Grading PolitiFact *Liberal*-Style: No "Set" for Navratilova

But another "point" perhaps!

Martina Navratilova's recent statement (published May 7) rated by PolitiFact as a Half True resulted in a big brouhaha review from MSNBC'S popular pundit and gay-rights promoter, Rachel Maddow. Navratilova stated on the TV show "Face the Nation" that "in 29 states in this country, you can still get fired for not just being gay but if your employer thinks that you`re gay, you could still get fired.”

On the face of it, it is true that 29 states do not ban discrimination against gays. But PolitiFact's ruling took into account that in those 29 states there existed similar protections for some employees by means of federal and local laws as well as private company policies.

I had some problems, however, with how PolitiFact came to concluding this Half True...I would want to ask writer Louis Jacobson a couple questions: Did he ask Navratilova or any representative of Navratilova how she framed it? Could it be that she was not aware of such exceptions? It was not indicated in the sources. Did he "count" in terms of those who were in the "exception" category, approximating what percentage of people would be covered in those states not having such protections? It could have been estimated, but it would have taken some time. For example, there's Virginia, which has a high percentage of people working for the government but as a state does not prohibit such discrimination. But in other states, even with other protections, the percent of those having them might be very small--so small that it would not be that relevant.

 

I was a bit disappointed in how Rachel Maddow did the segment on how PolitiFact handled the ruling. Her very curtailed explanation of the exceptions was as follows:

They fact checked a statement about state law, found it to be true, decided it didn’t seem seemly or whatever to actually just call it true, then they searched other unrelated information about how there are other kind of things, besides states, like some companies, they don’t want to discriminate, and doesn’t that count for something?

I vehemently disagree with Maddow. It IS related, and they're actually the same types of laws (which she conveniently left out), not just "some companies" that "don't want to discriminate." It was a four- point bullet list (which some like to call "concrete examples").

Erik Wemple of the Washington Post describes Maddow's approach to fact-checking as "strict constructionist" which means "don't look at the context." Well, to take a term from tennis (used in another way), I'd love, LOVE to see what Maddow would do if PolitiFact did the same with, say, the 2012 PolitiFact Lie of the Year from Mitt Romney about Chrysler moving  vehicle production to China. Perhaps then she'd understand why it is important.

 

Wemple noted that it was not Navratilova's intent to mislead. But the Half True is not a ruling given for misleading statements; it is for those "missing important information." This is where I diverge further however, because the statement on its face was fully accurate, not partially, the criteria for a Half True. As it was fully accurate, but needed the additional information for the other ways in which discrimination was banned, it really qualifies for the Mostly True.

 

Because it would be difficult to account for the number of those who would benefit from those other laws banning discrimination, and because context was not verified by speaking with her, it would have been entirely acceptable to give Navratilova a Mostly True instead of Half True. The exceptions put a large shadow on a True ruling, and PolitiFact was correct in not awarding it. Half True, however, may have been too severe.

Sidebar: Night of the Living Fact-Check

Rachel Maddow of MSNBC brought PolitiFact up again in her weekday show (I think she termed PolitiFact as a “zombie that won’t go away” since she previously had declared them “dead”; hence the title of this post) recently because of a fact-check on the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC) which basically distorted the “fine print” of a Whitehouse visitor policy. And yes, they distorted it in a ridiculous way. But it doesn't appear to qualify for a Pants on Fire, or even a False.

It contains an “element of truth”: the Whitehouse does recognize babies before they are born in order to “count” babies after they are born, for the purpose of pre-registration for White House visits.

For me, what it was exactly that the NRLC was trying to make a point about was mystifying. So what if the Whitehouse “recognizes” unborn babies, how does that make its stance on abortion rights hypocritical? Are they not supposed to recognize an unborn child because it’s a women’s decision to make, even if her decision the majority of the time is to keep it? Do they think that on arrival at the Whitehouse they’re going to give all pregnant women (or in this case, women with babies) a lecture or pamphlet on how they can have/could have had an abortion? The NRLC could play this both ways as well. They could use the “Whitehouse recognition of the unborn” as evidence of “personhood.” They could lament how the Whitehouse is pro-“killing” because they even recognize babies in utero as people. That’s probably what they’ll do the next time.

