Sidebar: Arianna and Sarah on PolitiFact Rulings

Recently there were two responses from opposite camps on PolitiFact’s Fact-Checking rulings, namely, Arianna Huffington (“Democrat”) and Sarah Palin (“Republican”). I thought it might be worth checking both of their responses, as well as their fact-checks, to see how both compared as an experiment in looking at PolitiFact’s supposed “bias.”

Palin’s original claim: “ …this is going to result in the largest tax increase in U.S. history.” (in response to Chris Wallace question on tax cuts expiring FOR TOP 2% [he WAS very specific])

What PolitiFact (PF) checked: ….” her claim that the Democratic plan would result in "the largest tax increase in history."

Gist of Palin’s response: “There is NO plan” by Obama or the Democrats. PF are the pants on fire liars.

My summary: (1) She conflated top 2% tax with *everyone* tax. (2) She refused to recognize (or didn’t know about) *unofficial* proposals and (3) she still thinks it’s 2008 and she’s campaigning (or maybe she’s campaigning for 2012, who knows).

Huffington’s original claim: “Halliburton defrauded the U.S. government… hundreds of millions of dollars in Iraq.”

What PF checked: “…we decided to fact-check Huffington's statement that Halliburton defrauded the U.S. government of "hundreds of millions of dollars in Iraq.”

Gist of Huffington’s response: “…PolitiFact's facts clearly supported a conclusion different than the one its editors came to.” PF is “equivocating.”

My summary: (1) Inefficiencies are not the same as fraud, but Arianna clearly implies they are the same (2) She does not address the security problem (which KBR procured and illegally billed for because the military often did not protect their workers) and (3) Concluding with her emotive “Workers of the World Unite” complaints with regard to AIG and BP sort of misdirects her anger at PF’s “equivocation.” That being said, PF could have easily gone with Mostly True. But I would not go with True.

Analysis of both:

In Palin’s case, her defense merited more of a “pants on fire” than her original statement. I mean, if you met with her in person and put all the Democrats’ proposals right in front of her face and said, “Here, read it for yourself—they’re even time-stamped and notarized” she’d still be in denial.

Her response was much more “political” than Arianna’s. She obviously ignored the public record, and her “facts” were mostly culled from the 2008 election campaign (I guess she wants to continuously remind everyone that SHE was a candidate for VP, and she probably enjoys re-living it). The problem was, just saying PF is lying is not good enough….since they easily proved they were not, and were even defensive about it (“We don’t want to antagonize Governor Palin, but….”).

“Unfortunately for PolitiFact, no such proposal exists” and “Plan? What plan? There is no plan.”

PF’s response to the above: “…Obama has indeed published his proposals in some detail -- at least twice, in the annual budget documents that the White House releases.”

Palin says PF admitted itself that there was no proposal; yes, it admitted there was no official congressional bill, but it provided ample evidence of detailed proposal(s).

Unfortunately PF’s not being specific about the existence of the plan in its initial review of Palin’s statement, or it’s assumption that the “plan” was a matter of public record, gave Palin a basis for her defense that “there is no plan.” As PF stated: “Frankly, we anticipated criticism when we published our report on Palin, but we were not anticipating the criticism that the Democrats are hiding their intentions on tax rates for people of lower incomes, or the claim that Obama has not published fairly detailed outlines of what he intends for the tax code.” However, PF owned up and showed there was one once Palin made her allegation.

But her pointed accusation that PF is the one lying (and not her) was the bottom line of her defense. I read a lot of her Facebook comments and all her fans believed her contention that there was “no plan” even though PF provided absolute unequivocal evidence that there was.

In addition, Palin did say something in direct contradiction as well:

“…it would be helpful if the White House and the Democratic Congressional leadership finally mustered the courage TO TABLE THEIR PLANS to let the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts expire.”

I thought you were adamant that the Dems had NO plan, Sarah? Make up your mind.

