Snarky: A combination of the words Nasty and Sarcastic, meaning “being unpleasant and scornful”
On August 13, Bryan White posted that anecdotal proof of Politifact’s left-leaning bias is its treatment of Michele Bachmann (in a Facebook PolitiFact thread with commenter Derek Grass):
“….One obvious example comes from the snarkiness PolitiFact (PF) employs in its ratings of Michele Bachmann. I'm aware of no corresponding recipient of such treatment from the political left, and it's not for lack of candidates…. Any level of snark doesn't belong, and it's easily detectable no matter what party is the subject. You don't find snark in an Annenberg fact check.”
Just out of curiousity, I went back and looked at her PF rulings for 2010. Nothing looked particularly “snarky”: nasty, sarcastic or unpleasant. It was fairly straightforward. So I went back and looked at everything right from the beginning of PF’s “birth”—and there it was. If there’s a Snarkometer, its pointer blew off the meter when I read this paragraph at the end of one ruling ("snark" words are in italics):
"Well, at least she's right about the decade. Yes, the last big swine flu scare occurred in the 1970s. But other than that, her statement is utterly false.
So Bachmann is wrong about a Democrat being in charge during the 1976 outbreak and she fails to note the swine flu death in 1988. Hmmm. Two swine flu incidents during Republican administrations. By Bachmann's logic, we should find that "interesting." But we don't. It's ridiculous for her to suggest a partisan link with a deadly disease. That's not just a mistake, that's absurdly false. So we'll get out the lighter (after we wash our hands!) and set the Truth-O-Meter ablaze. This one's a Pants on Fire."
Words such as utterly, ridiculous, absurd…and “at least she’s right about the decade” and "by Bachmann's logic"—impugning Bachmann’s intelligence.
But before I throw in the towel to Bryan White, I thought it might be a good idea to compare these words to other fact-checks, particularly those found False or Pants on Fire. Is there writing similar to this elsewhere in the PolitiFact catalog?
What I found in the course of this analysis was:
1) Pants on Fire statements make the most use of “snarky” vocabulary. It appears the “snarkiness” is less present the further one moves up the Truth-o-meter.
2) Statements which appear to “scaremonger” get the most “snarky” treatment from PF (see example) and Bachmann does have a penchant for doing that. Joe Biden was taken to task on doing something similar.
3) It appears many of the “snarky” words were used in 2008-9, and perhaps when PolitiFact became aware of the "snark" factor in regard to Bachmann, they stopped using them.
Here’s another Bachmann fact-check with a very *snarky* comment on June 26, 2009:
"Bachmann packs a lot of bad information into a short space there. ...She is wildly wrong with her characterization of the Census Bureau's partnership program.
…..So let's count the ways Bachmann is wrong: Once again, she is making a scare-mongering claim about ACORN with facts that are ridiculously wrong. So we have to set the meter on fire once again. She earns another Pants on Fire."
Here, PF is practically *apologizing* for its treatment of Bachmann:
"…We swear we're not trying to pick on her, but we just couldn't let this latest one go. … There's a lot wrong in her statement, so we divided it into two Truth-O-Meter items…
Bachmann stuck to her misguided guns in a Fox interview on June 25… Bachmann is not only wrong here, she is engaging in fear-mongering that encourages people to break the law. And in doing so, she's falsely telling people that the Constitution would support them.”
And here, PF just lets her have it and calls a new ruling on Bachmann, her “latest outrage”--
“…U.S. Rep. Michelle Bachmann's latest outrage focuses on an old nemesis: ACORN.
…This latest claim from Bachmann follows the same tortured logic on an even grander scale.
….But Bachmann's statement is irresponsibly misleading on several levels.”
So let’s look at other Democratic politicians with False and Pants on Fire rulings, and see if PF uses the same types of words:
Here’s one with Joe Biden, but it’s relatively mild compared to Michele Bachmann. This particular statement shows PF’s snarkiness when it comes to Pants on Fire rulings which may engender stoking public fear:
"…But his statement was "When one person sneezes, it goes all the way through the aircraft." That's just wrong. And he made the statement in the context of a highly sensitive public health matter where it's important to give the public accurate information. For fanning the flames of fear without having the facts on his side, we rate his statement Pants on Fire!"
The following is a PolitiFact ruling on Joe Biden in 2007:
“…But the first part of this passage had this doozy…We find Biden's rhetoric is not backed up by the facts …. That's not just wrong, that's Pants on Fire wrong.”
How about this PolitiFact ruling by a Democratic contemporary of Bachmann’s, Florida’s Debbie Wasserman-Schultz:
"… But we also find that it's a significant exaggeration because she ignores what many people would reasonably describe as a mandate….
Wasserman Schultz's comment strikes us as a too-cute attempt to spin the bill in the wake of attacks by the bill's critics…"
The Snarkometer needle went to *medium high* for this PF ruling on Hillary Clinton...even with just the title of “Et Tu?” it smacks of "snark."
“…Clinton is seriously distorting Obama's remarks… But it is a significant distortion to say… ..and an even more serious one that… she is twisting Obama's comments…
Yes, Clinton later acknowledged that she was mistaken, but it's hard to understand how she could err on something so significant as whether she did or didn't dodge sniper bullets. Quite simply, this kind of hyperbole deserves our harshest assessment."
Here’s a milder PF ruling on Hillary:
"Clinton might be showing moxie by trying to reframe the Iraq issue in a way that puts her on top, but the facts don't support it."
Finally, Obama. Here is a PF ruling on a statement he made in 2009 as president:
“…But he dramatically overreaches by saying…”
And another PolitiFact ruling on a statement he made before he took office in December, 2008:
“…Obama appears to be cherry-picking …So Obama might be right for one week, but he is way off …That's so far off that we find it Pants on Fire wrong.”
Yes, this time, Bryan White may have a valid point here. I could find no rulings that were quite as harshly expressed as those early ones done on Bachmann. What’s more, the Politi-Score GPA he thinks is so useless supports his conclusion. Bachmann was dead last with an average of 56—even below all the major pundits who on average were 10 points below the major politicians.
So he just better keep a copy and screenprint of those rulings from 2009, because PF may just decide to purge them.
Postscript: An article at the conservative website The American Spectator called "PolitiFact's Fixers" addresses the subject ruling and also references Bryan White's criticisms.
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