk Radio: Background, Content, Audiences, Portrayal in Mainstream Media, "A Report from the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania"] showed that people who listened to Rush Limbaugh and/or other political talk radio programs, “have higher levels of knowledge and correctly think they have higher levels of knowledge than non-listeners.”

That would be a blow to Franken, right? Wouldn’t you think?

No. Feeling irrationally triumphant over the results of the study, Franken claimed, “Limbaugh listeners thought they were the best informed and yet they were the least informed.”

Just to be sure, let’s check with the study again:

Limbaugh’s audience is no more or less knowledgeable or active than the audience for moderate/liberal or conservative talk radio.

And one more time to make absolutely sure:

Regular political talk radio listeners are more likely than non-listeners to consume all types of newsmedia (excepting TV news), to be more knowledgeable about politics and social issues, and to be involved in political activities. This is true regardless of the ideology of the hosts of the programs to which they listen.

So Franken thought he was informed about the study, but he wasn’t. It turns out Limbaugh’s listener’s were better informed than those people who didn’t listen to talk radio at all, and just as informed as other listeners to talk radio (which is mostly conservative anyway).

This ordinarily would not be ironic. However, the fact that Franken was accusing Limbaugh’s listener’s of thinking they were informed while not actually being informed–when it was actually Franken who thought he was informed but wasn’t actually informed–is pretty ironic, don’t you think?

As ironic as it is on it’s face, it is made even more ironic by Franken’s gloating. Like when he says:

…why would people so woefully lacking in the basic facts of an issue think they were the best informed? Social scientists call the phenomenon “pseudo-certainty.” I call it ‘being a [expletive deleted] moron.’

In fairness to Franken, he has sort-of admitted that his claim was inaccurate. (Lies, p.11)

He did not apologize. Instead he attempted to minimize his moronity, saying, “In the final version of the study, the findings showed that people who listened regularly to political talk radio were able to identify the President more frequently than I had given them credit for.”

It seems the whole reason Franken admitted the mistake was to utilize a deceptive technique mastered by Bill Clinton.

When asked about having sex with Jennifer Flowers, Clinton admitted having past problems with his marriage but denied the Flowers story. Here’s why. Admitting to a problem or mistake lends sympathy and credence. People think you are telling the truth because you are admitting to having done something wrong. Later, Clinton used the trick again but that time admitted to the Jennifer Flowers allegations while denying other allegations.

So Franken admitted to having made a “mistake”–without really apologizing or admitting the depth of the “mistake”–so people would believe he is honest and go along with what he says in his new book. See how it works?

As an example of Rush Limbaugh supposedly trying to deceive his audience, Franken, points to Limbaugh showing a New York Times headline to his audience:

BUSH ASSAILS CLINTON’S PATRIOTISM DURING VIETNAM WAR PROTEST ERA.

(Definition of “assail”: To attack violently)

Rush cited the headline as an example of media bias, explaining the article mischaracterized what Bush had said. He then rolled a clip from the October 4, 1992 interview, which was from Larry King Live, so the audience could judge for themselves. But, according to Franken, it was a clip from “a totally different part of the interview.”

Franken of course claimed that the headline accurately represented the interview. Franken even cited what he considers the relevant excerpt from the show–the real “attack on Clinton’s patriotism.”

In a minute we will discuss the relevance of the clip Limbaugh aired. But first, the part of the interview Franken accused Rush of hiding. According to Franken, it constitutes an “attack on Clinton’s patriotism.” This is the quote:

Maybe I’m old fashioned, Larry, but to go to a foreign country and demonstrate against your own country, when your sons and daughters are dying halfway around the world? I’m sorry, I–I just don’t like it. I think it is wrong.

(October 4, 1992).

That was a factual description of what Clinton did, then a follow-up of “I’m sorry, I–I just don’t like it. I think it is wrong.”

“Wrong” could mean unproductive. Or unjust. Or uninspiring. Or unfair. Or unwise. Or unsportsmanlike, unprofessional or unethical. Why would Franken assume Bush was using it to mean “unpatriotic?”

Remember the headline:

BUSH ASSAILS CLINTON’S PATRIOTISM DURING VIETNAM WAR PROTEST ERA

The Times is the one connecting the actions of Bill Clinton with a lack of patriotism. Bush did not connect Clinton’s actions with a lack of patriotism, he merely said he didn’t like it and thought it was wrong.

Therefore, Franken and the Times are implying that Clinton’s actions were so overtly unpatriotic that the mere recounting of the facts surrounding what Clinton did is by default a reference to patriotism.

So it was Franken, not Bush, who questioned Clinton’s patriotism.

Now the clip Rush played. When Franken claims the clip was from “a totally different part of the interview,” he wants the reader to think it was “totally different” than the subject of the articles. In reality, it was the primary focus in most of the articles and was the part of the interview being routinely mischaracterized by journalists to accuse Bush of attacking Clinton’s patriotism.

