O'Reilly spins my family. I set them straight.

I haven't commented on Bill O'Reilly in a while, so what the hell.

Two recent comments, the first from some stray conservative and the second one from "The (Ahem) No Spin Zone".

First:

Fifteen -- under Bill Clinton, 15.1 percent of the population was poor; under president Bush, 12.7 percent of the population is poor. That's a reduction, that's a good thing.

Second:

Halfway through President Clinton's tenure in office in 1996, the poverty rate was 13.7 percent. Halfway through President Bush's tenure, the rate is 12.7 percent, a full point lower.

Wow. Gosh. Criminy. Looks like Bill Clinton did a lousy job fighting poverty compared to Bush. So, just how would one go about defending Clinton on this? How about, oh, pointing out some facts maybe?

Poverty Rates:

1993 15.1%
1994 14.5%
1995 13.8%
1996 13.7%
1997 13.3%
1998 12.7%
1999 11.9%
2000 11.3%

And then:

2001 11.7% (uh oh)
2002 12.1% (oops)
2003 12.5% (yikes)
2004 12.7% (d'oh!)

O'reilly then goes on to say:

In 1996, the Clinton budget allotted $191 billion for poverty entitlements. That was 12.2 percent of the budget and a whopping amount of money. That's why Bill Clinton was called the first black president by some. However, the Bush 2006 budget allots a record-shattering $368 billion for poverty entitlements, 14.6 percent of the entire budget, a huge increase over Clinton's spending on poverty entitlements.

Given the above, anyone willing to wager that O'Reilly isn't lumping corporate welfare entitlements in with that $368 billion?

I hear Al Franken is busy working on his sequel.

Kudos to Media Matters. The leftist fascist Bush hating Media Matters.