President Obama May Not Be the Best Constitutional Scholar

As a graduate of Harvard Law School and former professor of constitutional law, President Obama has acquired a deep knowledge of legal history. Using that rich historical knowledge, Obama declared on Monday that the Supreme Court striking down a federal law like Obamacare would be "unprecedented."

You know, "unprecedented," like when something has happened at least a dozen times before…

The Supreme Court routinely reviews laws passed by Congress and either upholds or overturns them. For Obama to suggest that such an action would be unique in American history is something of a head-scratcher. We could name numerous examples of the Supreme Court tossing laws passed by a "democratically elected Congress," starting with Marbury vs. Madison, in 1803.

OK, but he didn't mean unprecedented unprecedented. Just unprecedented when it comes to important laws, like the ones he writes…

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Tags: Barack Obama, Judiciary, Laws, PolitiFact, Supreme Court

Quote Unquote: Make-Believe People I Have Known

PolitiFact editor Bill Adair writes about some "people" that he "met," in an editorial justifying his site's choice for "Lie of the Year"…

"At a Republican campaign rally a few years ago, I asked one of the attendees how he got his news. 'I listen to Rush and read NewsMax,' he said. 'And to make sure I'm getting a balanced view, I watch Fox.'

"My liberal friends get their information from distinctly different sources — Huffington Post, Daily Kos and Rachel Maddow. To make sure they get a balanced view, they click Facebook links — from their liberal friends."

You know, I used to know this guy who was always inventing these make-believe over-the-top caricatures and then writing about the crazy things that they did and said as a means of kind of exonerating himself for the silly things that he himself would do or say. And you know what? That guy was hunted down and eaten by a pack of crazed weasels.

True story.

Tags: Bill Adair, Medicare, Paul Ryan, PolitiFact, Quote Unquote

Either Republicans Voted to End Medicare or They Didn't (Spoiler: They Did)

It's December, which can only mean one thing. After wading through a whole year's worth of distortions and falsehoods from America's patrician class, PolitiFact has chosen the Democrats for its coveted "Lie of the Year" award…

Republicans muscled a budget through the House of Representatives in April that…kept Medicare intact for people 55 or older, but dramatically changed the program for everyone else by privatizing it and providing government subsidies.

Democrats pounced. Just four days after the party-line vote, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee released a Web ad that said seniors will have to pay $12,500 more for health care "because Republicans voted to end Medicare."

It's no secret that health care is fun and easy to lie about. (Rumor is that death panels come from when John Boehner and Michele Bachmann got hammered and kept trying to one-up each other.) But not everybody is impressed with PolitiFact's decision. Read what Steve Benen has to say…

"Medicare is a single-payer health care system offering guaranteed benefits to seniors. The House Republican budget plan intended to privatize the existing system and replace it with something very different — a voucher scheme. It would still be called 'Medicare,' but it wouldn’t be Medicare."

Well now I don't know what to think. On the one hand, we've got a federal health care program that has been ended. On the other hand, we've got a once-reputable website that says it's a lie to say that it's ended.

The only thing to do now is work on a health care lie of my own. Maybe something about how Democrats want to replace flu shots with bat guano.

Look, I'm just spit-balling here.

Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images News/Getty Images

Tags: Democrats, Health Care, PolitiFact, Republicans

Michele Bachmann on "Founding Father" John Quincy Adams

Oh, Michele Bachmann! You're so close to actually for real maybe winning the GOP nomination! Which would be a dream come true for a huge chunk of America's Republican base (and an even huger chunk of its Democratic base). Don't go screwing it up now by… well, talking.

Look, didn't you learn your lesson by talking yesterday? That clearly didn't work out well. Why are you gonna go and talk all over again. This is not your forte!

I understand the motivation to attempt to blink George Stephanopoulos for asking you these questions. But surely there must be other options.

Tags: ABC, Founding Fathers, George Stephanopoulos, John Quincy Adams, Michele Bachmann, PolitiFact, Primaries, Republicans, Slavery

Jon Stewart Is Overrun with Fox News' False Statements

Oh, Jon Stewart… How brazenly you mock Fox News' misstatements as reported by PolitiFact. But would you as brazenly mock all the ways all the ways that a morning bird can fly silhouetted and majestic through a sunrise? Would you poke so much fun at a mountain for rising up and kissing the storm clouds over a still calm desert? Or at a dying sun for bursting into a brilliant supernova and seeding the empty space with the elements of life?

Such forces of nature are not to be trifled with lightly…

See also
Jon Stewart on Fox News Sunday
Jon Stewart on Jon Stewart on Fox News Sunday

The Daily Show airs Monday through Thursday at 11/10c.

Tags: Chris Wallace, Fox, Jon Stewart, PolitiFact, The Daily Show, Video