In Huffington’s case, it seems she doesn’t believe that incompetence/inefficiency and fraudulent activity can be two different things. That appears to be the position PF is taking. The problem is, how much is actual fraud, which can be difficult to determine. Not keeping good records or failing to oversee subcontractors is not illegal. Their “impermissible” billings for worker security (in lieu of the fact that they had a number of contractors die) are probably a significant factor in their overbilling. Yet Huffington ignores that. A lot of Huffington’s evidence is anecdotal as well. “Charging inflated prices for gas” and charging “for meals not served” qualifies. The problem with “audits” is that audits (and I say this from personal experience) are not intended to charge back the contractor for fraud, but done for not following procedures, which are most often laid down to not just prevent fraud but to enable efficiency.

But to do some actual comparison, let’s look at how each started their response:

Palin: “….They did such a bad job of it, however, that I feel compelled to fact-check the fact-checkers.”

Huffington: “….I've decided it's worth returning to the scene of the crime to do a little CSI exam of the evidence and see what we can conclude from PolitiFact's head-scratching conclusion. “

Let’s look at their *summary*:

Palin: "The truth is that as of today, Democrats haven’t taken any action to extend any part of the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts for any income group – and in this case doing nothing equals hitting American taxpayers with a massive $3.8 trillion tax increase."

Huffington: "There are two other words for what Halliburton did besides fraud: war profiteering."

Let’s look at their synopsis on PolitiFact:

Palin: “….I call that a “Pants on Fire” statement….To prevent PolitiFact from making similar mistakes in future…I suggest the St. Petersburg Times hires a few extra staff to fact-check its fact-checkers. It might help it prevent being caught with its “pants on fire” again in the future.”

Huffington: “…PolitiFact's finding …was an object lesson in equivocation…Despite the ludicrousness of the Half True rating… I let it stand, feeling that the absurdity of PolitiFact first making my case for me, then falling back on the safety of a split-the-baby conclusion spoke for itself… PolitiFact's "fact check" was well-researched and well-sourced. The truthiness part was that PolitiFact's facts clearly supported a conclusion different than the one its editors came to."

So Palin, who cherry picked her *facts* and lied (that there was “no plan”), simply calls PF the “pants on fire” liars without recognition; Huffington, who also cherry picked her facts but had more of a editorial complaint, calls them equivocators but gives them a break on their fact-checking abilities.

It’s important to note that PF did not rate Huffington’s response. Huffington was arguing with PF’s decision in reaching its conclusion, which is more debatable and non-verifiable, whereas Palin just made the flat statement repeatedly, “There is NO plan.”

One of my goals with this analysis was to see if there was any “snarkiness” factor more apparent in the piece on Palin as opposed to the piece on Huffington, which is where Bryan White says the “left wing bias” lies. In reviewing Michele Bachman’s Truthometer rulings to find evidence of such “snarkiness”, if it IS what I think it is, the problem here is the argument supporting the ruling itself. Because it seems when a statement is found to be “false” or “pants on fire” the more “snarkiness” is evident. Huffington’s statement was ruled Half True, and could have been Mostly True, while Palin’s were Pants on Fire and the follow-up False. So there should be less snarkiness apparent in Huffington’s rating. But it seemed to me PF’s writers treated Palin with some degree of respect, while Palin herself berated them while she knew she herself was not being truthful in stating categorically “there is NO plan.”

Palin snarkiness signals (Original Ruling): “So Palin is confusing the issue here”…. “Either Palin is confused… or she's willfully distorting…”… “Palin read the number on her hand correctly, but that's about all she got right.”

Palin snarkiness signals (Follow-up Ruling): “So she let us have it…” “But Palin doesn't see it that way”… “We're not trying to antagonize Gov. Palin…” “But Palin was distorting the facts…”

Huffington snarkiness signals: **…we're most bothered by her use of the word "defrauded” **… “Huffington glossed over…”

On the positive side of “snarkiness” PF noted that Palin got some stats correct, and that the data support Huffington’s allegations of fraud (although they did not judge her statement True).

So discounting the “Snarkometer” for the higher snark-factor on False ratings, PF was not being very snarkey. In otherwords, they were trying to be fair.

In summary, there was hardly enough to conclude that PolitiFact is biased left, or for that matter, either way.