Birth of a Myth: McCain Wrong on Energy... Again

John McCain has said that Alaska produces 20% of our domestic energy supply. Video of McCain making this claim has been repeated, without correction, as recently as yesterday on a major cable news program. But this myth has been exposed by factcheck.org. Turns out Alaska only produces only about 3.5% according to the US Energy Information Agency.

With the energy debate raging on the campaign trail and in Congress, with energy costs devouring the budgets of working families, and with our addiction to oil and fossil fuels threatening our economy, our national security and the climate of the planet, how could John McCain be so wrong?

Last week, we found out where he got erroneous talking point. Sarah Palin said the same thing to ABC’s Charlie Gibson. “This is the same Governor Palin who, according to John McCain, “...knows more about energy than anyone in the United States of America.”

Now, given that it is likely that Charlie Gibson spent more time interviewing Palin than McCain did before nominating her to hold the second highest office in the land, it might have been nice for McCain to do a little fact checking of his own.

After all, it’s one thing for him to say that someone is knowledgeable in spite of evidence to the contrary, but it’s quite another to put that person in charge of America’s energy future, as John McCain has suggested.

For more, see: http://voices.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker/2008/09/palin_on_energy.html