Politi-Score: Jumping the Snark (Part 3)

Michele Bachmann had one statement with what appeared to be “opposing” rulings on its veracity by PolitiFact (Mostly True) and the Washington Post Fact Checker (Mostly False). But closer examination revealed that they both treated the ruling similarly.



The statement in question as published in the Washington Post Fact Checker:

In February 2009, President Obama was very confident that his economic policies would turn the country around within a year.

He said, and I quote, ‘A year from now, I think people are going to see that we're starting to make some progress. If I don't have this done in three years, then there's going to be a one-term proposition.’ Well, Mr. President, your policies haven't worked. Spending our way out of the recession hasn't worked. And so Mr. President, we take you at your word.”

According to Kessler, Bachman left some crucial words out of her Obama quote which “undercut her claim.”

However, this was again a case I’ve previously discussed in my Bachmann series: it was part of a “blended ruling” Kessler awarded Bachmann for eight statements combined. As Kessler noted in his “Pinnochio Test” conclusion: (emphasis added)

Bachmann’s announcement speech had relatively minor transgressions, fact wise, but she did worse in her pre-announcement interviews. We are pleased to see she has modified her language on the 800,000 jobs — though this stale talking point should be dropped altogether — but she erred badly on her assertion about the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. She needs to figure out how to eliminate the use of hyperbole — such as “massive” or “all” — from her vocabulary.

On a blended basis, she is getting two Pinocchios, but that’s only because we do not use 1/2 Pinocchios.

In this “blended” ruling, Kessler’s toughest “grade” was levied on the 800,000 jobs Bachmann claimed would be lost under Obamacare and an assertion that Obama had released all the oil from the SPR. Other than that, the rest, including the statement that quoted Obama as saying he would turn the economy around in one to three years, he considered “relatively minor transgressions, fact-wise.” So I’m guessing the “turn the economy around” statement was the minor transgression, an improvement truth-wise over the other two, and would have garnered less than Two Pinnochios by itself—or maybe 1-1/2 if Kessler could award half Pinnochios....or even one, the Mostly True.

PolitiFact's banner:  "Not a major omission"...WaPo: "Relatively minor transgression."

PolitiFact used the same Bachmann quote in its analysis and several others which preceded it that, as writer Louis Jacobson indicated, expressed a similar “variation on the line” of Bachmann leaving out a not quite inconsequential part of what Obama actually said, which, to paraphrase Kessler, undercut her claim:

So is Bachmann correctly framing Obama’s comment? In her announcement speech, she did remove one sentence from what she described as a direct quote -- "But there's still going to be some pain out there." Taking it out does eliminate one indication that Obama acknowledged that even an improved economy would inflict some pain on Americans.

This isn’t a trivial omission, but it’s not a major one… Each of the phrasings we cited above is slightly different, but we think that she is justified in pointing out that Obama offered a three-year framework for turning the economy around and that he acknowledged that Americans might not support a second term if he didn’t deliver. So we rate her statement Mostly True.

Kessler’s grading methodology--and my interpretation thereof--made these two rulings look inconsistent with each other. It’s clear they essentially ruled the same based on the similarity of the context of their reasoning. Kessler made one statement in regard to Bachmann that reminds me of those test-taking tips and tricks you hear when going to school. That is, on a True/False answer test, when you see something that uses the words “never” or “all” it’s most likely false. As Kessler said “She needs to figure out how to eliminate the use of hyperbole — such as “massive” or “all” — from her vocabulary.” In other words, Bachmann can “get a better grade” if she refrains from statements easily discerned by fact-checkers as most likely false--or Mostly False.

That one was pretty straight forward.  The next one is not quite as cut and dry.