Eleventh Hour Allegations

And now the most interesting two minutes in television, the latest from the wartime grapevine:

Wanted: Fact Checkers?

The Associated Press says it. Reuters says it. The New York Times says it repeatedly. Sen. Levin says it. So does Sen. Rockefeller.

What they say is that the Bush administration claimed as a justification for going to war in Iraq that Saddam Hussein (search) posed a, "imminent threat."

In fact, President Bush has publicly said just the opposite, most conspicuously in his State of the Union address last January.

Eleventh Hour Allegations

Saturday's Los Angeles Times contained claims by three more women that Arnold Schwarzenegger, the GOP's leading candidate in the California recall race, groped, fondled, or sexually mistreated them.

While The Times insists that these new allegations were not politically motivated, one of the women claims that she was spurred to name names by Jodie Evans, cited in the story as a, "co-founder of the women's peace group Code Pink."

The newspaper neglects to mention Evans' strong ties to the Democratic Party, or the fact that Evans worked closely with Democratic Gov. Gray Davis under former governor of California Jerry Brown (search).

Poverty on the Rise?

As has been widely reported, the number of people in America living in poverty rose by 1.7 million in the last year, according to the Census Bureau's annual report on poverty.

But most news accounts missed the part of the report on what life in poverty is like for the poorest 10 percent of families in this country.

As columnist Bruce Bartlett notes, the census report says 90 percent own a color TV, 73 percent own a microwave, 54 percent own a VCR, 41 percent own a stereo, and 21 percent own a computer...and that the Census Bureau's standards for determining poverty haven't changed since the 1960's.

Alternative poverty measures developed by the Census Bureau this year show no change in poverty rates between 2001 and 2002.

'Moveon'…To A Different Tune?

The increasingly powerful liberal activist group Moveon.org has launched a campaign to raise $500,000 for an ad convincing Californians to vote against Arnold Schwarzenegger (search) based on his record with women.

Their web site declares an emergency in California, pointing to Arnold's lead in the polls while noting, "the truth about his character is only now starting to get out."

Moveon, you may recall, got its start and its name when it opposed the impeachment of Bill Clinton (search) on charges that he'd molested a string of women from Arkansas to the White House and lied about it under oath.