Politico published a feature piece on the Democratic debate this morning called the "The Politico Wrongometer," subtitled, "Our policy reporters truth-squad the Democratic debate."
Not surprisingly, Politico's very first "truth-squad" item begins with a lie that needs its own "truth-squading."
Politico opens its piece by claiming that Sanders said this:
In his closing remarks, Bernie Sanders said the U.S. had “more income inequality than any other country.”
But what Sanders
actually said was this:
We should not be the country that has the highest rate of childhood poverty of any major country and more wealth and income inequality than any other country.
Based on their out-of-context quote from Sanders, the
Politico reporter writes:
Income inequality is indeed very high in the United States, but the U.S. is not remotely the most unequal country in the world when it comes to income. The Gini coefficient, which measures broad-based income inequality, is much higher in much of the underdeveloped world, especially in Africa...
The
Politico piece then cites this
CIA fact sheet to support its claim that Sanders was not telling the truth about U.S. income inequality relative to the rest of the world's "major nations":
1 Lesotho 63.2 1995
2 South Africa 63.1 2005
3 Botswana 63.0 1993
4 Sierra Leone 62.9 1989
5 Central African Republic 61.3 1993
6 Namibia 59.7 2010
7 Haiti 59.2 2001
8 Honduras 57.7 2007
9 Zambia 57.5 2010
10 Guatemala 55.1 2007
11 Hong Kong 53.7 2011
12 Colombia 53.5 2012
13 Paraguay 53.2 2009
14 Chile 52.1 2009
15 Panama 51.9 2010 est.
16 Brazil 51.9 2012
17 Papua New Guinea 50.9 1996
18 Swaziland 50.4 2001
19 Costa Rica 50.3 2009
20 Gambia, The 50.2 1998
21 Zimbabwe 50.1 2006
22 Sri Lanka 49.0 2010
23 Ecuador 48.5 December 2013
24 Mexico 48.3 2008
25 Madagascar 47.5 2001
26 China 47.3 2013
27 El Salvador 46.9 2007
28 Rwanda 46.8 2000
29 Bolivia 46.6 2012
30 Singapore 46.3 2013
31 Malaysia 46.2 2009
32 Georgia 46.0 2011
33 South Sudan 46.0 2010 est.
34 Argentina 45.8 2009
35 Dominican Republic 45.7 2012 est.
36 Mozambique 45.6 2008
37 Jamaica 45.5 2004
38 Bulgaria 45.3 2007
39 Peru 45.3 2012
40 Uruguay 45.3 2011
41 United States 45.0 2007
So what constitutes a "major nation" in Sanders' world? Certainly, the only two countries even remotely close to being "major nations" on the list with more income inequality than the U.S. are China and Mexico. Note that there is not one European country with more income inequality than the U.S. In fact, the
Politico reporter then conedes:
The most striking increase in income inequality in recent years has been the runup in income share for the top one percent—a data point that the Gini coefficient isn’t particularly good at taking into account. International comparisons typically find that no other OECD country has a higher income share for its one percent than the United States—though Argentina did match it in one recent calculation.
And, yes, Sanders consistently makes the point that he is discussing the income share going to the top one percent, a point he made repeatedly last night and has made a key element of his stump speech, oh,
for the last 30 years or so.
So let's get this straight...
1) Politico willfully takes Sanders' quote out of context.
2) Politico then, essentially, admits that Sanders' description is correct.
3) Yet Politico bills their own fib as a fib on Sanders' part, under the guise of "truth-squading" the Democratic debate.
To bastardize a fantastic line from the great George Gershwin...
That is nice work if you can get it
And you can get it -- if you lie.