2013: First Half "Overlapping Fact-Checks"

Of the 939 fact-checks published between (or among?) PolitiFact, the Washington Post FactChecker and Factcheck.Org in the first six months of 2013, there were 21 instances where two or more of the three fact-checkers did the same fact-check.  There were also cases where it was the same fact-check, but the statement being checked was made by different persons or organizations.  Sometimes a statement would be repeated (a "talking point") so it may have been fact-checked again at a later date (by the same fact-checker, which often occurs in the case of PolitiFact), which occasionally would change the rating.

 

At the end of 2012, with the Sandy Hook tragedy shortly before Christmas, guns and gun control suddenly became the hot topic politically, and the fact-checkers followed as 2013 began.  The most frequently overlapping topic concerned guns, followed by healthcare and the federal budget.  And as one might expect, significant nationally broadcast speeches, such as Obama's State of the Union address, were attractive fact-checking fodder.

 

Three statements had all three fact-checkers, PolitiFact, the Washington Post FactChecker, and FactCheck.Org, making a judgment.  One of them, by Barack Obama, had a differing outcome (the fact-checkers appear to be in disagreement), which I may be taking a better look at in another post.  In fact, in certain respects this was not a "triple" as I will explain.  The other two were by the same person, Michele Bachmann, who seems to be popular with the fact-checkers as far as what they believe are outlandish statements, and they were not disappointed.

 

The following are a selection of nine of those 21 instances, including the two three-peaters from Bachmann as well as those having some conflicts with ratings (my comments in italics).

Statement	"Other Fact-checker"	PolitiFact
Barack Obama: (SOTU on 2/13): "The U.S. has created half million manufacturing jobs in three years."	WaPo Factchecker: (in June when Obama repeated it)  Two Pinnochios:  "It's time to retire this talking point." Factcheck.Org: "The president was correct...but that's not the whole story."	True:  "...he has described the numbers carefully." This was by far the most contro- versial of PolitiFact's rulings, as it was technically correct but according to the other two fact- checkers, lacked context.
Barack Obama: (repeated) "40% of all guns purchased/sold do not require a background check." Repeated by Sen. Ted Cruz (R), Tom Barrett (D), and David Cicilline (D).	The WaPo started with an unrated "Verdict Pending" followed by Two Pinnochios a day later, then two months later Three Pinnochios. Factcheck.Org deemed this one an inconclusive "uncertain."	Half True:  Ted Cruz (R), Tom Barrett (D) and David Cicilline (D) all received the same rating. PolitiFact did not rate Obama on this statement.
Michele Bachmann: (3/19)  "70 percent of the food stamp budget goes to bureaucrats."	WaPo Factchecker:  Four Pinnochios. “There really aren't enough Pinnochios for such a misleading use of statistics." Factcheck.Org:  "...a grossly inaccurate claim."	Pants on Fire:  "That is ridiculously off base."
Michele Bachmann: (5/20):  The IRS is going to be "in charge of" a "huge national database" on healthcare with Americans' personal secrets.	“WaPo Factchecker:  Four Pinnochios.  "There is no evidence to support this assertion, and she is simply scaring people." Factcheck.Org:  "...falsely claimed..."	Pants on Fire: "She has mischaracterized the intent and limitations of the hub.  It's not a database."
Barack Obama: (SOTU on 2/13) The Affordable Care Act is "helping to slow the growth of healthcare costs."	Factcheck.Org:  "It may be helping, but the slower growth of healthcare spending began before the law was enacted."	Half True: "Obama is taking credit for more than he can prove."
Ron Johnson (R) stated that Obamacare has "$1 Trillion in hidden middle class taxes" which was denied as "untrue" at the same time by Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (D)  on ABC's "This Week"  3/10.	WaPo Factchecker:  Two Pinnochios for both: "Both lawmakers found themselves either a modifier too long or short." Factcheck.Org: "Wasserman- Schultz is wrong...(but) Johnson exaggerates."	PolitiFact did not fact-check either statement.
Barack Obama:  (SOTU on 2/13/)  The U.S. has doubled "the distance our cars will go on a gallon of gas."	Factcheck.Org: "The (president's claim)...isn't remotely close to being true right now."	False:  "The statement was misleading and more importantly untrue."
Barack Obama:  (4/17) The NRA "used to support background checks."	WaPo Factchecker:  NO RATING.  "At the same time the NRA worked hard to defeat the proposals advanced by...other Democrats."	True:  "The NRA has acknowledged that it has since changed its position to opposition."  This was also a conflict in ratings as WaPo's "no rating" is much different than True regardless that it is "not" a rating.
Tom Coburn: (5/9 on MSNBC).  "After the national park gun ban was lifted, violent crime fell by 85 percent."	WaPo Factchecker: Three Pinnochios.  "...there is no evidence that crime has declined because guns have been permitted."	False:  "....far from clear."



