Republican commenter pushing urban legend at Post Bulletin

Our regular readers know we're awfully fond of finding instances of people using urban legends to support their arguments.

A kind friend  in Rochester alerted us to a recent example in the Rochester Post Bulletin online. "Patriot," a regular pro-Republican commenter, pasted a whopper into the PB comments section last week. His comments supposedly refute yet another letter decrying the GOP endorsed candidate's column proposing drilling our way out of high oil prices.

Here's what Patriot pasted posted at the PB Online:

Remember the election in 2006?

A little over one year ago:
1) Consumer confidence stood at a 2 1/2 year high;
2) Regular gasoline sold for $2.19 a gallon;
3) The unemployment rate was 4.5%.

Since voting in a Democratic Congress in 2006 we have seen:
1) Consumer confidence plummet;
2) The cost of regular gasoline soar to over $3.50 a gallon;
3) Unemployment is up to 5% (a 10% increase);
4) American households have seen $2.3 trillion in equity value evaporate (stock and mutual fund losses);
5) Americans have seen their home equity drop by $1.2 trillion dollars;
6) 1% of American homes are in foreclosure.

America voted for change in 2006 and we got it!
Remember it's Congress that makes law not the President. He has to work with what's handed to him.

Claim: The 2008 U.S. economic downturn resulted from the Democratic control of Congress in 2007.

One of the commenters decided to fact check Patriot's posterior.  Here's what Thorstein turned up:

Patriot, Apparently you quoted your statistics from an e-mail that has been circulating around the web. FactCheck.org examined the email's claims and found them either false or inaccurate. In short, BS. See http://www.factcheck.org/askfactcheck/did_electing_a_democratic_congress_in_2006.htm

According to its "About" page, FactCheck.org is:

We are a nonpartisan, nonprofit, "consumer advocate" for voters that aims to reduce the level of deception and confusion in U.S. politics. We monitor the factual accuracy of what is said by major U.S. political players in the form of TV ads, debates, speeches, interviews, and news releases. Our goal is to apply the best practices of both journalism and scholarship, and to increase public knowledge and understanding.

The Annenberg Political Fact Check is a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania. The APPC was established by publisher and philanthropist Walter Annenberg in 1994 to create a community of scholars within the University of Pennsylvania that would address public policy issues at the local, state, and federal levels.

The APPC accepts NO funding from business corporations, labor unions, political parties, lobbying organizations or individuals. It is funded primarily by the Annenberg Foundation.

And what does FactCheck.org say about the email? Check it out:

Did electing a Democratic Congress in 2006 really lead to increased unemployment, higher gas prices and more home foreclosures?

I received this [Patriot's pasted text] by e-mail and I’ve also seen it posted as a comment on a lot of blogs and news sites. Is there any truth to it?

No, and most of the figures in a widely-circulated e-mail are made up. In fact, the entire premise of the e-mail is a logical fallacy.

Like most of the chain e-mails making the rounds, this one is inaccurate. Some claims are outright false while others are grossly out of context. Overall, the e-mail commits the logical fallacy known as post hoc ergo propter hoc (or after the fact, therefore because of the fact).

Read the rest at FactCheck.org.

FactCheck.org isn't the only online truth squad calling foul on this one. Let's see if the blither has hit snopes.com.

 

Here's what the venerable Urban Legends reference site has to say about this particular inbox deception:

Status: False.

This piece is one of the more ludicrous examples of the post hoc ergo propter hoc ("after this, therefore because of this") fallacy we've received in a long time.

It attempts to blame a whole host of economic ills — high gasoline prices, unemployment, falling stock prices, the housing market meltdown — squarely and solely on the Democrats' having gained a majority of seats in the House of Representatives beginning in 2007.   

We'll start by noting that it's not technically correct to claim the public voted "in a Democratic Congress in 2006." The Democrats did gain 31 seats in the House of Representatives in the 2006 elections, giving them a 233-198 majority over Republicans in that institution once the 110th Congress was seated in 2007.  However, the current composition of the Senate tips towards neither party, with both Democrats and Republicans holding 49 seats each.  (Two senators, Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, were elected as independents.)

The other major fallacies here are the notions that a single party with control of only the House of Representatives (but not the Senate or the White House) could have, by itself, brought about all the economic conditions described above, and that it could have done so in the space of a single year.  The financial woes currently being experienced in the U.S. are due to a multiplicity of factors (many of which are completely outside the purview of Congress), including policies of the current and previous presidential administrations, previous Congressional actions (or inactions), institutional investment decisions, credit expansion, market forces, and global events. Moreover, all these factors are part of ongoing processes that were underway well before 2007, as political/economic commentator Kevin Phillips described in his 2008 book. ....

Read the rest at Snopes.

It's entertaining that the endorsed candidate's supporters stoop to using a false urban legend to defend their man. 

Comments

[JoAnne]

One could as easily state that all these dire circumstances are the consequence of not having sacrificed George W. Bush to Satan.

But that would be wrong.