FactCheck.org: GOP YouTube Debate Flubs
GOP YouTube Debate Flubs
November 29, 2007
Falsehoods, exaggerations and stumbles
Summary
The CNN/YouTube debate among Republicans lacked any talking snowmen, but we did note a few false and misleading statements by the candidates.* Romney claimed New York called itself a “sanctuary city” for illegal aliens. It didn’t.
* Giuliani denied New York actually was a “sanctuary city.” But the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service has classified it as such, based on immigrant-friendly policies Giuliani still defends.
* Huckabee claimed he would “abolish the IRS.” He failed to mention that he’d replace it with another big tax bureaucracy.
* Huckabee said he had proposed to make children of illegal aliens eligible for Arkansas scholarships if they “had been in our schools their entire school life.” Actually, the proposal required only three years in Arkansas schools.
* Giuliani was correct on two points: While he was mayor, New York snowfall went down and the Yankees won four World Series titles. He was joking, but his gag should remind citizens that it’s a mistake in logic to give mayors, or governors or presidents, all credit or blame for what happens just because they’re in office at the time.
* Romney, claiming to be a “true suffering” fan of the Red Sox, said the team waited 87 years to win a World Series. They actually waited 86.
Notice whose name - of the major candidates - is absent from this list.
Yes, that would be “Straight-Talking Fred” Thompson.
No, Mad Mac McCain is not a major candidate.
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Gah, I feel dirty hearing Romney say he’s a Sox fan. It tarnishes their image.
Guess it’s as good a place to bring up as a comment to this post as anywhere else:
Has Thompson taken any position on how he would deal with the Saudis?
For all of his many faults, so far as I know, Giuliani’s the only candidate in the entire field, who has publicly told a Saudi to stick it where the sun don’t shine.
For all of his many faults, so far as I know, Giuliani’s the only candidate in the entire field, who has publicly told a Saudi to stick it where the sun don’t shine.
He turned down money (that would have gone into a disaster relief fund) from a Saudi prince who said that the US “must address some of the issues that led to such a criminal attack.”
But Giuliani’s private security firm accepted money (some of which went into Giuliani’s pocket) from Sheik Abdullah Bin Khalid al-Thani of Qatar (not a Saudi!), someone who harbored Al Qaeda terrorists including one of the planners of the 9/11 attacks, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. Sheik Abdullah Bin Khalid al-Thani didn’t just harbor terrorists in some abstract sense, he provided them a place to stay on his own farm and tipped off Khalid when the CIA was coming to take him. That would be the same farm where he has also allegedly had Osama Bin Laden as a house guest.
Fred Thompson doesn’t have any chance of getting the nomination (and hardly seems to care one way or the other) but he would be an infinitely better president than Giuliani.