2013: First Six Months' Fact-checking for the Big Three

PolitiFact has definitely "downsized" in the U.S. even with its recent international presence in Australia.  At least for the time being.

 

Since 2011, I've generally expected 475 to 500 rulings from PolitiFact for each quarter.  When 360 were produced for the first quarter of 2013, I attributed that to the writers taking a break after the 2012 elections.  But the second quarter was pretty much a mirror of the first, going from 361 to an almost equal number of 363 rulings.   The dropping of PolitiFact Tennessee and no rulings from PolitiFact New Hampshire would not be enough to make up the difference.  Basically PolitiFact has cut back 20 to 25 percent.

 

With fewer rulings to record, I thought I might try something different:  back in 2010 I took a look at FactCheck.Org in and of itself.  I've compared rulings on the same statements many times, and on an individual basis, I've looked at various politicos in terms of Politifact, Factcheck.Org (FCO) and the Washington Post FactChecker.

 

This time I decided to record all three of the most prominent political fact-checkers (PolitiFact, WaPo FactChecker and FactCheck.Org) for the first six months of 2013.  I also tried to make a comparison in terms of the Truth Index.  Between PolitiFact's Truth-o-Meter categories and the Gepetto Checkmark to Four Pinnochios (a "whopper") used at the Washington Post, it wasn't too difficult there.    Factcheck.Org (FCO), however, does not rate fact-checks  with Truth-o-Meters or Pinnochios like the other two.

 

Just like it did when I reviewed it in 2010, I found that FCO generally did not fact-check "truthful" statements, as the great majority of its findings are negative: either misleading or false (It appears the Washington Post FactChecker leans that way as well, although not nearly as much).   It was a very subjective exercise for me to attempt to "rate" them as well, so the "Truth Index" I obtained, in my opinion, should not be construed as entirely accurate.

 

For the most part I based my FCO "ruling" on the same criteria as PolitiFact.  "Misleading" statements which contained an element of truth "but ignore[d] facts which would give a different impression" were categorized as "Mostly False" while statements which were "inaccurate," or incorrect (or when the FCO article called the statement a "false claim," which occurred fairly often) were categorized as False.    There were no "Pants on Fire" or "Whoppers" for FCO.

 

The results I obtained can be shown in the chart below.

The two "smaller" fact-checkers tend to concentrate on facts likely false based on the "Truth Index."

Even with PolitiFact's downsizing, it is still the dominant fact-checker of the "Big Three" with over 3/4 of all rulings for the first six months of 2013.    As noted, it checks a lot more statements which, as can be seen are (1) "True" and, due to its state operations, (2) statements by people with no political affiliation.

PolitiFact had a 57 percent higher overall Truth Index than the Washington Post FactChecker, and it was 82 percent higher than Factcheck.Org.

PolitiFact: A Truth Index Video!

PolitiFact vs. FactCheck.Org: Healthcare

I don’t know if the Supreme Court upholding “Obamneycare” is going to make it any less worthy of fact-checking by PolitiFact (PF), but it’s apparent that although the law has not been that popular at the polls, the topic is a very popular one for fact-checking. In a way, I might not predict a Lie of the Year in as much as a Topic of the Year, which would be all the untruths and various exaggerations (or as fellow blogger Jon Perr calls them, killer lies) surrounding the ACA , its associated Medicare and Medicaid, as well as its overlap to other topics such as the economy, jobs, taxes, the deficit and even education (student loans).  I’ve sorted out a little over 70 PolitiFact rulings relating to it since the beginning of the year.

Here are a few things “ObamaScare” is allegedly going to do (according to Republicans):

• Kill jobs, 800,000 (actually predicted in 2011), or “across America”  including 1,000 medical device jobs in the Tennessee area

• Cause up to 20 to 30 million people to lose their health insurance, including seniors

• Raise taxes (raises 19 taxes and is largest tax increase in history of world)

• Slap Americans and/or small businesses with $500 billion in new taxes and penalties

• Cut $500 billion from Medicare to pay for it (or heck, just end Medicare)

• Cut student loan programs (or over-charge students) to help pay for it

• Add trillions to our national debt, or if repealed, save $95 billion (a year)

• And the usual, ever more claims about death panels and a government take-over;

• And the wackiest, a claim about an "Obamacare slush fund” for neutering pets? (by who else but Allen West [R-FL]).

