unSpun by Brooks Jackson Read Free Book Online

communities, estimated to be as high as $327 per household for some towns of fewer than 10,000 people. Bush administration officials considered a more flexible limit that would have allowed a limit of as high as 20 ppb in a few cases. That would have been double the limit proposed by Clinton but still a 60 percent reduction compared to the existing ceiling. Eventually, however, Bush accepted the 10 ppb level and the new limit went into effect in January 2006 exactly as Clinton had proposed—no earlier, no later. At no time did the Bush team propose to raise the limit above the existing level to allow “more arsenic.”
    In both cases, the deceivers’ central point may well have had a grain of merit, but rather than make an honest argument they invited the public to accept gross exaggerations. So when you hear a dangling comparative term such as “more” or “higher,” always ask, “Compared to what?” The answer may surprise you—and keep you from being fooled.
    WARNING SIGN:
The Superlatives Swindle
    J UST AS COMPARATIVE WORDS SUCH AS “MORE” AND “HIGHER” ARE warning signs, so are superlatives such as “most” and “highest” and claims such as “biggest in history” or “smallest ever.” In 2004 a pro-Bush group named the Progress for America Voter Fund ran a TV ad asking, “Has any president been dealt a tougher hand?” Their message was that Bush, because he inherited an economy on the verge of a downturn and had presided during the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, faced the toughest circumstances of any president in history. That’s silly. Was Bush “dealt a tougher hand” than Abraham Lincoln, whose election prompted the breakup of the Union and who took office just six weeks before Confederates fired on Fort Sumter and began the Civil War? Tougher than Franklin Roosevelt, who took office during the Great Depression and later contended with Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941? Come on!
    Another example of the “superlative swindle”: Republicans still persist in calling Bill Clinton’s 1993 deficit reduction bill—in Bush’s words—“the biggest tax increase in American history.” It wasn’t, unless you count only raw dollars and disregard population growth, rising incomes, a growing economy, and inflation. Measured as a fraction of the entire economy, Clinton’s 1993 increase was one sixth the size of Roosevelt’s 1942 tax increase. That World War II levy was equal to $5.04 for every $100 of economic output, according to a paper prepared by a tax expert in Bush’s own Office of Tax Policy. Clinton’s tax increase was equal to 83 cents.
    Republicans have been victims of this tactic as well. The Sierra Club accused Bush of having the “worst environmental record in U.S. history.” But “worst” by what measure? Even the Sierra Club admits that air got cleaner during Bush’s tenure (nearly a 12 percent reduction in the six major pollutants between 2000 and 2005, according to official monitoring required by the Clean Air Act). And Bush—while certainly not as aggressive as the Sierra Club wanted—put in place much stricter controls on diesel emissions than had existed under his predecessor. In 2005, Bush also imposed the first federal controls on mercury emissions by power plants. We can’t say who did have the “worst” record; but no president before Richard Nixon even had an Environmental Protection Agency, which was created in 1970.
    Superlative claims can lead us to choose needlessly expensive products and make shallow political decisions. Approach them with care!
    WARNING SIGN:
The “Pay You Tuesday” Con
    B Y NOW NEARLY EVERYBODY WHO HAS I NTERNET ACCESS IS PROBABLY familiar with the Nigerian e-mail scams that have been going on since the 1980s. A supposedly wealthy or high-placed