Toomey Fact-Checked (But Not By Me)

Tony Rhodin of the Lehigh Valley Express-Times does the honors this time. From what he's correcting, I gotta wonder what the rest of the Express-Times thought of their meeting with Toomey (hint: we'll get to that later)

On Iraq:

To say the Iraq war succeeds because there is less of a chance of weapons of mass destruction being transported across the country is a remarkable justification and simply not true. When Iraq was a minority Sunni-led nation, there was little likelihood Iran would move WMD through Iraq to Lebanon or Palestine, because Iran is a Shiite theocracy. The countries, governmentally, were natural enemies.

Rhodin goes on to say that the Iraq war made the region less safe and made the "stated goals of the Afghanistan war impossible to reach."

On Health Care Reform:

Killing the health care bill and starting over again? You've got to be kidding. Once again, it works in political slogans, but the GOP had complete political control earlier this decade and didn't even consider health care reform, because it's not in the interests of its deep-pocketed patrons. The health care bill, by Congressional Budget Office standards, still cuts the deficit over the next 10 years. And it keeps insurance companies from denying coverage to sick people, putting lifetime caps on coverage and allowing college graduates to go without because they'd been kicked out of their parents' program at 23. Over time it will insure many of the uninsured.

Why would we want to kill it? Fix it? Sure. It does little to cut individual plan costs. You want malpractice reform? Write the legislation and line up the votes. But if you want to set a limit of $250,000 when a doctor cuts off the wrong leg, it's not our job to protect bad doctors.

On Social Security Privatization:

Privatizing Social Security for younger people? OK, how do you replace the money you take out of the system to put into the younger people's accounts? What's the cost? A trillion? At the very time the baby boomers are retiring.

And so on.

Step by step Rhodin deconstructs the Toomey's political positions. I kinda like this guy.

Now about the editorial board - I noticed something odd at the end at the end of their endorsement:

The best example of Toomey’s tenaciousness came in 1998-99, when he got tired of arguing in the House about excessive spending and wrote his own budget.
He then led a filibuster that forced Republican leaders to adopt some of his cuts.

That’s the kind of restraint Congress needs to enshrine — and Toomey is the candidate who won’t brook any dissent in a war on wasteful spending.

Um, guys? His time in the House of Representatives began in January of 1999. And his "filibuster" (which really wasn't as a "filibuster" is a Senate thing) took place in 2002.If you're gonna endorse a candidate for the United States Senate the least you can do is get the basic facts straight.

You'll look less like idiots that way.