Bill,
Love the show. It's a great show. You're doing the people's business and you make us laugh. But, please, get one of your researchers, or anyone for that matter, to hang backstage during the show and check the facts that your guests spew. Heck, give me a computer and I'll sit back there researching their nonsense.
Friday night I had to watch one more right wing blonde Stepford creature repeat the lies she's been told to say. The biggest whopper of them all? "The debt has doubled since Barack Obama has been in office. That is a number. We can all go g..." At this point she broke off, but I assume she was about to say go "Google it." Presumably the few shreds of actual brain cells that live in her cerebral cortex were telling her not to invite folks to fact check her nonsense. I did, though I didn't have to. I knew she was lying and waited for Eliot Spitzer or you to tell us the correct number. But you didn't.
Thankfully, Bill, you did follow her with, "It's not a fact. That's not the right number." But, oh how sweet it might have been if someone had quickly fed you the actual numbers at that point. Ah, sweet victory over her pants on fire lie was just an internet check away.
Here are the numbers. At the end of George W. Bush's term in 2008, the U.S. debt stood at $9.986* trillion. At the end of 2010, the debt was $13.528* trillion. And that's not even considering how much of the debt incurred under Obama's first year was actually a result of Bush's obligations. More. Yes. Doubled? Maybe in the Bizarro math world of Fox News and Republican talking heads.
Then again, the debt at the end of Bill Clinton's presidency stood at $5.628 trillion. So, in actuality, the debt came much closer to doubling under George W. Bush. In yet another ironic twist, the percentage of the debt increase under Bush was almost exactly double what it has been under Obama (77% versus 35%)**. Now that's a fun fact.
*Source:Budget of the U.S. Government Fiscal Year 2012 pages 139/140
** Bush difference from Clinton (9.986-5.528)/5.628 = 77% Obama difference from Bush (13.528-9.986)/9.986=35%