A few (maybe one?) of the above were ruled Half True, the rest less, much less, most False or Pants on Fire. Click the link(s) to find out and read the details.  Some of these are covered below, which link to the findings of both PolitiFact and FactCheck.

And a pox on those who all somehow cast the “critical vote” on “Obamacare” or to supposedly cut $500 billion from Medicare for it:

• Florida Senator Bill Nelson (by U.S. Chamber of Commerce, 60-Plus Association and superPAC American Commitment)
• Ohio Congressional candidate Betty Sutton (by opponent Jim Renacci).   In all fairness, she accused him of something similar.
• Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown ( by the National Republican Senatorial Committee)
• Virginia Senatorial candidate Tim Kaine (by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and superPAC American Crossroads)

One of my most popular posts has been comparing PolitiFact rulings to fact-checks on the same topic by FactCheck.Org. So, back by popular demand, here is a compilation of 2012 fact-checks relating to “Obamneycare”—some of the repetitions included as well.

Statement	FactCheck	PolitiFact
Rush Limbaugh: "Obamacare is the largest tax increase in the history of the world."  (Also similarly stated by superPAC American Commitment)	"Despite all these uncertainties, one thing is abundantly clear.  There's no way the ACA's tax and other revenue increases come close to being the largest in U.S. history."	Pants on Fire:  "Limbaugh's inflated rhetoric takes a wrong claim and puts it into the realm of the ridiculous."
U.S. Chamber of Commerce:  "Obamacare will kill jobs and limit further job creation."	"At the end of last year we listed this overblown claim as one of the 'Whoppers of 2011' right up there with the Democratic counter-claim that Republicans were out to 'end' Medicare."	False:  The Chamber of Commerce has failed to prove that it will, and the best projections we've seen, based on how the law is actually written, do not suggest that the law will 'kill' jobs.
Tom Price (R-GA) House Republican Policy Committee Chairman:  "CBO projection estimates that the law [Obamacare] will cost $1.76 trillion over 10 years."	“The notion that the new CBO report shows costs doubling is wrong."	False:  "When you do the math correctly, the gross cost projection increased by less than 9 percent." MPR PoliGraph also found a similar claim by Kurt Bills (R-MN) Misleading.
Mitt Romney:  "Obamacare takes $500 billion out of Medicare and funds Obamacare." (or "steals it" according to Michele Bachmann in 2011).	“But that's not a slashing of the current Medicare budget, as viewers may be led to believe." (Here's FactCheck.Org's other review of the same.)	Half True:  "So while the health care law reduces the amount of future spending growth in Medicare, the law doesn't cut Medicare."
Crossroads GPS:  "Obamacare raises 18 different taxes."	"But that's dishonest nonsense.  Only a few of the tax changes in the new health care law will fall on families making under $250,000 a year..."	Mostly False:  "The Crossroads ad wrongly implies that people of modest means are getting hit with 18 tax increases because of the health care law."
Mitt Romney:  "Up to 20 million will lose insurance they like and want to keep."	“This is another exaggerated claim that we have written about before, most recently last month....The 20 million figure comes from a March 2012 CBO report, but critics of the health care law have misused it."	False:  "That number is cherry-picked, and he's wrong to describe it as only including people who 'like' their coverage, since many of those 20 million will be leaving employer coverage voluntarily for better options."
Rick Santorum / Paul Krugman:  "RomneyCare" was the blueprint for "ObamaCare."	"There are a number of similarities between the state and national plans, and there are several differences."	Mostly True:  "So it seems that there's broad agreement that, despite some operational differences, the broad structure of the Massachusetts health care plan is quite similar to that in the U.S. Senate bill."
Mitt Romney:  "Repealing Obamacare saves $95 billion a year."	"But that only accounts for spending in the law, not spending cuts and revenue-raising provisions that potentially save even more...That makes Romney's claim misleading and, at best, inflated.	False:  "Because of the revenue sources that the law established, repealing it actually adds significantly to the deficit over the long haul, according to the CBO."
Rick Santorum: "Americans 'over-whelmingly' oppose healthcare mandate." Mitt Romney: "Most Americans want to get rid of Obamacare.”	"So, Romney and others would be correct to say that some polls show most Americans -- or at least most voters -- favor repeal.  But not all polls."	Mostly True: Opinion on the health care law is more unfavorable than favorable, but not over-whelmingly...Objection to the individual mandate, however, is resounding."



