Lil White Lies: Mission Improbable

How much blame does Bill Clinton deserve for 9/11? “A lot. Jimmy Carter got the whole thing started, Bill Clinton let it build, build, build, build, build. He wouldn’t deal with it, because he had no credibility on deploying the military. He was a pot-smoking draft dodger, and so when he was presented with credible evidence that this or that country was behind a terrorist attack, he’d just have to look the other way: ‘No, don’t let me hear that. Call in Monica!’… Jimmy Carter gave Islamic craziness its first real foothold. There was no state-sponsored—they were just living in the dirt hating us until they had Iran. How did that happen? Because Americans forgot what it’s like to put a Democrat in charge of national security. Then we have eight years of Bill Clinton ignoring, ignoring, ignoring, ignoring—they’re ginning themselves up, Osama is saying, ‘You have six dead in Somalia and you pull out? We have boys lining up.’ Now this isn’t the Cold War, these aren’t sane but evil white men—these are crazy Islamists. This country—people are under the impression that it could never change, that this can be taken for granted, it can’t be taken away, and this is a terrifying time. I mean, it’s terrifying to think what could happen with a one-term Democrat, any of those Democrats.” --- Ann Coulter

The subject of this current Bryan White foray into flunking the fact-checkers at PolitiFact is the inimitable Ann Coulter, about whom I will treat like Bill Maher or Joy Behar…they seem to like her. I shock my more liberal friends (my conservative friends even more!) when I don’t turn the channel if she’s on Fox or anywhere else…there’s just something about her that I don’t think she’s as serious as she portrays herself to be.

Bryan included some points (from the PolitiFact fact-check) about PolitiFact’s “expanding the argument” (he calls it "mission creep"--from which I draw my title) to find Coulter not quite as truthful as her literal statement:

1) "It's based on carefully constructed parameters that could have produced a different comparison if those parameters had been tweaked." Since those parameters corroborate what she is implying about Democratic presidents, Bryan instead goes for the weaker tautology argument….but PF has made a strong point. She implied that Obama has had more attacks than Bush did, by narrowing the period of time…but the truth is, there were even more if you include the entire presidential terms, and even more if you include the foiled attacks, even more if you include attacks overseas on our troops. If Coulter’s point was that it doesn’t deter jihadist terrorists, why use that particular narrow measure? Well, it’s probably because---

2) "It suggests that terrorist plots can be blamed on a specific presidency, even though plots can take years to come together."  My initial quote from Coulter back in 2007 supports this. No it didn’t appear out of thin air. And yes, she’s correct in that it has no effect on terrorist recruitment, and her column had nothing to do with supporting the notion that specific presidencies are to blame for terrorist plots. But it’s not the reverse either. Coulter’s column was about the *Liberal* “weakness” of not doing things to displease the enemy and the result was MORE attacks under a *Liberal* president.

3) "And it suggests that the only way to measure success in combating terrorism is by comparing deadly attacks on U.S. soil ..." This is clearly a reference to Coulter’s mention of General Petraeus’s remarks that he “objected to the Quran-burning protest on the grounds that it could be used by radical jihadists to recruit Muslims to attack Americans” immediately followed by “This is what liberals say whenever we do anything displeasing to the enemy.” I didn’t know General Petraeus was a liberal, didn’t he also serve under Bush? But the point is, Petraeus meant it would endanger our troops, “not just in Kabul, but everywhere in the world.”

“Claims that US soldiers have desecrated the Koran in both Afghanistan and Iraq have caused bloodshed in the past.

There were deadly protests in Afghanistan in 2008, when it emerged that a US soldier deployed to Iraq riddled a copy of the holy book with bullets.

And further lives were lost in Afghan riots in 2005 when Newsweek magazine printed a story alleging that US interrogators at Guantanamo Bay had flushed a copy of the Koran down a toilet.” (which turned out to be false)

But Bryan insists on waving aside Coulter’s ignoring this important metric of her *numbers* in specifying attacks on “U.S. soil.” “One might very well question whether Coulter's metric serves to significantly measure terrorist recruitment.” Given the above, I’d say, it doesn’t measure very much, only up to what she was trying to convey in her column's usual rants about liberals.

Title and Link	“There have been more terrorist attacks on U.S. soil by these allegedly calmed Muslims in Obama's first 18 months in office than in the six years under Bush after he invaded Iraq.”
Who? Affiliation	Ann Coulter, Conservative Republican (Pundit)
Ruling	Half True
Checkers	Louis Jacobson, Writer/Researcher; Martha Hamilton, Editor
# of words	1,217
#Sources Cited	13 (including six “email” interviews)
Argument Summary	While PF found what Coulter stated to be true, it questioned (1) the relevancy of the attacks and (2) the idea of blaming it specifically on the presidency when the attacks are often years in planning and the terrorists do not care who the president is, it is more about their being “fundamentally opposed to the underlying foundation of American society.”
Bryan’s Argument	He compared it to a ruling just done with Obama where both their statements were *literally* true; in other words PF engaged in “mission creep” (“expanded set of underlying arguments”) to turn Coulter’s statement into something less truthful than Obama’s.
Quick Interpretation	The next time you see Bryan blaming Clinton for 9-11 in a Facebook thread, remind him of this.
My criticism:	If Bryan’s going to compare, he should use something more apples to apples like this: It’s on Obama and the same general subject (terrorists and “counts”), it’s a longer fact-check, it follows a similar theme and Obama got Barely True as compared to Coulter’s Half True.
Guidelines PF Excuses	Number 1: ‘ “ But the only part of her comment that's checkable is her claim that "there have been more terrorist attacks on U.S. soil by these allegedly calmed Muslims in Obama's first 18 months in office than in the six years under Bush after he invaded Iraq.” ' AND Number 2: Context as Bryan sees it: irrelevance of deterrence of jihadist recruitment versus (PF) implication of more attacks happening during Obama’s term
Rhetorical Devices/Logic fallacies	You might call this a version of tu quoque by trying to compare to Obama’s statement on earmarks. But that was secondary to Bryan’s main argument.
DOES IT CHANGE THE RULING?	He probably prefers it True over Obama’s Mostly True.
My view	Bryan states re Coulter: “Her column has nothing to do with supporting the notion that specific presidencies are to blame for terrorist plots. It is the reverse, if anything.” If that’s the case, then WHY make it a point that there were more terrorist attacks during those prescribed time periods to make it appear Obama has had more, when it should really make NO difference if the crux of her column is nothing hinders jihadist recruitment?
Comments	Coulter would never blame a Democratic president’s tenure for terrorist attacks…or even imply Obama is a terrorist—or would she?
Consequences of Bryan’s interpretation (What I have to believe if he is correct)	Coulter’s statement was not only literally true, it was plainly in the context of whether it hinders recruiting by jihadist terrorists, which the *increased* attacks during Obama’s tenure show is not true, so it is irrelevant and really just a liberal complaint. It should be ruled TRUE.
Bryan’s Grade	Two Pepés: He should have known this was a well constructed jab by Coulter but he covered her anyway
PF Grade	One Pepé