Hunter has a great front page piece up today about .Politfact's latest atrocity against truth..
Much of the Kos community also already knows about Politifact's bizarre ruling on Obama's true jobs statement during the SOTU and about about their insane choice for Lie of the Year.
Well, I took a quick look at Politifact's home page, and -- surprise, surprise... found two more quick examples of their front page of taking statements from Democrats that they admit are true, but calling them half-true anyway.
Just a quick look at the Politifact's front page shows even more outrages -- all against Democrats:
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True fact #1:
President Barack Obama says that after bailout, GM is now the world's top automaker
That statement is true. They admit it's true, but ruled it only "half true" because, get this, "luck is a factor."
Obama's right that GM's sales, along with sales by its affiliates, were No. 1 in the world in 2011. But getting full credit for those affiliates isn't without controversy. Meanwhile, crediting the bailout with GM's No. 1 spot is a stretch in a year when GM also benefited from challenges faced by its key competition. It's also telling that Ford, which wasn't part of the bailout, also has thriving sales. Obama's claim is partially accurate, but leaves out some important details. We rate it Half True.
Got that? The statement is true, but Politifact thinks it's not a result ofthe bailout.
Never mind that Obama didn't state GM is #1 because of the bailout -- he said after.
And never mind that GM wouldn't even fucking exist to be #1 if not for the bailout.
Politifact simply decided to fact check a different statement than the one Obama made, which gave them the ability to call it half-true.
I can only assume it's because they are afraid of being accused of liberal bias if they keep saying Obama tells the truth, so they've resorted to changing the actual words of statements made by President Obama in order to ding him.
"True fact #2:
Barack Obama campaign says U.S. dependence on foreign oil now below 50 percent"
This seems like a pretty straightforward one. Politifact says that it is "an accurate statistic." Hallelujah! Finally.
Oh wait. What's that you say? They went with only "Half True?" Why?
The Obama campaign is correct that U.S. oil dependence is below 50 percent....Team Obama is correct in saying dependence only recently -- in 2010 -- fell below 50 percent, but the commercial suggests that the current president deserves credit. The problem with that is apparent when looking at the year--to-year drop, because it mirrors the recession, with the biggest annual decline in 2009.
Got it?
- So the statement they checked is factual.
- Politifact can't find a statement where the President takes credit, which is what they really want to fact check.
- So instead of fact-checking the fact, they instead fact check what they think the fact was meant to suggest.
- And for good measure, their argument is oil dependence went down because of the economic recovery and it would be unfair for Obama to claim any credit for the recovery.
Politifact's insane new standard seems to be:
There are no facts that a Democratic President can cite about the economy if they are good news,. Once the President cites a fact, it ceases to be a fact... because facts might lead people to give the President credit, even if he didn't claim credit, and we can't have that.
Therefore, whether something is a fact or not a fact depends entirely on who says it, not on whether it's, you know, true.
But at least the right wing will stop accusing them of liberal bias, right? Right?