Misinformation presented as fact is dangerous

By Norman Luxenburg

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Misinformation and misleading or incorrect figures when presented as facts and repeated frequently should be refuted before they become accepted as genuine and used to promote specific agendas.

A good example of this is the claim that President Obama was not born in the United States, a claim which, according to a May Gallup poll, was still given wide credence.

A political television ad appearing frequently in the first half of this month rather skillfully uses some misleading “before and after” figures to show how conditions have worsened drastically under the Obama administration.

It begins by quoting an NBC report as stating that since January, 2009, the price of a gallon of gas has more than doubled, going from $1.68 to $3.75 and that unemployment has gone from 7.3 percent to 9.2 percent. The listener would naturally be led to believe that the January figures quoted are for the beginning of the Obama administration. However, the Bush Administration was still in office for most of January, during which time the rapid downward spiral of the economy was continuing at an accelerating pace. Since Obama was not inaugurated until January 20, no fair assessment could fault him for the loss of 700,000 jobs in January as the economy was crashing and the unemployment rate rose to 7.8 percent.

Under Bush, the unemployment rate almost doubled, increasing from about 4 percent in January of 2001 to 7.8 percent at the end of January 2009.

Now let's take a look at gasoline prices. It is rather disingenuous to just take January gas prices as a starting point for Obama. Gasoline prices are quite volatile and until now have had little to do with energy policy. Thus, the average price of gasoline for 2008, the last year of the Bush administration, was $3.27 per gallon, far higher than the $2.35 average for 2009, the first year of the Obama administration (Source: 2009 N.Y. Times World Almanac). While gas prices, almost like the weather, are usually far more the result of outside factors and not presidential energy policies, it is interesting to note, since obviously Obama was being faulted for the increase, that in Bush's last full year in office, 2008, gas prices had risen to more than $4.50 in midsummer.

Then they began falling, not because of astute policies but because of the high petroleum prices, and worsening economy, which led to Americans driving 100 billion fewer miles in the 12-month period, November 2007 to October 2008, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation.

In addition, whereas from 1997 to 2006, U.S. production of motor vehicles on only two occasions dipped slightly below 12 million, only 6.5 million vehicles were produced in 2008. After which the bankrupt auto industry, the spiraling home foreclosure rate, the rising unemployment rate, the disengagement from the “successful” Iraq intervention, and the worsening Afghanistan War became Obama's problems - problems for which he received such great encouraging assistance in solving from Sen. Mitch McConnell. From the very outset, the senator stated the No. 1 goal was to make sure that Obama was a one-term president - not solving the home foreclosure, health care and other urgent problems.

Further encouragement and cooperation came from Rush Limbaugh, the intellectual foghorn of the extreme wing, who stated Obama could not succeed and he hoped he would fail.

Norman Luxenburg of Iowa City, a columnist specializing in foreign affairs, is a retired professor of European and Russian history at Purdue University and of Russian at the University of Iowa. Comments: nluxenburg@gmail.com AP