Find THIS PolitiFact (FactCheck) Ruling: Rick Santorum

About the time I published a Truth Index on Rick Santorum, he decided to drop out of the presidential race. It seems so far I have been right there as the 15-minute presidential candidate fame light dimmed for Bachmann, Perry, Cain and Gingrich. Keeping that in mind, I’ve just completed a review of 184 Mitt Romney rulings from all of the fact-checkers….don’t think it will work this time, ha ha.

Ron Paul is not pictured as he is already on another planet; Santorum is headed for deep space as well.

This post will combine a “PolitiFact versus FactCheck Number 3” review on Santorum, plus a few “nothing to be seen here”—i.e, “Find THIS PolitiFact Ruling” fact-checks done on Santorum but not by PolitiFact (or even FactCheck.Org).

(Note:  Google Blogspot does not appear to take too kindly to tables.  Please excuse the spacing/font errors.)

Santorum Statement	FactCheck	PolitiFact
"The Obama administration prohibits people who work with at-risk youth from promoting marriage as a way to avoid poverty."  (January, 2012)	"Santorum was right about abstinence not being part of this particular program, but he was wrong about marriage.”	“The change under Obama…was about what could be taught regarding abstinence -- not marriage… Santorum simply got it wrong. His statement is False.”
"… a third of all the young people in America are not in America today because of abortion.” –Rick Santorum, during a Republican presidential debate (March 29, 2011).	“But Santorum was wrong when he said that a third of pregnancies end in abortion…”	False:  So we find Santorum is significantly overstating the frequency of abortions…”
"Barack Obama has raised a 'stop sign' on oil exploration."  (June 6, 2011)	“Santorum was wrong when he said the Obama administration is 'against any kind of exploration offshore or in Alaska.'  The administration has approved 296 new permits...”	False:  "Just because the pace isn't as fast as some would like doesn't mean that Obama 'has put (up) a stop sign.'"
"...there were requirements put on other states when they came into the union that English be the principal language…”  (following similar statement in Puerto Rico, March, 2012)	“Rick Santorum greatly overreached when he claimed that Congress required English be the principal language and that it be taught and spoken universally” in several Southwest territories, Oklahoma and Hawaii as preconditions for them attaining statehood."	NOT CHECKED by PolitiFact. Possible Half True or Mostly False, as they are not saying he is "wrong."
"I didn't vote for a steel bailout." ( February 26, 2012, on Meet The Press).	But in fact, the former Pennsylvania senator voted in 1999 for the Emergency Steel Loan Guarantee Program, which was dubbed a “bailout” by multiple news organizations at the time.	NOT CHECKED by PolitiFact. Possible Mostly False or False.  It was $400 million dollars of taxpayer money, not anything like the billions for the automakers (also loan guarantees) but a substantial sum nonetheless.
“The dangers of carbon dioxide? Tell that to a plant, how dangerous carbon dioxide is,” Santorum said at the Gulf Coast Energy Summit in Biloxi, Miss., on March 12, [2012]. He made similar comments in early February in Colorado Springs, Colo., saying that global warming was a “hoax” and that “man-made global warming” and proposed remedies were “bogus.”	"...how dangerous can carbon dioxide be? Too much is definitely a bad thing. …97 percent to 98 percent of climate researchers ‘most actively publishing in the field’ agreed that climate change was occurring.”	NOT CHECKED by PolitiFact. In fact, nothing listed at all (as of today) on Santorum's view of global warming.  Given other rulings it's done, however, it would probably merit a False.
"In the Netherlands people wear a different bracelet if you’re elderly and the bracelet is ‘do not euthanize me.’ Because they have voluntary euthanasia in the Netherlands, but half the people who are euthanized every year, and it’s 10 percent of all deaths for the Netherlands, half of those people are euthanized involuntarily at hospitals because they are older and sick." (February 3, 2012,  forum at Grace Bible Church in Columbia, Mo.)	This was a 3-part debunking:  (1) "Government statistics show euthanasia is climbing, but represented only 2.3 percent in 2010, according to the most recent data."  (2) "A representative of the Royal Dutch Medical Association said 'there are no forced cases of euthanasia.' " (3) "...the Dutch government and medical association say no such bracelets exist."	NOT CHECKED by PolitiFact. The multiple-lie voracity of this claim would have made a great Pants on Fire to hang on Santorum.  But they didn't....why not since they're supposedly so liberally biased?
"The idea that the Crusades and the fight of Christendom against Islam is somehow an aggression on our part is absolutely anti-historical. And that is what the perception is by the American Left who hates Christendom. ... –Rick Santorum, campaigning for president in South Carolina (February 2011)	NOT CHECKED by FactCheck.	NOT CHECKED by PolitiFact, even though it might be considered a candidate for one of those "push polls"-- "does the American Left hate Christendom?"  Definitely a good "False" ruling.
"I think the Democrats are actually worried he (Obama) may go to Indonesia and bow to more Muslims.” –Rick Santorum, Fox News interview (May 2010)	NOT CHECKED by FactCheck.	NOT CHECKED by PolitiFact.  This would have gone hand in hand with Romney's "Obama Worldwide Apology Tour" claim which garnered a Pants on Fire.