Here was the NRLC Facebook explanation (at PolitiFact's Facebook page) of its “point”, followed by a quote from an article in “ProLife News” which published a similar claim:

We didn't say that the White House Visitors office counted a pregnant visitor as two people, but rather, made the point that the White House recognizes the "baby" as a family member prior to birth, "for purposes of providing security within the White House," but not for purposes of establishing abortion policy for the District of Columbia, an exclusively federal jurisdiction. Moorhead apparently went to all of that re-write work as part of a studied effort to miss our point. I wonder why?

...Notably, the newsletter provides no guidance on what the staff should do if an unborn baby is first registered for security purposes, but then aborted,” Johnson added. “On May 17, the House Judiciary Constitution Subcommittee plans to hold a hearing on the District of Columbia Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act (H.R. 3803), which would generally prohibit abortion in the sixth month and later in the District. If the President wants to provide for the security of the unborn child immediately outside of the White House gates, as well as inside, he should endorse this bill.”

The congress has a quasi-jurisdiction over the District of Columbia (not the president). So the NLRC would be better off targeting the Republican-dominated congress, but it (hypocritically) doesn’t do so here. They don’t need the president’s endorsement.  This was basically a political move to criticize Democrat Obama in a public way for not being pro-life.

It also seems this is a fetus-obsessive tactic of the pro-life crowd: comparing abortion to anything, anything, which promotes “life”…even the preservation of wildlife, as a way of saying why is this life protected but not that of the unborn.

The Whitehouse, however, simply wants to do a proper headcount and this has nothing to do with whether there is a miscarriage or abortion. The NRLC was clearly “fishing.”

The day following the ruling PolitiFact published a letter from a Rachel Maddow fan who agreed with PolitiFact’s ruling. Here is the heart of their letter, providing an excellent rebuttal:

It simply cannot be argued, Ms. Maddow, that the White House does not recognize unborn children: by asking potential visitors whether they are pregnant, so as to account for a possible additional attendee in the future, the White House IS ACKNOWLEDGING unborn children at that moment. There is no getting around this; it is pure logic. But, as Politifact then argues, the White House does not recognize the unborn children as the NRLC implies; the NRLC's suggestion is indeed "wildly misconstrued." Hence, the IMPLICATION is terribly misleading and IS FALSE, but the STATEMENT is, BY ITSELF, technically true. Politifact, as they often acknowledge, have the difficult task of rating STATEMENTS while also factoring in the veracity of the statement's IMPLICATION.

Rachel Maddow tends to very narrowly focus on what she believes is “False” and doesn’t look at what was said in its entirety, the context, the implicit meanings or what my conservative counterpart might call “the underlying argument”—she doesn’t seem to have a good understanding of PolitiFact’s principles in the methods it uses for the statements it scores.  It also seems to me she hasn’t really looked at how PolitiFact defines Mostly False: "The statement contains an element of truth but ignores critical facts that would give a different impression." PolitiFact has a responsibility to look at those critical facts in accordance with those principles.

Maddow seems to be a knee-jerk True-or-False-and-nothing-in-between kind of fact-finder. She looked at the last fact-check in which she declared PolitiFact dead the same way. She crammed her analysis into the last minute of her show as if meeting the time deadline was more important than presenting the whole story, and if she doesn’t try to see the whole story, I guess she’s going to be haunted by the PolitiFact zombies forever.  And she may never know what it takes to get a False. 

Grading PolitiFact *Liberal*-Style: Please Relief Me

One of my biggest complaints about the evening shows on MSNBC (Rachel Maddow followed by Lawrence O’Donnell) or Fox News (Bill O’Reilly followed by Sean Hannity) is that they tend to repeat a lot of the same partisan news, criticisms and talking points. In fact, MSNBC might be worse than Fox News, because of those very liberally partisan “Lean Forward” promotional spots it features all day long by the same evening pundits ( my favorite being Al Sharpton’s “Blueberry Pie” )….and last month PolitiFact Texas took one of the claims in those spots by Lawrence O’Donnell to task: that there were critics of the ultimately very successful G.I. Bill who called it welfare (youtube video below).

