Friday, April 07, 2006
David Vitter, Get Your Mind Right
From da po'blog:
Vitter acknowledged that coming back to Congress to ask for another $6 billion will be difficult after the administration has already requested more than $100 billion in recovery funds.
I was afraid that the artificially inflated $85B figure ($67B in recovery spending + $18B in flood insurance payments) would quickly hit a nearly unbreakable ceiling of $100B, I just didn't expect one of our own senators to accept the exaggerated number.
Just to recap, over a month after I first wondered where the $85B figure came from and almost three weeks after DPB pointed out where it came from, the T/P finally ran began to question the figure. I was happy to see The Picayune point out that even the $67B figure was inflated, it bothered me that none of the articles mentioned the biggest and most obvious part of the exaggeration (the flood insurance payments) before paragraph seven. I figured that nobody--normal readers, editorial writers at other papers, U.S. senators-- reads as far as paragraph seven. Now that the flood insurance payments are over $20B of a largely fictitious $100B figure, it would be nice to see the T/P mention it in paragraph one of a story--where even David Vitter might read it.
Of course, this isn't the first time that this administration has misstated the facts enough to fool even critics without actually telling a blatant lie. Wonder if we'll hear a heated exchange between Scott McClellan and David Gregory about what's been done with the $100B.
Vitter acknowledged that coming back to Congress to ask for another $6 billion will be difficult after the administration has already requested more than $100 billion in recovery funds.
I was afraid that the artificially inflated $85B figure ($67B in recovery spending + $18B in flood insurance payments) would quickly hit a nearly unbreakable ceiling of $100B, I just didn't expect one of our own senators to accept the exaggerated number.
Just to recap, over a month after I first wondered where the $85B figure came from and almost three weeks after DPB pointed out where it came from, the T/P finally ran began to question the figure. I was happy to see The Picayune point out that even the $67B figure was inflated, it bothered me that none of the articles mentioned the biggest and most obvious part of the exaggeration (the flood insurance payments) before paragraph seven. I figured that nobody--normal readers, editorial writers at other papers, U.S. senators-- reads as far as paragraph seven. Now that the flood insurance payments are over $20B of a largely fictitious $100B figure, it would be nice to see the T/P mention it in paragraph one of a story--where even David Vitter might read it.
Of course, this isn't the first time that this administration has misstated the facts enough to fool even critics without actually telling a blatant lie. Wonder if we'll hear a heated exchange between Scott McClellan and David Gregory about what's been done with the $100B.
