During a meeting with the San Francisco Chronicle's editorial board on Aug. 31, 2010, Sen. Barbara Boxer was asked about a controversial comment she made in 2007 to then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice about Rice not paying a "personal price" in the Iraq War because she did not have any immediate family members serving in the military. Rice and a number of political pundits later claimed Boxer's comment was an unfair jab because Rice didn't have children. In the editorial board meeting, Boxer, a California Democrat, sought to set the record straight about ...

Demonizing privatization was a key to the Democrat's success in defeating President George W. Bush's plan to change Social Security. Now they're using it again in an attempt to hold on to legislative majorities in the House and the Senate. In his latest TV ad, Senate candidate Michael Bennet, D-Col., questions whether his opponent, Ken Buck, is the right person for the job. The ad opens with a video of Buck saying he'll be the "voice of people on Main Street" but quickly transitions to ominous music and a narrator asking "Who is Ken Buck" and ...

Democrats used it to defeat President Bush's plans to change Social Security, and they're using it now to try to  hold on to legislative majorities in the House and the Senate. We are, of course, talking about "privatization." In her latest TV ad, Senate incumbent Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., says that there are "serious differences" between her and her opponent, Rep. John Boozman. First on the list, "unlike John, I am against privatizing Social Security and Medicare." History has shown that accusing your opponent of wanting to privatize Social Security is a good ...

Most politicians know how to pivot: In a political context, it means changing the subject you don't like to one that you do. House member Debbie Wasserman Schultz demonstrated the maneuver in an interview with Larry King on CNN, changing the subject from a new mosque in New York City all the way to Florida Republican candidate for Congress Dan Webster and privatizing Social Security. Here's how the exchange went, with conservative commentator Ben Stein jumping in for good measure: King: "Congresswoman Schultz, do you think that Muslim situation in New York ...

Education was the topic du jour on ABC's This Week on Aug. 29, 2010, and the discussion quickly came around to teachers unions. This Week host Christiane Amanpour asked Randi Weingarten, president of the American Teachers Federation, how schools can get around huge impediments in many collective bargaining agreements to getting rid of bad teachers. Weingarten responded with a quick defense of teachers unions. "Let me say this," Weingarten said. "First, the states that actually have lots of teachers in teacher unions tend to be the states that have done the best ...

The Nevada Senate race between incumbent Democrat Harry Reid and Republican challenger Sharron Angle has become one of the nation's most bitter, with Angle seeking to make Reid the poster child for the poor national and Nevada economies and Reid trying to portray Angle's staunchly conservative views as out of the mainstream. In a television ad released Aug. 23, 2010, Reid's campaign says that Angle wants to eliminate the U.S. Department of Education. The ad relies on a clip from an interview Angle did with radio station KNPR, the NPR affiliate in ...

In their hard-fought race for a Pennsylvania Senate seat, Republican Pat Toomey and Democrat Joe Sestak have attacked each other over tax policy. Last week, we rated a Toomey ad blasting Sestak on the estate tax as Barely True. Now we'll look at a Sestak ad attacking Toomey's position on corporate taxes. The ad, funded by Sestak's campaign, features a clip of Toomey being interviewed on television. Here's the text of the ad: Narrator: "Do you think corporations pay their fair share? Pat Toomey ...

Celebrity chef Jamie Oliver is a well-known crusader for healthier eating. So it may have come as a surprise to hear him give a shout-out on ABC's This Week with Christiane Amanpour on Aug. 29, 2010, to the fast-food giant McDonald's -- or at least the restaurants in his homeland, England. Oliver, AKA the Naked Chef, is perhaps best known to American audiences for his Emmy-winning reality program Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution on ABC, in which he tried to transform the eating habits of the residents of Huntington, W.Va., statistically one of the unhealthiest cities in ...

In a discussion of the economy during the Aug. 29, 2010, edition of ABC's This Week with Christiane Amanpour, Democratic strategist Donna Brazile addressed the plight of the long-term unemployed. She said that "45 percent of those who've been unemployed, they've been unemployed for six months or longer. They desperately need the skills and the tools to get back into the workplace." We thought we'd check to see if Brazile was right. We turned to the website of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the federal agency that calculates the national ...

The Aug 29, 2010, edition of ABC's This Week with Christiane Amanpour featured a discussion of education policy chock full of education statistics. Here, we decide to look at one offered by Education Secretary Arne Duncan.   "In this country, we have a 25 percent dropout rate," he said. "That's 1.2 million students leaving our schools for the streets every single year. That is economically unsustainable, and that is morally unacceptable."   Is it really true that one of every four American ...