Grading PolitiFact *Liberal*-Style: Steele-ing a Half True from PolitiFact

According to the website Fivethirtyeight,  Sharron Angle and Ken Buck were on course to win as senators in their respective states. Mike Castle was supposedly a solid shoe-in for the Delaware general election over the Democrat, had not Christine O’Donnell upset him in the primaries. But because of tea party extremism (which should probably more appropriately be called Republican extremism), the Republican Party only won the House of Representatives and lost the Senate in the 2010 midterm elections; in otherwords, they should have won both houses -- if Michael Steele had managed the tea party side of the Republican Party correctly, particularly in Nevada, Colorado and Delaware.

That is why this PolitiFact (PF) ruling on a statement by Michael Steele on having "won more elections than any chairman since 1938" merits attention.

In addition, there is Steele’s kowtowing to Rush Limbaugh and what Rush had to say about him, shortly after Steele became chairman of the RNC. (emphasis added):

On March 1, 2009 in response to a question on CBS's Face the Nation as to who spoke for the Republican Party, President Obama's chief of staff Rahm Emanuel said it was Rush Limbaugh because "whenever a Republican criticizes [Limbaugh], they have to run back and apologize to him, and say they were misunderstood. He is the voice and the intellectual force and energy behind the Republican Party. And he has been upfront about what he views, and hasn't stepped back from that, which is he hopes for [President Obama's] failure. He said it. And I compliment him for his honesty, but that's their philosophy that is enunciated by Rush Limbaugh."[46][47][48]

In remarks aired by the CNN program D.L. Hughley Breaks the News on March 1, 2009, Steele said he, rather than Limbaugh, is "the de facto leader of the Republican Party. Rush Limbaugh is an entertainer. Rush Limbaugh's whole thing is entertainment. Yes, it is incendiary. Yes, it is ugly." On March 2, 2009 Limbaugh said on his radio show that Steele is not fit to lead the Republican Party, asking of him "Why do you claim to lead the Republican Party when you seem obsessed with seeing to it President Obama succeeds?"[49] After the show Steele called Limbaugh to apologize, saying "I have enormous respect for Rush Limbaugh. I was maybe a little bit inarticulate. There was no attempt on my part to diminish his voice or his leadership. I went back at that tape and I realized words that I said weren't what I was thinking. It was one of those things where I thinking I was saying one thing, and it came out differently. What I was trying to say was a lot of people want to make Rush the scapegoat, the bogeyman, and he's not."[50] Steele later issued another statement to say that Limbaugh "is a national conservative leader, and in no way do I want to diminish his voice. I truly apologize."[51]

Jeez o pete, Michael Steele, you might as well just have resigned your position,  got down on your knees and offered it to Rush! This certainly begs the question as to the extent of Steele’s actual leadership.

PolitiFact neglected to look at these possible underlying reasons as to why Michael Steele’s statement was not true. They ignored the underlying argument that “luck and the economy” actually determined his “electoral” success, and he could have had even more success (the Republicans gaining control of both houses) had he done his job properly.

To paraphrase Bryan: Should we ignore those factors and only compare numbers of wins in previous years, federal as well as federal-and-local collectively? And as was famously said, “All politics are local”...so should the local elections (governors and state legislators) even be considered in PolitiFact’s number crunching? Should PF have looked more into the reasons Limbaugh had said Steele was “not fit to lead the Republican Party”? Should we ignore those factors while fact checking?

You can see where we are going. Similar to my first “liberal style” review, semantics can make bias go both ways. So to review how PolitiFact determines its rulings from Half True on down:

Half True – The statement is accurate but leaves out important details or takes things out of context.

Barely True – The statement contains some element of truth but ignores critical facts that would give a different impression.

False – The statement is not accurate.

The element of truth in Steele’s statement is the count accuracy, which was about the only thing PF greatly elaborated upon in its write up; but PF ignored the “critical facts that would give a different impression” as shown here, under the Bryan White "selection bias" guise of ignoring the underlying argument. In other words, an argument can be made that this statement could easily have been ruled even less than Half True, based on the current political climate (the tea party), external factors (the economy), and the judgments of Steele’s peers about Steele (Limbaugh).

More conservative bias from PolitiFact…or so it looks.