Radosh.net

After the last debate I wrote that Bush was "toast" as soon as the media learned that he did, in fact, own shares in a timber company.

Today I came back prepared to eat some crow, after reading William Safire.

Kerry also blundered with a weird attack on an $84 item in the Bushes' federal income tax return, supposedly from a timber business. "I own a timber company? That's news to me," said Bush, adding engagingly in what was the most natural moment in the debate, "Need some wood?" It turns out that Kerry relied on an Annenberg Web site that later admitted it had been confused, which left the Democratic candidate out on a hardwood limb.

Fortunately, I decided not to depend on Safire's version of what factcheck.org said, because it turns out he's the one who's confused. Here's what it really "admitted":

Bush got a laugh when he scoffed at Kerry's contention that he had received $84 from "a timber company."  Said Bush, "I own a timber company? That's news to me."

In fact, according to his 2003 financial disclosure form, Bush does own part interest in "LSTF, LLC", a limited-liability company organized "for the purpose of the production of trees for commercial sales." (See "supporting documents" at right.)

So Bush was wrong to suggest that he doesn't have ownership of a timber company. And Kerry was correct in saying that Bush's definition of "small business" is so broad that Bush himself would have qualified as a "small business" in 2001 by virtue of the $84 in business income.

Kerry got his information from an article we posted Sept. 23 stating that Bush on his 2001 federal income-tax returns "reported $84 of business income from his part ownership of a timber-growing enterprise." We should clarify: the $84 in Schedule C income was from Bush's Lone Star Trust, which is actually described on the 2001 income-tax returns as an "oil and gas production" business. The Lone Star Trust now owns 50% of the tree-growing company, but didn't get into that business until two years after the $84 in question. So we  should have described the $84 as coming from an "oil and gas" business in 2001, and will amend that in our earlier article.

That hardly leaves Kerry out on a limb, and it's only one example of why Safire's column should be dismissed, as Sullivan did, as crude spin.

Another is how he continues the above graf: "Bush was too much the gentleman to point out, now that their income taxes were in dispute, that Mrs. Heinz Kerry paid only 11 percent in 2003 on her $5 million income, while the Bushes paid 28 percent."

But Kerry wasn't trying to compare their income taxes, he was making a point about the kind of fuzzy math Bush needed in order to claim that Kerry's tax plan would affect 900,000 small business owners. And on this point, I did make one error in my previous post. I had thought that the failed zinger would give watchdogs a chance to discuss the more important error in Bush's statement (i.e., the fuzzy math) in addition to the silly (and not the least bit "engaging") one ("need wood?"). But in fact, none of the articles I've seen that mention this gaffe go on to note the more important point. I'm so naive sometimes.

Posted by Daniel Radosh

4:12 PM