Political Quotes

“I rise today to answer allegations made by the Washington Post in a front-page story in yesterday's edition. Here is the story: ``High-level Talks, then Changes to Holdings.'' First, I want to say I have great respect for the Washington Post. In many ways, the Post is a national treasure. But even great newspapers make mistakes, and in yesterday's story they made assumptions that are simply wrong. The story said my wife and I shifted savings in her retirement accounts from mutual funds to lower risk money market accounts on August 14, 2007. That is true. They showed we made those changes a day after a call from Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson to me. That is also true. But their suggestion the two are related is absolutely false. They have made the same error in logic we studied in college. The case and faulty logic involved an observer who noted people were fainting and street pavement was melting. That led the observer to conclude that melting pavement caused people to faint. Of course, that was wrong. It was 106 degrees outside. The proper conclusion was that heat was causing the pavement to melt and people to faint. That error in logic was about causality, and that is precisely the error the Washington Post made in their story with respect to me. What the Washington Post missed in their graphic--and to be fair to them, they largely had the correct context in the story. If you read the whole story, it was fairly balanced.…”