Combat the Lies: Play the Numbers

THE FOLLOWING excerpt is the centerpiece of a must-read diary on Daily Kos. It sets the record straight on Barack Obama's legislative record and includes action links.

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Here are three numbers every Obama supporter needs to know by heart:

820 and 427 and 152

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820 is the number of laws Obama sponsored in the Illinois State Senate.

427 is the current count of the number of bills Obama has co-sponsored in the U.S. Senate.

And the final number, 152, is the most recent tally of the number of bills that Senator Obama has authored. You can see his current legislative record here. Three of them, including S. 3558 ("A bill to provide for enhanced food-borne illness surveillance and food safety capacity") were moved upon just last week.

Let's look at that quote from Palin again, this time with wiggle words highlighted:

"...this is a man who has authored two memoirs but not a single major law or even a reform, not even in the state senate." (Cheers, applause.)

Actually, it's not hard to find bills by Obama that qualify both as major, and as reforms. As Andrew Sullivan points out:

...it seems extremely weird that she should believe that Obama's record is a total zero.

At her first press conference, why not ask her why she said that Obama has never passed a single reform, when he passed the 2007 Ethics Reform, described by many as the most sweeping package of its kind since Watergate. Of course, she doesn't know. She was given this speech. But she should be asked to respond to the question of why she said something patently untrue to the entire country.

Now, McCain's record is also easily available for perusual--but that's not the point, is it? Sullivan again:

You can see the idea here: to keep equating Palin's experience with Obama's. ...So there's your standard. It's fatuous and stupid. But if you repeat it often enough, it might just work.

Which explains the new obscenity: "ZERO! ZERO!" shouted repeatedly from the convention floor. They're hoping people will look at the Obama campaign's big "O" symbol and see a "0" instead.

As fun as it is to chew on rumors about Trig's true mother, or crack jokes about McCain and adult diapers, Obama needs us. He needs us to give a full-throated defense of the truth--not of him personally, but of the truth.

The kid has a batting record. Obama's record of turning words into action isn't zero. It's 820, and 427, and 152.