Quickies

- Former White House Press Secretary and FOX News host Tony Snow has lost his battle with cancer.

- Arnold Schwarzenegger is quickly becoming my favorite Republican. On the Bush administration:

"This administration did not believe in global warming," Schwarzenegger told ABC News' George Stephanopoulos in an exclusive interview that will air Sunday on ABC's "This Week."

- Scott Saxton reports on his WSAZ blog that ballot access efforts for third party candidate Ralph Nader are underway in W.Va. Bob Barr's supporters are planning to kick off their signature drive Wednesday, Saxton says.

- Pete Seeger is still active at 89.

Seeger will headline a Sept. 13 New England Farm Relief Concert in Brattleboro to raise money for a new micro-loan program being developed by The Carrot Project and the organization that operates the town's annual Strolling of the Heifers.

- The Lie That Won't Die: Pennsylvania Edition!

Photo: White House spokesman Tony Snow conducts his first press briefing in the Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House in Washington Tuesday, May 16, 2006. Snow has died of cancer. He was 53. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert, File)

The saga of The Lie That Won't Die continues...

The GOP just can't stop repeating this dishonest story.

It's been interesting how each of the perpetrators puts their own spin on the myth. Shelley Moore Capito changed it from 60 miles to 30 miles, for instance.

Now Sen. John Sununu, R-N.H has decided to leave out the Chinese part of the story and just focus on scaring people with the Cubans:

"The Cubans are drilling for oil and gas sixty miles off the coast of Florida, and yet there are people in America that say, 'No, we're not gonna do that, we're not going to explore.'"

Still not true. Even Cheney and Florida's GOP Sen. Mel Martinez have admitted to that. Cheney, of course, did it because he got caught.

Add to the people who admitted they spread a lie GOP Rep. Mark Kirk of Illinois. He told the story back in June.

But he has offered a retraction, as TPM reports:

But the Chicago Tribune asked Kirk's office for clarification, and has now gotten a retraction. "While the Cubans may have issued offshore drilling rights, Congressman Kirk has publicly agreed that the Chinese are not currently drilling for oil near Florida," Kirk's chief of staff told the paper. Score one for reality.

The lie that won't die

The Cuba/China drilling lie/scare continues in the GOP's push to give away the U.S. coastline to Exxon and friends...

It started with a George Will column.

Then Sean Hannity picked it up.

Then Dick Cheney used it.

Then Shelley Moore Capito put it in her column to W.Va. newspapers.

Now failed presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani is in on the act. From Glenn Beck's show:

GIULIANI: And you look at -- you look at Cuba ... Cuba is going to allow China to drill for oil within 80 miles of Florida. And Florida had a 300-mile limit. So in essence, we have China drilling for American oil.

The problem is, it's still not true. Even if 5 people say it, it's still a lie.

At least Cheney's office eventually admitted it was untrue.

Cheney's office said in a statement to The Associated Press that the vice president had erred.

But that didn't stop Hannity and Capito.

And now Glenn Beck is giving Rudy a forum to continue spreading this particular bit of misinformation.

Photo AP

Capito repeated the Cuba/China drilling story

Carnacki at WVaBlue tells us how W.Va. Rep. Capito got in on the Cheney/Hannity bit about Cuba and China drilling for oil off Florida's coast:

CHARLESTON, W.VA. - In an effort to promote industrializing the pristine Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Rep. Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV-02) claimed in a newspaper op-ed column published and distributed to newspapers in West Virginia by her congressional office this week that the Chinese are "drilling for oil 30 miles from our coastline..." in Florida.

The stuff I wrote on the original myth and it's debunking is here.

Sean Hannity: Liar

For two weeks or so, Sean Hannity has been trying his best convince his audience that oil companies and speculators have nothing to do with high gas prices.

And despite the fact that his party has held the White House for two terms and Congress for six of the last eight years, he wants you to believe that it's all the Democrats' fault that we're paying $4 a gallon for gas.

As part of his evidence, he keeps repeating this story that "China is drilling 60 miles off the coast of Florida" for oil in an area where he U.S. won't allow American companies to do the same.

Translation: Them foreigners are tryin' to git yer oil!

The only problem with this story is it's not true.

From McClatchy Newspapers yesterday:

"GOP claim about Chines oil drilling off Cuba is untrue"

Yet no one can prove that the Chinese are drilling anywhere off Cuba's shoreline. The China-Cuba connection is "akin to urban legend," said Sen. Mel Martinez, a Republican from Florida who opposes drilling off the coast of his state but who backs exploration in ANWR.

"China is not drilling in Cuba's Gulf of Mexico waters, period," said Jorge Pinon, an energy fellow with the Center for Hemispheric Policy at the University of Miami and an expert in oil exploration in the Gulf of Mexico. Martinez cited Pinon's research when he took to the Senate floor Wednesday to set the record straight.

Dick Cheney has also been repeating the lie.

From AP yesterday:

In a speech to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Cheney said on Wednesday that waters in the eastern Gulf of Mexico, long off limits to oil companies, should be opened to drilling because China is already there pumping oil.

[...]

Congressional Democrats pounced on the vice president's remarks and were backed up by independent energy experts, who called the assertion hyperbole at best and a falsehood at worst.

Cheney's office said in a statement to The Associated Press that the vice president had erred.

I know what you're thinking. Hannity didn't lie - He was just misinformed! (Isn't that always the case with them?)

Then Sean would, no doubt, correct his misstatement after the truth got out all over the media Thursday.

So, wanting to see how he would do a retraction after multiple self-righteous declarations on the subject, I decided to tune into Sean's program today.

But, 5 minutes in:

"China is drilling 60 miles off the coast of Florida!"

Sean then punctuated his rant against lib'ruls with his usual "It's unbelievable!"

He couldn't have said it better.

Why does anyone continue to believe a word this guy says?

Photo by me