Rove has touted the $2.9 trillion figure in his last three weekly Wall Street Journal columns, as well as in a March 1 appearance on ABC's This Week. Two of those instances were particularly egregious, as Rove suggested the $2.9 trillion figure was low given the need to fund the wars and hurricane relief -- when, in fact, emergency supplemental spending on those issues is not included in the $2.9 trillion figure. In his March 5 column, Rove asserted: "Mr. Obama cannot dismiss critics by pointing to President George W. Bush's decision to run $2.9 trillion in deficits while fighting two wars and dealing with 9/11 and Katrina." On This Week, Rove similarly purported to rebut the "suggest[ion] that adding $2.9 trillion to the deficit in eight years with two wars, Katrina, 9-11, and a tech bubble bursting makes us somehow -- the Republicans unable to talk about fiscal responsibility."

During the Fox News discussion, Rove also falsely claimed that President Obama has "call[ed] for government-run health care." In fact, as Media Matters for America has noted, the White House health-care Web page states: "On health care reform, the American people are too often offered two extremes -- government-run health care with higher taxes or letting the insurance companies operate without rules. President Obama and Vice President Biden believe both of these extremes are wrong."

From the March 21 edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends Saturday: