Two gross factual errors on C-span (Wash Post reporter)

[Cocoa]

Jonathan Weisman of the Washington Post was on Washington Journal this morning, and responded to two very good callers' questions with total misinformation.

And he did it very authoritatively, while getting the facts completely wrong. The callers were completely right, and the Washington Post's economics correspondent told them very forcefully they were totally wrong.

1.A caller mentioned Bush's prediction in 1978 that Social Security would go bankrupt in something like ten years IF PRIVATE ACCOUNTS WEREN'T ESTABLISHED.

Weisman shockingly stated that Bush's prediction was "absolutely correct." He pointed to the adjustments made in the 80's, but ignored the fact that those adjustments DIDN'T ESTABLISH PRIVATE ACCOUNTS.

Bush was not "abosulutely right" or even "relatively right." He wasn't right at all, he was absolutely wrong. Private accounts were NOT established, and SS did NOT go bankrupt.


3.A caller mentioned Bush's use of Social Security employees to promote his political agenda on SS. Weisman said he didn't see what all the fuss was about, and smugly uttered the totally incorrect statement that the employees were directed to use materials that did not mention privatization.

In fact, the caller (who unfortunately was off the air when Weisman incorrectly contradicted her) had referred to a C-span program which I happened to have seen, it was hearings by the Democratic Policy Committee, where SSA employees testified that SPECIFICALLY MENTIONED THE NECESSITY OF PRIVATE ACCOUNTS.

I saw it with my own eyes. The talking points included the necessity of private accounts as a way to avoid insolvency.


The one thing these two gross factual errors by Weisman have in common is that they both willfully ignore the private accounts factor as they rewrite history. If I were a suspicious person, I'd think someone was trying to slip something past me.

[Demit]

1. Perhaps, on that second point, Weisman was knowingly splitting hairs.

Since the word has come down from on high to stop using "privatization" in favor of "personal accounts", it might be technically true that SS materials as of now do not use the word. They do love to parse like this, and they are smug about it. Rumsfeld comes to mind.

[Cocoa]

4. they often do that, but in this case Weisman wasn't even that clever

he simply denied that specific policies were promoted, and expressed his puzzlement about what the big deal was about.

The big deal was that Weisman doesn't know what he's talking about, the whole point of the hearing was that they WERE pushing specific proposals, especially private accounts.

[slor]

2. I heard that too...

and how he said he "could not believe the Dems even brought it up". I knew he was full of BS at that point, and promptly turned the channel.

[MeDeMax]

5. smart move, the whole SS thing is going to go nowhere n/t

[gumby]

3. David Martin of CBS News

seemed to not know much about anything other than Washington Conventional Wisdom.

Can't remember any gross errors, but thought "box of rocks." Repeating now.

[nascarblue]

6. What about the 4% arguement he lied about as well?

He stated that Bush's plan was only calling for 4% leaving 96% untouched. Another flat out lie. You could tell he was caught off guard that the caller knew what he was talking about. He knew that the employee pays into FICA 6% and the employer also pays 6%, bringing it to a total of 12%. So that 4% really is 33%.

On a later phone call he tried to dismiss his attempt at Bush's SS propaganda by saying the prior caller was wrong about it being 2/3 instead of 1/3. That had nothing to do with the fact that he was initially trying to confuse viewers about the 4% and 96%.