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.