Sidebar: The PLOTY Thickens

PolitiFact (PF) has just announced its finalists for the “non-coveted” 2011 Lie of the Year. It has led to some interesting speculations by my conservative counterpart and his partner in crime.  So, it's time for my own.

There are ten candidates: four Democrat statements and six Republican. Earlier this year, I had speculated on one of them, a Democratic (DCCC) claim that Republicans had voted to end Medicare, and it indeed made it to the list of nominees:

My educated guess is that PolitiFact (PF) might just make this the 2011 Lie of the Year because they can show (1) Democrats can make PolitiFact Lie of the Year as well, (2) its “inverse” relationship with the 2010 Lie of the Year (that “Obamacare” is a government takeover versus the privatization in “Ryancare”), and (3) the similar label (Obamacare versus Ryancare). The $12,500 is incidental; it is the “voted to end Medicare” that is the focus of the lie and makes it a "contender."

The "ending Medicare" part continues to make the rounds among various Democratic politicians as a “talking point”—for example, at PF Rhode Island and PF Wisconsin—and their debunkings by PolitiFact have caused it to face an avalanche of bias charges from both sides—Conservatives on Obamacare and Liberals on Ryancare.

The other currently popular topic that will be the issue in the coming presidential election campaign is job creation. PolitiFact actually has two contenders (from “Facebook posts” and from the National Republican Senatorial Committee) dealing with job creation: I wouldn’t put it past them to announce a bi-partisan “tie” between these two party-competing fibs. Remember, according to PolitiFact, the winner chosen will be “the one that played the biggest role in the national discourse.”

My money's on "zero jobs" or a tie between
these two.



If it can only be one, the edge would go to the NRSC “The Stimulus created zero jobs.” It should be noted that this one goes back to 2010; Rick Scott, the current Governor of Florida, also received a Pants on Fire for saying something similar, and it was nominated for the Lie of the Year in 2010. Like 2009 and 2010 winners, they were frequently repeated “talking-points” which PolitiFact rated more than once throughout the year.

The Republican side has played this “zero jobs from the Stimulus” to the hilt, and since job creation is a popular meme right now because of Occupy Wall Street, it has eclipsed the so-called Pants on Fire Statement that Ryancare is ending Medicare. It should be noted too, that after a few congressional town halls where the real people (as opposed to tea partiers) showed up to complain, Paul Ryan and those espousing his plan suddenly got pretty quiet (since they knew those were real people/voters complaining).

The problem for PolitiFact is that they have given the Lie of The Year award for two years’ running now to Republicans and now it’s time for a Democrat. In a way, they are damned if they do and damned if they don’t: it looks like they’re deliberately trying to convey they are non-partisan by choosing a Democrat statement, but sticking by their best objective judgments if they give it to a Republican, although looking even more liberally biased. So if they did a tie, they could sort of have the best of both worlds: "we're objective and we're non-partisan."

A “tie” on the “Stimulus created no jobs, but Republicans never introduced bills on jobs” claims would also solve the problem that my conservative counterpart noted on the “Facebook posts”, which I actually have some agreement with, that the claim against the Republicans “was a type of Facebook spam. It would be the equivalent of giving the award to a chain email.”

So, to summarize: these two competing claims were (1) listed at the top (2) both Pants on Fire, and (3) deal with what will be the most important topic of the coming election cycle: jobs. They are also (4) both “absolutist” in their claims: Republicans have introduced ZERO bills on job creation….The Stimulus has created ZERO jobs. In other words, it’s 100 percent, it’s not like Jon Kyl’s statement that “over 90 percent of what Planned Parenthood does is abortions” which is also on a nominee. I discount that one because of the polarizing nature of the abortion topic, and because it was rated a “False.” I think its right of passage to nomination comes from Kyl’s response that “this was not intended to be a factual statement” that went all the way to the Stephen Colbert Show. But that’s still not enough to qualify it for the Lie of the Year.

That’s another thing. There were five statements nominated that were awarded a False. I don’t think False rulings have the type of impact that Pants on Fire do; it’s almost a “must” that they be Pants on Fire. That’s PolitiFact’s brand leader: the degree of ridiculousness that puts a statement in that category. The last two years’ winners were ruled Pants on Fire at the time they were rated.

So what we really have are five Pants on Fire statements, three of which are attributable to Democrats. I originally voted in the “Readers Choice” Poll linked at the PolitiFact website for my earlier “Ryancare” favorite. But the more I research this, the more it looks to me that if there isn’t a “tie” announced, the winner will be the one by the NRSC that Obama’s Stimulus created zero jobs. Unfortunately, because this might be the third year in a row that PolitiFact would announce a Republican for Biggest Lie of the Year, it just feeds a huge amount of chum to the great White right-wing shark of liberal bias allegations circling Bill Adair’s boat.

So, I hope Bryan White is right this time, and PolitiFact surprises us all.