Politi-Scoring Newt Gingrich: Newt So Fast

So far, my blog has looked at Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry and Herman Cain at approximately the peak point of their 15 minutes of presidential potential fame. I’m trying to “save the best for last” based on these peaks and valleys, although I never expected to see this happen with Newt Gingrich. From the looks of recent polls, I may even be doing Ron Paul as well!

The increase in statements being rated for Newt Gingrich were commensurate with his rise in the polls; as one Democratic advisor said he was climbing higher on the “pole” and more people could “see his butt” and where better to see it than with the fact-checkers.

Currently at PolitiFact (December 26) Newt Gingrich has a total of 39 statements rated which is an increase of 33 since the end of 2010, when he only had been ruled on six times. At that time, with only six rulings, he stood at a Truth Index of negative 50, with two of the six statements rated Pants on Fire. Today he’s added six more Pants on Fire, but his Truth Index has remained somewhat steady at a negative 52 (with a negative Politi-Score of -53 overall) a little worse than Mostly False on the Truth-o-Meter.

While a lot of PolitiFact followers think Michele Bachmann is the biggest liar, so far in 2011 she’s scoring more truthier than Gingrich and Herman Cain. Newt is the Number Two Liar to Number One Herman Cain (followed by Bachmann, with Perry in last place). If you preview the “See Them All” rulings for Gingrich on PolitiFact, you can see that lately, he’s been hard pressed to score higher than Half True.

There were 76 statements rated for Newt (as noted in the above Politi-Score graphic) between the three fact-checking organizations. There were seven statements which I term “re-covered”: that is, the same statement was covered as a fact-check by more than one fact-checker.

Balancing Act. Gingrich’s false claim that he balanced the budget for four straight years and had a $405 billion surplus was the most re-covered claim, showing up five times as a fact-check throughout 2011.  PolitiFact and FactCheck.Org actually covered it twice, because despite the fact-checks he kept repeating it.

"Wrong then, wrong now" indicates PolitiFact's second review of this oft-repeated, most-rated statement by Gingrich.

Even a fourth fact-checker, the “CNN Truth Squad”, not included in my Politi-Score numbers, got in on this one, giving it a “verdict” of false.

Newt Gingrich served as speaker of the House from January 4, 1995 to January 3, 1999. According to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, the nation ran a deficit in 1995 (-$164 billion), 1996 (-$107.4 billion) and 1997 (-$21.9 billion). It ran a surplus in 1998 ($69.3 billion) and 1999 ($125.6 billion).

If you don't count the deficit during his first year as speaker, when the budget was already set, and do count the surplus during the year after he stepped down, he can claim credit for a surplus in only two of four years. Those surpluses total $194.9 billion, which is less than half the $405 billion he says he paid off.

If you confine the view to the time he spent in office, Gingrich's assertion looks worse. The national debt on the day Gingrich was sworn in as speaker was $4.8 trillion. Four years later, it was $5.6 trillion, an increased debt of $800 billion, according to the U.S. Treasury website…

Verdict: False.

Flipping the Cap. All three fact-checkers agreed that Gingrich’s claim that he “never favored cap and trade” was basically a flip flop from statements he had made previously. Here's where you can even watch the "fact-check video" of it.   PolitiFact's conclusion:

But we found solid evidence he did, with the condition that carbon caps be combined with tax incentives to encourage energy companies to innovate. He told Frontline a cap and trade system combined with tax incentives is "something I would strongly support," and even took a hindsight-is-20/20 stance, saying the country "would be much better off" if cap and trade had been instituted. That’s favoring it. We rate his statement False.

Mac the Knife. All three fact-checkers covered Gingrich’s protestations that he never lobbied for Freddie Mac, that it was just “strategic advice.” As noted by Glenn Kessler in the Washington Post, who gave this a “Mostly False/Misleading" Two Pinnochocios:

Clearly, this story has legs, and Gingrich will need to reveal more about his activities for Freddie Mac to end the controversy. His answer during the debate was clearly misleading and is now open to dispute. We will monitor closely to see whether his claim of being only a long-time “strategic adviser” holds up to scrutiny.

Janitors “Cleaning up”? The fact-checkers were all pretty aligned on their statement findings. There was one, however, that was almost (for about one day) True for one and False for the other: when Gingrich stated, at the ABC-Yahoo debate on December 10, that in New York City an entry level janitor makes twice as much as an entry level teacher. The Washington Post Fact Checker deemed this “True” and linked two articles (the New York Post and NBC) in support.

However, the following day Glenn Kessler must have taken a look at PolitiFact’s ruling (where it also took a good look at the New York Post article) and decided to correct his:

UPDATE, Dec. 13: Our friends at PolitiFact did a bit more digging on this and determined Gingrich was mixing up entry-level “janitors” and “first-year custodial engineers,” which is supervisory position. Apples to apples, entry-level teachers earn more than entry-level janitors. Good catch by PolitiFact. They rated his claim “false.”

Next up, a look at Newt’s veracity as an “historian.”

Above is a Washington Post Fact-Checker video on one of Newt's statements about Ronald Reagan: that when he was an actor, he received only one good review (rated false).