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Get the facts; Mark Hogan; Beaver County Times; September 7, 2012. At the time of this writing, this letter appeared only in the print edition of the BCT. I apologize for any transcription errors.
Previous letters from Mr. Hogan I critiqued are here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. Mr. Hogan wrote at least four other letters I did not critique.
Below is a detailed critique of the subject letter.
“I just watched the documentary “Right America: Feeling Wronged” and was stunned at the number of people who believed the right wing lies generated about Obama.”
[RWC] In what I’m sure was an honest oversight, Mr. Hogan failed to note the film’s director and one of its producers was Alexandra Pelosi, daughter of former House Speaker and current House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA). This likely tells us all we need to know about the “documentary.”
“Naturally, they are outraged the rest of us would want this foreign-born Muslim who wouldn’t even salute our flag as our president. I see all of these e-mails and Google searches have shown them all to range from misleading to outright lies. If you see an [sic] condemning statement about something Obama is now doing, Google it and read what the fact-checking outfits tell you about it.”
[RWC] I believe I’ve written this before, but I must be very lucky if letters like this one are to be believed. To the best of my recollection, I haven’t received any of these alleged viral e-mail notes regardless of whom they attack. I get lots of other e-mail, just none of the alleged political attack notes.
Mr. Hogan told us to check “condemning statement[s] about something Obama is now doing,” but didn’t mention “condemning statement[s] about” Mitt Romney. As I’ve written before, don’t accept or believe anything you’re told – including anything from me – without performing your own independent research using sources you know are reliable based on your personal experience with those sources. A source is not reliable just because it presents “facts” that tend to support your positions.
“These outfits were spawned because of this flood of misinformation being generated by the far right but will smack anyone that distorts for political gain.”
[RWC] I suspect Mr. Hogan didn’t mean to do this, but he just implied “the fact-checking outfits” are left-leaning groups.
In a recent critique I wrote, “PolitiFact.com (Tampa Bay Times) and FactCheck.org (Annenberg Public Policy Center) are showing themselves to be unreliable” and provided a couple of examples. Fact-checking groups should be trusted no more than the typical media outlet.
“The recent letter to the editor on real estate tax Obama placed on you for Obamacare is an example. It’s in one of those e-mails I mentioned. The truth is far different and that tax only applies if your profit on the house is $500,000 as a married couple or $250,000 as an individual. How many of us will ever sell a house for that in total let alone pure profit? 1 percent? Don’t trust, use Google and get the facts!”
[RWC] As the referenced letter-writer, Mr. Hogan missed perhaps the biggest part of the story. With the restrictions Mr. Hogan mentioned plus some others, the 3.8% Obamacare tax applies to all types of investment income, not just that from selling real estate. With his crack Googling to “get the facts,” how did Mr. Hogan miss something this important?
© 2004-2012 Robert W. Cox, all rights reserved.