Dear PolitiFact.com
On February 1st, Joe Biden made the claim:
"Osama bin Laden is dead and General Motors is alive"
At first look this would appear to be wholly true, as Osama bin Laden, as far as we can tell, is not still living, and GM just ran an expensive Super Bowl ad, so it does appear to be alive. However, considering this is the new slogan for the Obama campaign, it must require more careful consideration and scrutiny. I mean, there is that slight video evidence that Obama was directly involved in the assassination of bin Laden, but he wasn't there, you know? Maybe the video was staged and Obama was just watching? As far as GM, it was Bush who signed the bailout so Obama must have been totally against it and thus had nothing to do with it, right? And I'm sure he wouldn't have tried to give them more bailouts in the tax code just last year... Romney says Detroit should have been allowed to go bankrupt, so maybe the bailouts weren't really helpful to GM and were actually more harmful to them staying alive instead. We just can't know, since studies can't prove that bailouts => alive.
In any effect this statement would only be eligible for a "Half True" or "Mostly True" ruling considering your well-established historical definition of "truth" on the Truth-O-Meter, right? They totally have no right to take any credit for these things, and your past rulings would agree.
-Adrian
"Osama bin Laden is dead and General Motors is alive"
At first look this would appear to be wholly true, as Osama bin Laden, as far as we can tell, is not still living, and GM just ran an expensive Super Bowl ad, so it does appear to be alive. However, considering this is the new slogan for the Obama campaign, it must require more careful consideration and scrutiny. I mean, there is that slight video evidence that Obama was directly involved in the assassination of bin Laden, but he wasn't there, you know? Maybe the video was staged and Obama was just watching? As far as GM, it was Bush who signed the bailout so Obama must have been totally against it and thus had nothing to do with it, right? And I'm sure he wouldn't have tried to give them more bailouts in the tax code just last year... Romney says Detroit should have been allowed to go bankrupt, so maybe the bailouts weren't really helpful to GM and were actually more harmful to them staying alive instead. We just can't know, since studies can't prove that bailouts => alive.
In any effect this statement would only be eligible for a "Half True" or "Mostly True" ruling considering your well-established historical definition of "truth" on the Truth-O-Meter, right? They totally have no right to take any credit for these things, and your past rulings would agree.
-Adrian