Repub­li­can Con­gres­sional hope­ful Ari David is livid that Apple has rejected his iPhone app due to “defam­a­tory state­ments” about his com­pe­ti­tion, Demo­c­rat Henry Waxman.

As you can see not only are none of the state­ments defam­a­tory, they are all factual.

By deny­ing me this appli­ca­tion Apple is now mak­ing an in-​kind con­tri­bu­tion to Henry Wax­man by deny­ing his com­peti­tor a mod­ern tool for polit­i­cal com­mu­ni­ca­tion. They are sti­fling my right to free polit­i­cal speech and they are car­ry­ing water for the Obama administration.

Apple Denies Free Polit­i­cal Speech « Yes, But, However!

Let’s take a look at a few of these “fac­tual” state­ments, though.

HENRY WAXMAN…

SUPPORTED Cap & Trade leg­is­la­tion that would have brought us $7 a gal­lon gas and as Pres­i­dent Obama has stated would make elec­tric­ity rates “nec­es­sar­ily sky rocket.” (This one is well known con­sid­er­ing that Wax­man spon­sored the bill in the House and Pres­i­dent Obama is famous for mak­ing the state­ment about the need under his plan for “sky­rock­et­ing” elec­tric­ity rates).

Now, maybe I’m using a dif­fer­ent def­i­n­i­tion of “fact” than Mis­ter David, but where the hell did that “$7 a gal­lon gas” thing come from? Is that a fact? No, it’s a pre­dic­tion, and an obvi­ously cyn­i­cal, worst-​case pre­dic­tion about one of the poten­tial side effects should Cap&Trade pass.

VOTED AGAINST mis­sile defense fund­ing, which jeop­ar­dized the US and Israel (Wax­man is famous for vot­ing against mis­sile defense pro­gram fund­ing going all the way back to 1983 when Rea­gan first pro­posed the SDI system).

SDI was a boon­dog­gle in the 1980s and it’s a boon­dog­gle today. Mis­sile defense has never been suc­cess­fully tested. So if it doesn’t work, how does defund­ing it “jeop­ar­dize” anyone?

Apple was right to reject this app, and politi­cians — on either side — need to get used to the idea that the same lies and half-​truths they get away with on TV won’t work in this mar­ket. Try telling the truth, Ari, and see how far you get.