By Selwyn Duke

Any good advertising man knows that a catchy slogan is worth a
thousand words. A lot more customers are won by “Coke is It!” or “Just
Do It” than are lost by the tedious expositions on side effects rendered
at the end of drug commercials. Unfortunately, sound bites, true or
not, are also effective in politics. They can even trump reality.

Consider, for instance, the rallying cry “A woman makes only 72 cents
on a man’s dollar!” This is a  compelling message even though it’s
wholly deceptive. As I explained here,
if you dig into the statistics behind that statistic, you learn that
this disparity is explained not by unjust discrimination but by career
and lifestyle choices the sexes make, such as entering different
occupations, working different numbers of hours, and taking on different
amounts of responsibility. But digging is difficult and people’s
attention spans are short; thus, even conservative politicians choose to
mouth platitudes about women’s rights rather than dare explain the
truth on the wage gap.

Another sound bite bandied about this election cycle is that Mitt
Romney pays only 14 percent in tax, a class-warfare message that’s
supposed to make us believe the rich don’t pony up their “fair share.”
What this bit of propaganda confuses, however, are income-tax rates with
the capital-gains tax rate.

Read the rest here.