Politifact Soliciting Votes for “Lie of the Year”

Some of you may be acquainted with Politifact, a fact-checking website that really took off in the lead-up to the 2008 elections, by fact-checking widely-disseminated statements by public figures and rating the accuracy of claims made on a scale from “True” to “Pants on Fire”.

Well, the year is coming to a close, and as you expect, various media are doing “___________ of the Year” type stories.

Politifact is soliciting votes for “Lie of the Year”, an award I find pleasantly amusing.

The nominees, if you’re interested:

"When one person sneezes, it goes all the way through the aircraft."
– Joe Biden on Thursday, April 30, 2009, in an interview on The Today Show

Preventive care "saves money."
– Barack Obama on Wednesday, Sept. 9, 2009, in a speech to Congress

"You lie!" (in response to President Obama saying health reform would not insure illegal immigrants.)
– Joe Wilson on Wednesday, Sept. 9, 2009, in the audience at a joint session of Congress

Seniors and the disabled "will have to stand in front of Obama’s ‘death panel’ so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their ‘level of productivity in society,’ whether they are worthy of health care."
– Sarah Palin on Friday, Aug. 7, 2009, in a message posted on Facebook

John Holdren, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, "has proposed forcing abortions and putting sterilants in the drinking water to control population."
– Glenn Beck on Wednesday, July 22, 2009, in his TV program

An amendment to the House health reform bill "puts new restrictions on women’s access to abortion coverage in the private health insurance market even when they would pay premiums with their own money."
– Nita Lowey on Saturday, Nov. 7, 2009, in a speech on the House floor

A birth certificate shows Barack Obama was born in Kenya.
– Orly Taitz on Sunday, Aug. 2, 2009, in an attachment to a lawsuit

Page 92 of the House health care bill "says specifically that people can’t purchase private health insurance after a date certain."
– Michele Bachmann on Friday, Oct. 30, 2009, in an interview on the Fox News Channel.

I personally went for the Sarah Palin item, since “death panels” did dominate so much political silliness this year, but you can feel free to disagree with me.