Let's Play "Spot the Lies!"

In the world of privatization, it seems that some opinions can't be bothered to rely on pesky things like truth, opting instead to build their "cases" on what Steven Colbert would call "truthiness" - things that sound true, until they are confronted with those annoying facts.

Such appears to be the case with Donald Cohen's opinion piece on PA Privatization appearing this week on The Patriot News, titled "Lawmakers should just say no to booze privatization: As I See It."

How Cohen apparently sees "it" is through rose-colored - but not fact-tinged - glasses. Cohen is, according to PennLive.com, "the executive director of In the Public Interest, a nonprofit comprehensive resource center on privatization and responsible contracting, based in Washington D.C." Red flags should be raising in your brain as you read that (it's not possible to determine, through scanning In the Public Interest's Website, where and from whom they get their funding).

You should head over to PennLive.com and give Cohen's ill-conceived OpEd a read, if only to get your blood boiling. I think we could start a serious game of "spot the lies!" in that piece, though it would be like shooting fish in a barrel. If it were a drinking game, you'd be hammered before you were halfway through reading it.

Many commenters on the original piece have beat me to the punch on this game, and following are two highlights from that discussion. One comes from a commentor called BertB:

"An analysis of state data by the Keystone Research Center found that states with tighter control over the sale and distribution of alcohol have lower rates of alcohol-related traffic deaths than states that take a more hands’ off approach." 
Except for PA which is in the lower half of the states in DUI, underage DUI, binge drinking and underage binge drinking.

Really, the only way that rational alcohol enjoying people can tolerate this stuff is to turn it into a game, right?

So... let's play!