FactCheck versus PolitiFact Part 2, 2011

Recently when PolitiFact decided to carry other fact-checkers on its website with “Beyond the Truth-O-Meter” (on its front page, lower right), it of course asked for comments at Facebook. I decided to add my two cents that this might be a good time to “eliminate redundancies” with the fact-checks, by not doing a fact-check if another fact-checker is doing it as well. Coming from my business background, I’ve heard “eliminate redundancies” over and over, because it makes the firm more efficient—although (well, because!) it often results in the elimination of jobs. Naturally, my conservative counterpart asked me “why” PolitiFact would want to do that. Well, in the case of the huge sea of political commentary, “eliminating redundancies” only means that more statements can be fact-checked (as opposed to the “same” statements)…and the more comments fact-checked, the less likelihood of certain people complaining that the fact-checkers check Republicans more than Democrats or neglect statements that should be checked…yea, when pigs fly.

On the other hand, when you have several fact-checkers coming to similar conclusions on the same statement, that means something too. As I think about “future projects” at this website, one would be to look at one individual in terms of the fact-checkers and compare all the statements that have been evaluated between (or among) them. I’ve tried that before in a more general sense. I think looking at one individual through several fact checkers might help readers make a more informed decision about whether the individual is more or less truthful, since it isn’t based on one source. For example, Obama has an 11.15 on PolitiFact’s Truth Index as of June 30, which places him at Number 8 out of 25 for those who have received 15 or more rulings from PolitiFact, which is not too bad given he’s had over 300 rulings. FactCheck has stated he’s been fairly truthful so far. So between the two, we have a pretty good reading on Obama’s truthiness.

A post from February, where I compared a number of PolitiFact and FactCheck.org rulings, is one of my most popular pages, according to Statcounter.com, my website stat tracker. So, “back by popular demand” I am doing it again with PolitiFact rulings published since that time.  This time, I am including a cross-reference to the Washington Post's (WaPo) The Fact-Checker where one has been done.  It will be an additional link in the PolitiFact column.

Yes, I’ve exercised my own selection bias, as Republicans are emphasized in this selection of statements, only to show that FactCheck is often in agreement with PolitiFact. I’ve posted before that FactCheck also appears to check Republicans more than Democrats. 

