Lil White Lies: Raising Kaine

Our first encounter with a numbers problem came last September when Ron Paul cited the war death toll in a debate. "We've lost over 5,000 Americans over there in Afghanistan, in Iraq, and plus the civilians killed," Paul said.

Turns out the fatality count on that date was actually 4,349 if you include civilian deaths. Does that mean Paul was wrong? Should he get a False on the Truth-O-Meter? …

In Paul's case, his point was a simple one, that many people have died in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He overstated the number, but not by all that many. …

To assess the truth for a numbers claim, the biggest factor is the underlying message.

--Bill Adair (2008)

Ron Paul received a rating from PolitiFact (PF) of Mostly True for this statement Bill Adair used in explaining how rulings were arrived at, reflecting a variance of about 13% between 4,349 and 5,000. And it should be noted that Paul said OVER 5,000. The underlying point was that many people have died in Iraq.

In this PolitiFact Virginia ruling, the statement being fact-checked was one by DNC Chairman Tim Kaine: that “jobs increased 1 percent under George Bush while population grew 10 percent." PF Virginia’s writer Sean Gorman found that the nation’s population grew by about 7.8% during this time, according the U.S. Census Bureau, and that jobs grew by .83 percent, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Doing the math, that puts Kaine’s numbers within about 6% (a ratio of 9.4 to 1 instead of 10 to 1) of what he claimed. Therefore Gorman considered them “pretty much on the mark” and awarded a “Mostly True” ruling to Kaine. Considering Republican Ron Paul received a “Mostly True” for being 13% (or more) off, does Tim Kaine merit it for half that margin of error?

Well, we haven’t really looked at the underlying argument here yet. Reviewing the context that surrounded this statement, it was clearly about the results of the economic policies of George W. Bush, as Kaine enveloped this remark with similarly true ones that:

• Family median income dropped

• The gap between rich and poor expanded

• $1 invested in the stock market when Bush became president was worth 78 cents when he left while

• $1 invested in the stock market when Obama became president is now worth $1.50

So Kaine gave five examples, although I’m the most dubious of the last two in terms of presidential impact, even if they’re true.

My conservative counterpart’s contention is most likely that Gorman hardly touched on the underlying argument (or “caveats”) of Kaine’s disdain for Bush (besides the key argument that his policies didn’t work) and then going way out in the clear blue yonder about the fact “that the policies of presidents and governors have only minor impact on economic cycles and job creation” which would not support Kaine’s statement.

But does Gorman’s journalism in (allegedly) not sufficiently touching on the underlying argument affect the ruling outcome? If Gorman had waxed poetic with examples of how Bush’s economic policies didn’t work, Bryan White might have claimed this was more evidence of PolitiFact right-wing bias; since Gorman hardly mentioned it, he claims bad journalism. Damned if you do and…

The underlying point expressed by Kaine is the failure of George Bush’s economic policies while president. The examples Kaine gave were true, albeit not the best, in particular this one.

Bryan's review lingered on with an “Afters” on the raw numbers (instead of the “underlying argument”) with “Divide 7.8 by .83 and the resulting 9.4 ends up reflecting a ratio closer to 9:1 than 10:1.” Tisk tisk. I’m so glad I used to be a bean counter.