Media Matters Daily Summary 02-10-10

Malkin misleads on health care, climate, labor bills
Contradicting estimates by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO), Michelle Malkin wrote in her syndicated column that health care reform and cap-and-trade are "debt-deepening" initiatives. Malkin also asserted that the Employee Free Choice Act "would allow Big Labor bosses to sabotage workers' rights to a federally supervised private-ballot election," when in fact the bill would strip employers, not workers, of the right to demand a secret ballot. Read More

Gerson says CBO found Ryan's plan would balance budget, but CBO didn't look at the whole plan
In a Washington Post column praising Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), Michael Gerson asserted that Ryan's budget blueprint "according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), eventually achieves a balanced budget." But CBO's analysis doesn't show that Ryan's proposal would balance the budget; rather, CBO only analyzed a portion of Ryan's proposal, and at his instructions, did not analyze significant tax changes found in the legislation that would likely alter the legislation's assumed revenues. Read More

WND pushes dubious claim that 25 percent of military would quit if DADT repealed
WorldNetDaily columnist Mychal Massie advanced the dubious claim that if Don't Ask, Don't Tell were repealed, 25 percent of the military would decline to re-enlist, based on an unnamed poll of "military folks." But Massie's claim is refuted by the experiences of several other countries that lifted their bans on gays and lesbians serving but saw no such re-enlistment reductions, even when earlier polling had predicted such reductions. Read More

Garrett ignores GOP influence in current health care legislation to say Obama will "start" incorporating GOP ideas
On Fox News' America's Newsroom, Major Garrett said President Obama indicated during a press conference he "will start talking to Republicans and incorporating their ideas in the health care debate." In fact, as Obama recently indicated during his January 29 question and answer session with House Republicans, several GOP ideas have been incorporated into the current health care bill. Read More

Limbaugh falsely claimed Obama, Reich were never professors
Rush Limbaugh falsely claimed on his radio show that President Obama and former Labor Secretary Robert Reich were never professors. Limbaugh's claim about Obama echoed a claim previously made by Karl Rove. Read More

Hill devotes article to baseless global warming attacks, Gore bashing
The Hill devoted an article to forwarding claims that snowstorms in the Washington, D.C., area casts doubt on the existence of global warming and quoted Republicans bashing former Vice President Al Gore for his advocacy on climate change. In fact, short-term local weather phenomena do not disprove the scientific consensus that human-caused global warming is real. Read More

Hannity falsely claims that "global temperatures continue to plummet"
Continuing his attacks on the scientific consensus about global warming, Sean Hannity falsely claimed that "global temperatures continue to plummet year after year." In fact, several scientific organizations have concluded that 2009 was one of the warmest years on record and that the decade of 2000-2009 was the warmest on record. Read More