Our wildest and wackiest claims of 2009

To conclude our year-end coverage, we asked PolitiFact staffers to choose the silliest and most unusual Truth-O-Meter items of 2009. Their choices show how the political discourse got downright wacky in the past year:

Aaaaah-choooo!

Vice President Biden said that when one passenger

sneezes on a plane

, “It goes all the way through the aircraft.”

Will they transmit back to KAOS headquarters?

A chain e-mail claimed people who opt for the public option in the Democrats’ health care plan

will have microchips implanted in their bodies

.

Below the belt:

Rush Limbaugh claimed that President Barack Obama

wants to mandate circumcision

.

 


Sarcasm you can dance to

: Singer Paul Hipp used World Health Organization figures in

a song mocking U.S. health care

.

History repeats itself:

Facing criticism that his policies will lead to socialism, President Barack Obama said President Franklin Delano Roosevelt

was called a socialist, too

.

Picture not-quite-perfect

: Bloggers said an aerial photo showed more than

1 million people attended the tea party rally

in September, but the photo was taken at a 1997 Promise Keepers rally.

An epic work, but it lacks character development:

Sen. Orrin Hatch claimed that the Senate health care bill

is longer than Tolstoy’s

War and Peace

.




Line 17, Guns. Include total from Schedule G, handgun and automatic weapons, if required

: A chain e-mail claimed that you

must list all your guns

on your 2010 tax return.

Check your math

: President Barack Obama claimed the United States was

one of the world’s largest Muslim countries

.

He still hasn’t found what he’s looking for:

U2 lead singer Bono mixed up

figures about AIDS relief and foreign aid

.

Woof woof!

Glenn Beck claimed that the Democratic plan offered

health insurance for dogs

.