Lil White Lies: A Review of *Grading PolitiFact* (15 of Them!)

Some time ago, I made a comment on a Facebook PolitiFact page comparing Bryan White’s debate methods to Chinese food. It seems tasty and filling at the time, but a short time later one is hungry and has a headache from all the MSG. His  blog's Grading PolitiFact series has a similar *nutrition.* It sounds good, but later you say to yourself, after thinking about it…"Hey, wait a minute….that isn’t quite right…” and you're feeling a bit empty and kind of sick.

Or you might say, "…something smells here, and I don’t know what it is.” Keeping that *odor* in mind, at this point, 15 of Bryan White’s “Grading PolitiFact” series’ analyses have been evaluated in my blog. I’ve given (most of) them my own grade (I started out with peanuts, but found this much more demonstrative), namely anywhere from one to five of that famous cartoon skunk Pepé LePew. Why Pepé? Because of the strong whiff of Bryan’s personal “selection bias”, the reek of his incredibly subjective opinion passed off as “reason” and “logic”, and the overwhelming stench of his excessive use of logic fallacies. Because once past that, Pepé LePew’s initial charm is understood to only be the bait of the sting.

Out of this fifteen, there have been three cases where I’ve actually agreed with Bryan’s analyses. The best example of the three is a recent PolitiFact (PF) ruling on a statement made by perennial political candidate Christine O’Donnell, the loser in the Delaware senate race, in a debate with Chris Coons, concerning the increase in the unemployment rate in (one county in) Delaware from 2008 to 2010. I agreed with Bryan to the point that I made a comment at PolitiFact’s Facebook Page for this particular ruling, supporting his contention that PF did not thoroughly look at the unemployment statistics. The rate had indeed doubled from 2008 to 2010 as O’Donnell had claimed. It had doubled in the way Bryan had measured it , and in the way I thought it should be measured, which was slightly different than his, and totally different than PolitiFact’s, which was unwittingly (or wittingly? sayeth Bryan) too precise.

Including the above ruling, Bryan alleged *selection bias* in six of the 15 analyses I evaluated. The problem with his “bias selection” claims was that he often never really offered a valid, fair selection alternative, and if he did, it was one he cherry picked. In one of the first rulings I looked at concerning Jim DeMint’s claim that almost all the bills in congress passed by unanimous consent, which PF ruled Pants on Fire, Bryan wanted to include 535 bills which were proved by definition not to be bills; he then backed off, but just continued to complain that PF was arbitrarily deciding which bills to exclude (because they were the type that didn’t require debate or discussion) based on its computations. PF actually re-did this ruling after a lot of criticism from its fan base. Of course, making a mistake that requires a re-assignment of the topic and a re-write is a *SAM* in terms of ammunition for Bryan to aim at PolitiFact in his quest to prove its left-leaning bias.

The rest of the rulings generally had to do with Bryan’s unverifiable assertions which were for the most part, completely subjective. For example, a review on Georgia Republican Nathan Deal being a “birther dabbler” was ruled Mostly True by PF. Bryan objected on the unverifiable, subjective assertion “To say someone "dabbled" in birther conspiracies conveys that the conspiracies were actively believed.” Shortly after he made that post, the Christine O’Donnell “witch” video came out, where she said she dabbled but didn’t really believe. So, to give Bryan a break, while some people may think you need to actively believe, there may be more people who think you don’t, to be a “dabbler.” It’s complete speculation….sounds reasonable (like when you first eat that Chinese food), but later, you realize that it might not be true.

Even though, even though, even though??? In the critique table which summarizes and ends each Lil White Lie post, there is a category called “Consequences of Bryan’s interpretation (What I have to believe if he is correct).” Many times in that section I will add an “even though” followed by what Bryan wants his readers to ignore or excuse in order to make his assertion acceptably true. This makes his omissions, distortions and misrepresentations humorously clear to the reader.

For example, in a recent analysis that Bryan did on a PF ruling on a statement made by Colorado Democrat Michael Bennet about his Republican opponent’s position on abortion, here’s what the reader must overlook in order to believe Bryan’s analysis, as noted by the *even thoughs*: “Michael Bennet never made the statement that Ken Buck did not believe in abortion even in cases of rape and incest, it was just implied in an ad (even though there’s evidence he did say it). Wanting to ban abortion and opposing it are not the same (even though there’s evidence Ken Buck has said on several occasions he would ban abortion or sponsor legislation to ban it.)”

Bryan uses the term “charitable” quite a lot in his writings. I’ve discovered that the word charitable, as he uses it, is just a more acceptable euphemism or code word he found to replace “favorable” because the word “favorable” is too connected to the word “bias”—and of course, even though Bryan says he admits to his bias unlike PolitiFact, he would like his readers to believe he is being fair. He also qualifies many statements he makes with “could” or “may”—another code for a type of equivocation, because if he’s disproved, he will immediately claim he did not say *for certain*--he said *could* or *may.*

Bryan White when he was younger. (A dramatization)

When Bryan discovered my blog reviews, he reacted in his usual manner, his own similar wordy criticisms in a separate, very poorly formatted blog of his which didn’t amount to anything, and many communications where he took strong issue to the title “Lil White Lies”—as in, how DARE I call him a liar. After studies of 15 of his Grading PolitiFact critiques, however, I must say there’s plenty of support to stand by that title. There’s a method to his madness! Parsing sentences, making vague *nano-measure* comparisons as if they were substantive, blowing even minor mistakes far out of proportion, using code words, seemingly reasonable but unverifiable assertions, an over-abundance of alleged logic fallacies, and confirmation bias: this is how Bryan makes his case that PF has made rulings he deems “biased” or incorrect. But what’s more is what ties it all together: a sort of monolithic certitude, an implicit officiality, a self-belief reflected in his writing that he is the final authority on what he believes is the truth. In other words, as my impression from his blog is that he’s into Star Wars, his style of writing sounds like it’s coming from Darth Vader.

When he gets on the Facebook PolitiFact page, he uses the same methods in commentary debate, only along with his authoritarianism, he brings in a rank condescension. Well, people can get pretty nasty in the comment threads, and I’d like to pass it off as just a defensive measure on his part, but he sure overdoes it. Sneaking in the last word doesn’t make one right.

Much time was spent carefully reviewing and scrutinizing his analyses as well as that of the associated PolitiFact ruling, Going to sources, reading and re-reading PF’s citations and finding other sources to corroborate both analyses. I’m probably not unbiased or totally fair either. But after all this work and experience with Bryan’s Grading PolitiFact critiques thus far, I have found that his arguments are often inconclusive and certainly not persuasive. Neither have been his responses to my critiques as they have been one in the same as far his line of reasoning.

As they say, practice makes perfect! To be continued……