Grading WaPo Liberal Style: 3+3, Six or Half Dozen

In an initial review of the blog counterirritant it was found that it doesn’t just review PolitiFact rulings, it looks at other fact-checkers. It recently did a review that’s sort of cut short on Glenn Kessler’s Washington Post FactChecker, of Mitt Romney’s statement that a normal economic recovery consists of about 500,000 jobs created per month (i.e., Romney really thinks people will believe that’s what he can do?)

Click to enlarge:  Crucial descriptors ignored by counterirritant (and PF Bias) circled.

Kessler looked at employment stats in the course of Romney’s lifetime, so counterirritant’s first complaint is this is not a “logical” period of measure.  Kessler was most likely using this period in terms of Romney's experience.  Maybe Kessler should have said “post World War 2” when the United States achieved its greatest manufacturing boom--and a period where those types of job creation numbers may most likely be if they were anywhere in the course of America's economic history.  In other words, using this period would be the most advantageous to Romney.

He (or she) then disputed Kessler’s “methodology” of counting every time in Romney’s lifetime the monthly number was near or exceeded 500,000, even counting those numbers as much as 10 percent below it (another very "charitable" accommodation). Since it very rarely exceeded this number, it proved that Romney was greatly exaggerating.

Counterirritant’s methodology consists of determining the median in monthly job creation numbers, that is, the number at which half the monthly job creation numbers are above, and half the numbers are below, for Romney’s lifetime, which he determined to be 146,000 per month. He then quotes liberal economist Paul Krugman who says this number (or even 200,000) is not adequate. But that’s where he stops. In other words, according to counterirritant, since 500,000 is a lot more than 146,000, Romney must be correct, unless there's something I'm misunderstanding.

But counterirritant never says anything about what a normal “recovery” number should be, since that was what Romney was talking about—a recovery. For example, if it was 325,000, then 500,000 is a gross exaggeration. We know it’s likely to be a number like 325,000 or 350,000 just because of the few times it’s approached 500,000.

Another method would be to look at the average for all recovery periods (beyond the period Kessler looked at) and then compare Romney’s 500,000 to that. You could just as well look at the median for all recovery periods, but in counterirritant’s case, this would make Romney probably look more like the liar because those might be lower than the average (so we have another "charitable interpretation" from Kessler).

Period of measure also about Romney's "lifetime."

In terms of percents, since the early 1990’s, all job recoveries have been basically jobless, as is shown in this graph at the right from an article in USA Today last year.

Then there’s another way to look at this, which would make Romney’s statement “literally” true on one hand but would be misleading in that it shows an ignorance of the facts on the other. Over 500,000 jobs were created in “a” month well into Obama’s term—May, 2010. Since Romney is inferring that Obama can’t accomplish this, but he actually did, Romney’s statement is now “not true.” Or else Romney really means he can do it month to month—which has been shown not be a normal occurrence.

So this could have been extrapolated in any number of ways to reach similar conclusions.  Counterirritant's made some sense until he suddenly cut it short in an attempt to prove Romney's statement could be construed as true.

According to Kessler’s statistics, there was never a single month during George W. Bush’s presidency that job creation approached 500,000 per month. Romney’s economic policies are more like his than Obama’s: tax cuts and increased defense spending. So to expect that it’s suddenly going to change with his presidency is expecting what’s most likely not possible.

Yes, the median job creation number may be inadequate, but Kessler shows that “500,000 jobs per month in a normal recovery” is almost an hyperbole. Maybe Kessler should have clarified that 500,000 is a “peaking” number (as his analysis showed) and that Romney was incorrect in saying that it could be accomplished on a monthly basis. Kessler’s Two Pinnochio award is the PolitiFact equivalent of Half True: Romney’s statement is partially accurate but leaves out important details.

Romney more likely deserved One Pinnochio or Mostly False: he was misleading, because critical facts (500,000 is a very rare occurrence and he's highly unlikely to achieve it month to month given recent statistics and the historic results of Bush-like economic policies) could give a different impression. Counterirritant’s “methodology” explanation only served to highlight Mitt’s unrealistic exaggeration, and his “method” was not fleshed out enough to adequately explain what he felt was "difficult about it."  And add one more to the PolitiFact Bias list of "nothing to see here" since PolitiFact doesn't appear to have covered this easy Mostly False for Obama's big rival--oh, sorry, only counterirritant's abbreviated criticism can be included, because anything else is counter to their own right-wing bias.