Topic	FactCheck	PolitiFact
Michele Bachmann, June 26: "Rep. Michele Bachmann says she's never received a penny from family farm that got federal crop subsidies."	"Bachmann falsely claimed that 'she and her husband never got a penny from the farm.'  She also left the wrong impression that she has nothing to do with the farm."	False:  "Unless or until Bachmann steps forward to explain the discrepancy...we have to rely [on her financial disclosures]which say she received at least $32,501 in income..."
Michele Bachmann, June 13:  "The CBO, the Congressional Budget Office has said that Obamacare will kill 800,000 jobs."	"Bachmann repeated a false Republican talking point...[also as noted by WaPo]. The CBO never said that."	Barely True: "Bachmann's statement leaves out so many qualifiers that it becomes misleading." WaPo's The Fact Checker covered her statement which was a rehashed Republican talking point, awarding it Three Pinnochios.
Rick Santorum, June 6: "Barack Obama has raised a 'stop sign' on oil exploration."	“Santorum was wrong when he said the Obama administration is 'against any kind of exploration offshore or in Alaska.'  The administration has approved 296 new permits...”	False:  "Just because the pace isn't as fast as some would like doesn't mean that Obama 'has put (up) a stop sign.'"
Newt Gingrich, May 13:  Did he flip flop on supporting Paul Ryan's budget?	“Newt Gingrich is engaging in some revisionist history by claiming he was not referring to Rep. Paul Ryan during his now infamous 'Meet The Press" interview.  That's absurd."	Full Flop on the Flip-o-Meter:  "...He certainly made clear he thought a key provision of the plant--the changes to Medicare--were 'too big a jump' for him to support...And by saying on Van Susteren's show that 'made a mistake in his 'Meet the Press' comments...seems like a tacit admission of a flip-flop."
Sarah Palin, June 5:  In American history, part of Paul Revere's ride was to warn the British.	Palin's statement was "badly twisted...he was riding to warn two fellow rebels that the British were coming to arrest them, not to warn them."	Barely True:  "Palin's comment clearly suggests that one of Revere's aims that night was to warn the British.  It was not." The WaPo's The Fact Checker's take on it:  "Sarah's Midnight Ride Twice over."
Marco Rubio, May 1:  "The Ryan Plan doesn't cut Medicare.  Actually, it increases funding in it.  And the only people in this town that have voted to cut Medicare are the people that supported Obamacare..."	“Sen. Marco Rubio offered a wildly inconsistent view of what constitutes a 'cut' from Medicare...Ryan's plan leaves in place many of the Medicare 'cuts' in the health care law."	Barely True: "Both parties have voted -- at different times and on different proposals -- to reduce future spending on Medicare."
Donald Trump (April 7) says President Obama's "grandmother in Kenya said he was born in Kenya."	If Donald Trump worked for us, we'd have to say: 'Donald, you're fired...' ...In fact, the recording to which he refers shows Sarah Obama repeatedly saying through a translator: 'He was born in America.'	False:  "Trump is serving up re-heated leftovers that have long ago been debunked."
Rachel Maddow (February 17), said that Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker's tax-cut bills approved in January are responsible for the $137 million deficit. (This was a secondary PolitiFact fact-check to her statement that there's actually a budget surplus in Wisconsin, if not for these tax cuts.)	It's not true that Gov. Scott Walker's tax cuts are the cause of Wisconsin's current budget deficit--a false claim widely spread by MSNBC's Rachel Maddow.	False:  "The cuts are not even in effect yet, so they cannot be part of the current problem."
The DCCC (Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, April 18) in an ad   "The Republicans voted to end Medicare."  In the same vein, The Agenda Project (a liberal advocacy group, on May 17): The Paul Ryan Budget proposal would end Medicare.	"Democrats are claiming this is...doing away with Medicare --  but that's far from the truth."	Pants on Fire for the DCCC:  " to say the Republicans voted to end Medicare...is a major exaggeration." False for the Agenda Project: “We concluded that, while the Ryan plan represents a dramatic change in Medicare, it was not a proposal to 'end' Medicare."



Sidebar: FactCheck.org versus PolitiFact

NOTE:  Click here for another more recent (July, 2011) review and comparison of FactCheck and PolitiFact analyses like this one.

FactCheck.org does not give the type of rulings that PolitiFact uses to grade the claims it investigates. As noted in a previous post, most of the claims FactCheck investigates are found to be false or misleading the majority of the time, and there is no great middle "average" Half True like with PolitiFact.

Snopes.com "Truth o Meter":  Not as cut and dry.

Another website, Snopes.com, occasionally looks at similar claims as well (particularly over-the-top ones such as Obama’s citizenship) but gives a rating it calls “multiple truth values” when there are both elements of truth and untruth in the claim and its underlying argument. In some ways, this is a better label for Half True, since Half True is, well, also Half False, so the possible complexities are conveyed in the rating.

Conservatives and Republicans often site FactCheck.org’s connection to the Annenberg Foundation as proof that it has liberal bias. However, there is some evidence that it is more objective in its approach to factchecking than PolitiFact, at least in the posts of one serious fact-check monitor. Sometimes I wonder why Cato or Heritage do not sponsor their own fact-checking website; my guess is because they can’t bring themselves to call their *own* on the carpet, like FactCheck and PolitiFact often do, even with PolitiFact’s trend toward rating fewer Democrats than Republicans and on average scoring them higher on their “truth o meter” as well.