ACORN: 1,224

Van Jones: 267

SEIU: 259

Afghanistan: 97

Iraq: 95

Valerie Jarrett: 52

Mark Lloyd: 50

Al-Qaeda: 50

Bill Ayers: 46

John Holdren: 43

Jeremiah Wright: 42

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: 41

Osama Bin Laden: 40

Taliban: 38

Obama Admin: Cap And Trade Could Cost Families $1,761 A Year...

The link goes to a CBSNews.com post, which declares:

A previously unreleased analysis prepared by the U.S. Department of Treasury says the total in new taxes would be between $100 billion to $200 billion a year. At the upper end of the administration's estimate, the cost per American household would be an extra $1,761 a year.

Well, there's one problem: $1,700 is the upper estimate. The second, far more important problem: This was an analysis based on a plan that called for auctioning all of the carbon-burning permits; the bill that passed the House auctions just 15 percent of the permits, meaning that this document (FOIAed by the corporate-friendly Competitive Enterprise Institute) bears almost no relationship to reality.

The CBS report has an "update" at the bottom of the piece, from the kind of people CBS didn't bother to quote (preferring the likes of the Heritage Foundation and CEI, staunch critics of cap-and-trade):

Update 9/16/2009: The Environmental Defense Fund has responded to the documents' release with a statement saying, in part:

"Even if a 100 percent auction was a live legislative proposal, which it's not, that math ignores the redistribution of revenue back to consumers. It only looks at one side of the balance sheet. It would only be true if you think the Administration was going to pile all the cash on the White House lawn and set it on fire.

"The bill passed by the House sends the value of pollution permits to consumers, and it contains robust cost-containment provisions. Every credible and independent economic analysis of the American Clean Energy and Security Act (such as those done by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, the Energy Information Administration, and the Environmental Protection Agency) says the costs will be small and affordable -- and that the U.S. economy will grow with a cap on carbon."

That is kind of like saying "IGNORE THE PRECEDING REPORT."

The Politico had a brief story on this as well by Ben Smith--not nearly as bad as CBS's-- that also included a late correction:

CORRECTION: The League of Conservation Voters' Navin Nayak points out to me that the documents are a bit less than meets the eye: They refer to a version of the legislation profoundly different than the one that passed. Specifically, the original White House plan had 100 percent of emissions permits being distributed by auction; the plan that passed has just 15 percent.  "Can you say 'irrelevant analysis'? It would be like pricing the healthcare bills currently in front of Congress based on a single-payer system," he writes.

He also notes that the revenue comes directly from polluters, not taxpayers, and continues (and I'm quoting him at length because my original post was sloppy):

"Why not use the CBO analysis of the house bill? Republicans seem more than happy to use CBO when it helps their case (i.e. Against some of the health care bills). But CBO said that ACES would only cost a postage stamp a day per household...in 2020."

So the scary-sounding statistic is nonsense. Nonetheless, one can expect to hear this "It will cost you $1,700!" factoid all the time.

it won't surprise you to learn this is a lie. But President Obama just got a question on it at a public event. And the idea has now made it into Politico, where a straight news story asks in its headline, all even-handed: "Will Proposal Promote Euthanasia?" Since Politico thinks it'll be easier to "win the morning" by misleading readers into believing there's a legitimate debate over this issue, it's worth taking a minute to debunk it.

In fact, Politico's story contains pretty much all the information needed to do that. It's just that almost none of it makes it into the headline, or the first seven paragraphs of the piece, which focus on the fact that Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, John Boehner, Eric Cantor and other reforms opponents are raising the euthanasia alarm.

Explaining how the clause in question would really only require that regular consultations with seniors contain "an explanation by the practitioner of the continuum of end-of-life services and supports available, including palliative care and hospice," Roth notes that "seniors are in no way required to take advantage of this benefit."

Roth tells how "Politico renders this information as: 'It does not mandate individuals to take advantage of the benefit, proponents say'" [Roth's emphasis].

"Nor is there any reasonable basis for believing that these consultations, if chosen, would do anything to promote euthanasia," Roth writes, especially since it "is illegal in 48 states anyway."

The fact is the Post's clumsy effort to make money on its brand name and market its access to the powerful was a belated effort to follow in the steps of at least two other prominent news organizations: The Wall Street Journal and the Economist magazine.

The Journal, for instance, is charging a $7,500 for its two-day CEO Council in November, an elite gathering that will include the paper's top editors and high-profile speakers like Tony Blair, Rupert Murdoch, and Education Secretary Arne Duncan. And for a few thousand dollars, the Economist can open the door to intimate off-the-record meet-and-greets with world leaders.

These events illustrate how the basic transaction--charging big fees to special interests to arrange private, special-access encounters with powerful people--that caused the Post this week to be excoriated is a more endemic practice than many people in political and media circles realize. Some watchdogs hope this week's Post scandal will help put an end to a hard-to-defend practice by revenue-hungry news organizations.

The quote from one such watchdog, Pew Project director Tom Rosenstiel, makes it totally clear: "He said, news organizations are 'encouraging the notion in the reader's mind that [they're] part of some insider establishment that it considers more important than public knowledge'"--now where would we ever get that idea?

As reported by Politico (7/2/09), the Post circulated a flyer offering--for the low, low cost of $25,000--an "intimate and exclusive Washington Post salon, an off-the-record dinner and discussion at the home of CEO and publisher Katharine Weymouth." The circular promised the participation of "key Obama administration and congressional leaders" as well as "healthcare reporting and editorial staff members of the Washington Post."

Lest anyone be confused as to why dinner at the Post's publisher's house would be worth $25,000, the flyer helpfully points out that "an evening with the right people can alter the debate." It calls the event "an exclusive opportunity to participate in the healthcare reform debate among the select few who will actually get it done." It's quite straightforward: The Post is offering to help a deep-pocketed customer an opportunity to alter the healthcare reform process by granting access to government officials and its own journalists.

Naturally, one is not allowed to be that honest about the relationship between money, power and journalism in Washington, D.C.  A Post spokesperson told Politico that the advertisement was released "before it was properly vetted," and that the "draft does not represent what the company's vision for these dinners are, which is meant to be an independent, policy-oriented event for newsmakers." Boy, that doesn't sound as much like it's worth 25 grand, does it?

Post publisher Katharine Weymouth then did an interview with employee Howard Kurtz in which she vowed they were "not going to do any dinners that would impugn the integrity of the newsroom." But she was aware "of the plans to host small dinners at her home and to charge lobbying and trade organizations for participation." And Post executive editor Marcus Brauchli said that "he had been involved in discussions, stretching back to last year, about newsroom participation in conferences"--but the good kind of conference, not the kind that makes you look like a sleazy influence-peddler.

So it looks like they're going to go ahead with these things--"We do believe there is an opportunity to have a conferences and events business, and that the Post should be leading these conversations," the Post statement to Politico said--but presumably next time they won't market them so nakedly as an exchange of money for power.  Don't worry, Post Co., your clients will still know what they're buying.