The comments in the clip had to do with Clinton visiting Moscow. Bush was asked a question about it and answered rather benignly, yet the backlash against him was swift and vicious. In many instances, the media compared Bush with McCarthy.

So, while the New York Times headline was one of the examples Rush showed his audience, it was only part of a larger issue Rush was confronting. Therefore, there was a very good reason for Rush to play the clip. Here’s the transcript of what Bush said in the part of the interview played by Rush:

KING: What do you make of the Clinton Moscow trip thing? You think that’s…

BUSH: Moscow?

KING: He says it was just a student trip.

BUSH: Larry, I don’t want to tell you what I really think because I don’t have the facts. I don’t have the facts. But to go to Moscow one year after Russia crushed Czechoslovakia, and not remember who you saw, I think — I really think the answer is level with the American people. I made a mistake. I’ve said I made mistakes. But don’t try to — you can remember who you saw in the airport in Oslo, but you can’t remember who you saw in Moscow.

KING: In other words, you’re saying…

BUSH: I’m just saying level with the American people on the draft, on whether he went to Moscow, how many demonstrations he led against his own country from a foreign soil — level. Tell us the truth and let the voters then decide who to trust or not.

After playing the clip, Limbaugh countered the distortions that were being made about this part of the interview, saying, “I didn’t hear one assault on patriotism. I didn’t hear one word or syllable questioning Bill Clinton’s patriotism…” As Rush pointed out, “patriotism” is love for one’s country.

The racket Franken uses here is interesting. To recap:

a) Bush is asked a question about a controversy surrounding his opponent.

b) He answers saying that he doesn’t have the facts but he thinks his opponent should level with the people.

c) This innocent call for the challenger to answer the questions he was being asked is twisted into “red baiting”– like when Dan Balz of the Washington Post asserted that the comment had “moved the issue to a different level by invoking the old specter of anti-communist suspicion and innuendo that marked American politics of an earlier era.”

d) Rush then exposed these types of distortions using the actual quote–about Moscow—the media had distorted.

e) Enter Franken. He tells his reader about a different comment Bush had made in the King interview, a comment having nothing to do with the Soviet Union or Moscow.

f) Franken does not mention the controversy about the Moscow quote.

g) Franken then quotes Rush discussing a headline and complaining about it. Franken’s reader is led to assume the headline is about the comment Franken mentioned. Franken’s reader does not know there is a reason for Rush to focus on a different quote.

h) Therefore, when Franken writes that Rush ran “a twenty-second clip from a totally different part of the interview”, which was really the Moscow clip, the reader thinks that Rush is dishonest.

It is what his readers did not know that allowed Franken to lead them to this false conclusion.

To those familiar with Limbaugh, what Franken writes is transparently false. For instance, Franken uses the Limbaugh word “feminazi” interchangeably with the word “feminist,” but Limbaugh’s loyal fans understand “feminazi” as Limbaugh’s tag for only the most obnoxious feminists. We know this because Limbaugh said, “I prefer to call the most obnoxious feminists what they are: feminazis.” (page 193, The Way Things Ought to Be)

Far from having anything against women, Rush makes clear that his objection is to the “loud, militant” women who seem to base their beliefs on the idea that “to love and need men would somehow compromise women and set them back”. (Page 190, The Way Things Ought To Be)

This is Rush on the women’s movement:

I believe the women’s movement started out as a genuine and sincere effort to improve conditions. The original concerns of feminists, such as equal pay for equal work, were laudable and justifiable. People had a right to be upset at the treatment some women received, and some of their activism and protests were understandable.

(Page 189, The Way Things Ought To Be)

No decent, rational person would fault Rush for exposing the following rhetoric

“Since marriage constitutes slavery for women, it is clear that the women’s movement must concentrate on attacking marriage. Freedom for women cannot be without the abolition of marriage” (Sheila Cronen, feminist leader and spokeswoman)

“The simple fact is, every woman must be willing to be recognized as a lesbian to be fully feminine.” (from the National Organization for Women Times, January 1988)

“Compare victims’ reports of rape with women’s reports of sex. They sound a lot alike…. In this light, the major distinction between intercourse [normal] and rape [abnormal] is that the normal happens so often that one cannot get anyone to see anything wrong with it” (Katharine MacKinnon, law professor)

Since normal people would side with Rush, Franken covers these radical ideas with a skillfully worded joke:

Limbaugh was railing about how feminists believe that all heterosexual sex is rape, which, I admit, is a belief that’s very hard to defend. The thing is, though, I know a lot of women, almost all of whom consider themselves feminists, and I know only one who actually holds this belief. And we’ve been married nearly twenty years.

(Page 5-6)

That deliberately deceives the reader–who is left thinking Rush made it up. Then, with the reader softened to the idea that Rush is a liar, Franken comes right out and says it as he introduces the reader to Limbaugh’s TV show:

Limbaugh presented, in a deliberately misleading way, disinformation that was devoured whole by a studio audience…

(page 6)