At the time (end of World War II), the few critics of it called it “relief” and “dole.” Those two words can be found all over the net as synonyms for present day welfare. The underlying argument, however, is that this laid the groundwork for one of the foundational principles of the future Conservative/Republican party: the concept that any type of welfare is meant to breed dependency on government, which Republicans want you to think is how the Democrats keep their constituencies. The aversion to this dependency was epitomized by Ronald Reagan in his claims about “welfare queens” and glittering generalities about “rugged individualism.” It was also about, as the traditionally southern Democrats turned Republican in the wake of Civil Rights, a veiled type of racism. In other words, Republicans have made the word welfare a derisive one.

(Sidebar: I remember in my carpool days when my favorite right-wing loon Rich Peasel told me that he himself had seen black people driving Cadillacs and dressed in diamonds and fur coats at the grocery store paying with food stamps [they were buying steaks, too]. While I don’t believe this is what he actually saw [he was fibbing big time], this is the personification of that principle.)

The term welfare came into common usage about the time of Lyndon Johnson’s “Great Society/War on Poverty.” In 1944, it was a word that may have been viewed positively, as reported in one linguist’s blog who was reviewing PolitiFact’s ruling strictly from a “historical sentiment” view: “In 1944, "welfare" didn't appear to have a pejorative sentiment.” Well, knowing how that pejorative sentiment came to be, however, it may support the terms “relief” and “dole” which at that time may have been pejorative.

The critic to whom Lawrence O’Donnell refers for the most part is a Mississippi Democrat who PolitiFact quotes as being “an ardent white supremacist” named John Rankin—who I guarantee would have jumped to the Republicans had he been around in the mid 60’s—and who could just come out and say it back in 1944 before the advent of dog-whistle politics.

Grading PolitiFact *Liberal*-Style: The Unadmitted Majority

NOTE:  About a week after this "Mostly True" ruling was published, PolitiFact revised it to Half True:  "After it appeared, we heard from many readers who argued that our rating of Mostly True was the wrong call....Upon further discussion, and bolstered by more reporting, we have decided to change this ruling to Half True."

The last time I ran with a PolitiFact ruling that Rachel Maddow had “graded” as perhaps conservatively biased for purposes of Grading PolitiFact Liberal Style, I caught a bit of flack. It had to do with the context of the statement and perhaps the implied intentions of the statement-maker (in that case, Obama). I thought I had better check such statements a bit more carefully in the future instead of trusting Maddow; however, we now have another Maddow fact-check of the fact checkers with a lot more to it than just the statement.

I often try to note when my conservative counterpart covers these, whether in one of his blogs or in Facebook commentary, because when the bias goes the other way he tends to ignore them. In this case, however, he was all over on this one, and it gave me a fine way to showcase his dishonesty, particularly in the area of “selection bias.”

Republican Florida senator Marco Rubio made the fact-checked statement in a speech he gave at the 2012 CPAC conference. He actually said it twice, that “this” is a movement of conservatives, or what I call the majority of Americans…” and then after a few words about “how he knew” because “liberals” never admit they’re liberals and instead using the term “progressives” he said “The majority of Americans are conservatives — they believe in things like the Constitution. I know that’s weird to some people…”

PolitiFact (PF) Florida obviously concentrated on the first statement. If they had concentrated on the re-affirmation, they would have had to deal with the caveat that it’s (only) conservatives who believe in things like the Constitution, which would make that statement blatantly false, or a lot less than Mostly True.

PolitiFact Florida used a twenty-year Gallup Poll to “support” Rubio’s claim:

For 2011, Gallup found that the largest group of Americans identify as conservative, at 40 percent. Another 35 percent identify as moderate, while 21 percent identify as liberal.

