Grading PolitiFact *Liberal*-Style: Politi-Fishing with PETA

Some people would call a PolitiFact ruling like the above “fluff” or “filler”—after all, this was something that was said late last year, being looked at only now by PolitiFact Georgia.   It's like somebody at PolitiFact said "We need more organizations viewed as liberal whose claims we can look at, folks!" That was how I regarded it when I initially read it. Then I read the article of PolitiFact reader responses on it, so for me it called for more research and reading.  Then I realized this was an excellent candidate for Grading PolitiFact Liberal Style.

My first observation is that no one defined what type of vegan/vegetarian Bill Clinton was, because there are all sorts of vegans and vegetarians. Because if Clinton was a pesca-vegetarian (also called a pescatarian), this ruling should be False or Mostly False. Because it means Clinton eats fish (pesca-) and by all counts the 200 animals he spared by turning this type of vegetarian doesn’t come close when you exclude fish and shellfish. So, what kind of vegan is he?

In a CNN interview with Sanjay Gupta, Clinton says at about Second Number 15 that he doesn’t eat “dairy or meat or fish”—so he’s a straight vegan. So now the number 200 includes fish, shrimp, scallops, etc. and the question becomes are these considered “animals”—PolitiFact Georgia writer M.B. Pell’s conclusion is that PETA implied that all 200 animals were farm animals.

If you visit the PETA website, there’s a lot about not eating fish, including some animated banners, two of which I’m displaying in this post. For example, here’s a recent article with the “Top Five Reasons Fishing Hurts”:

5) Eating fish is hazardous to your health. According to The New England Journal of Medicine, fish "are the main if not the only source of methyl mercury," a substance that has been linked to cardiovascular disease, fetal brain damage, blindness, deafness, and problems with motor skills, language, and attention span.

4) Suffocation isn't fun. When fish are yanked from the water, they begin to suffocate. Their gills often collapse, and their swim bladders can rupture because of the sudden change in pressure. Gross, eh?

3) Fishing kills more than fish. One out of every five manatee rescues conducted in the 1980s and 1990s was related to fishing-line entanglement, and during a four-year span, at least 35 dolphins died from injuries that they sustained as a result of being tangled in fishing line.

2) Fishing hurts the environment. Many commercial fishing vessels practice bottom-trawling in order to catch sea animals who live near, on, or under the sea floor, such as flounder, cod, grouper, shrimp, and scallops. Scientists say that the destruction caused by bottom-trawling is similar to that caused by clear-cutting old forests, only on a far greater scale.

1) Fishing really hurts. Fish slaughter plants in the U.S. make no effort to stun the fish, who are completely conscious when they start down the slaughter line. Their gills are cut, and they are left to bleed to death, convulsing in pain. Large fish, such as salmon, are sometimes bashed on the head with a wooden bat called a "priest," and many are seriously injured but still alive and suffering when they are cut open.

An example of many "fishy" ads published by PETA which allow you to use the code.

The "E" for Ethical  in PETA practically jumps out at you when you read the above “reasons”. And some of PolitiFact’s readers are insistent that fish and shrimp are animals as well:

…Why is it PETA's responsibility to make clear that their definition of the word ‘animals’ is no different than Webster's dictionary? They are not ‘People for the Ethical Treatment of FARM Animals.’ They did not create a poster with their quote superimposed over ‘cute cows, adorable baby chickens and Wilbur-like pigs.’

The next comment brings up a point with regard to fish that reminds me of how much energy is used to produce ethanol for use in gasoline, that it almost negates the reason for producing it as an alternative fuel. What this says is that fish are killed in the process of catching them, which, technically, should be added to that 200 count.

"Guys, I'm not a PETA supporter by any stretch, but shrimp, clams, oysters and other seafood are animals. PETA's count seems pretty accurate to me…..If I eat shrimp and grits, and I do quite often, I have killed at least a dozen, not including the by-catch. (Shrimpers kill 20 pounds of other fish for every pound of shrimp they catch.) I worked a shrimper out of St Pete years ago. We killed a lot to bring you that shrimp cocktail. I think you owe this claim a second look.”

And here is further support for “fish as animals” as noted by a reader, right from PETA’s website, which PolitiFact writer M.B. Pell implied wasn't there:

Since the fact-checker noted that farm animals are ‘showcase[d] on [PETA's] website,’ I decided to track down the press release on their site. A link was not provided from the PolitiFact article, but I managed to find it easily enough using Google. I certainly see images of one chicken -- the blog banner -- and one pig, but I also saw that a description of their methodology and a complete breakdown of their count by animal type, including ‘roughly 130 shellfish’ prominently displayed at the top of the list. I'm curious how two images of particular animals could be "misleading" when a clear, bulleted list identifying the count of sea creatures sits just inches away.

Here is the list of animals eaten: 1/7 of a cow, 2/5 of a pig, 1 turkey, 1½ chickens for eggs, 25 chickens for meat, 40 fish, and 130 shellfish. And according to the shrimper’s contention that 20 pounds of fish are killed for every pound caught it means that for 4.1 pounds of shrimp, that’s about another 80 pounds of fish killed if each jumbo shrimp weighs 1-2 ounces. That puts the number of animals spared at well over 200.

As Professor Chris Hurt said in Pell’s analysis “The majority of the animals killed would have to be small sea creatures for PETA’s estimate to stand.” The farm animals make up only 15% of the 200. PETA might have been better off using pounds instead of number of animals. But the huge number of animals killed for food, or spared by going vegan, is basically the underlying argument.

So to review: (1) Clinton said in a CNN video he did not eat fish; (2) the fish is an animal by most all definitions; (3) Fish and shellfish are listed at the PETA website as part of 198 (~200) animals that are killed every year as food for those who aren’t pure vegans, even though the sea animals on the list are not “showcased” and (4) This number could well be higher because in the case of shrimp (and probably tuna), many fish are killed when the animals are harvested at sea. And someone from the National Meat Association says their number doesn’t make a lot of sense?

PolitiFact stands by its ruling of Half True because the count of 200 is technically correct but leaves out important details. But the detail was there, on PETA’s website, maybe not as obvious as Pell would have liked. New information makes the fish/shellfish number (in terms of those killed due to harvest) of greater significance. And you know what I think about what the guy from the National Meat Association has to say. This should have been more than just a Half True—it was more like “needs clarification or additional information”—in other words, it can definitely be argued that this was more like Mostly True.