That means a plurality of Americans identify as conservative, not a majority. Then PF writer Angie Drobnic-Holan compares this to the Democrat/Republican/Independent labels, where an equal 40 percent plurality are self-indentified as Independent. Ultimately she finds that no matter how you shake it, no matter how charitable she is with the statistics, the majority is not conservative. But because conservatives and those who “lean Republican” are higher than everyone else, this justifies a ruling of Mostly True.

My conservative counterpart does his usual routine of reading into the statement and authoritatively reaching his own conclusions:

So, was Rubio correct that the majority of Americans are conservative? That depends on his argument. Rubio didn't cite surveys about self-identification. He used a method concerned with attitudes toward the respective labels. One can argue with the method or the application of the method, but using an inappropriate benchmark doesn't cut it.

Just because Rubio “used a method concerned with attitudes” doesn’t mean he was correct. In fact, Rubio’s explanation that liberals never admit they’re liberals doesn’t cut it either. If a person won’t admit they are liberal, they are still NOT conservative. There is no way to measure whether the majority of Americans are conservative by basically backing it with an anecdotal observation that liberals won’t admit they’re liberal—some other method must be employed. Bryan White uses this “attitudes” measure as a way to excuse Rubio’s point and find fault with PolitiFact’s efforts to determine whether the majority of Americans are conservative.

As usual, this provides a way for Bryan White to assert his superiority to those who disagree with him, a calculated way to set up an argument from authority:

Maddow is supposed to be ultra smart. So how come she can't figure out that Rubio's statement isn't properly measured against self-identification numbers?

(Translated: Bryan White is even more than ultra smart?). We never find out what the proper measurement is, because there is no quantifying method when “attitudes” is used.  There is no way to verify such "context." The most accurate and reasonable would be self-identification polls. Again, Rubio made the statement twice, the second time, without the “how come” that Bryan latched onto. In other words, Bryan’s complaint is sheer over-reach along with a bit of equivocation.

In the Facebook PolitiFact page comments, a poster by the name of Brian Varley made the best case as to Rubio’s statement being far less than Mostly True, by many, many different measures, in this case, widespread support for public programs and social issues which conservatives are by policy against:

Truth Index: 2011 Fact-oids and Fact-ettes

Hot Topics. The health care topic, as noted earlier this year, continued as one of the most covered as well as getting the worst PolitiFact (PF) Truth Index ratings. The Republican average was worse than that of Democrats, with labor/union rulings for both parties being the next two in a virtual tie.  The largest "spread" between averages was Republicans on the economy at -21 to Democrats at +27, a 48 point variance.  The top ten topics shown here broken down between Republicans and Democrats totaled about 55% of all 2011 rulings.

Perry beats Obama by two. While we’ll never see that headline, Texas Governor Rick Perry was Number One in 2011 for PolitiFact fact-checks, perhaps owing to the work of PolitiFact Texas. While Obama is the Number One fact-checked person of all time on PolitiFact, in 2011 he received 59, while Perry received 61.

Pundits. Liberal Rachel Maddow was the most fact-checked of the pundits in 2011, beating out second place Bill O’Reilly by two fact-checks. Her Truth Index was -21.43 (three Mostly True, two Mostly False and two False), while O’Reilly was across the Truth-o-Meter with one each of every rating except for Pants on Fire, translating to a precise zero on the Truth Index.

Liberal columnist Paul Krugman, who some conservatives call a “partisan hack,” had eight fact-checks with an outstanding Truth Index of 81.25 for 2011. If he’s a “pundit” (I’m not sure) then he was actually the most fact-checked (over Maddow).

Ex-Presidents. Previously I’ve reviewed the Truth Index of the remaining Presidential contenders (including some of those who eventually dropped out). Their combined Truth Index for 2011 was -31.11, as compared to the 2011 overall of -14.38. If you took all the presidential contenders’ ratings out (not including Obama) it would improve to -11.74. That’s an almost 22 percent improvement.

Governors' Ball. The Truth Index for governors as a group was -14.23 which is almost equal to the all-time overall of -13.32. Of the 485 rulings, Republicans dominated with 460 (almost 95%) of them and a Truth Index of -16.09, while Democrats got the remaining 25, with a Truth Index of 20.  It should be noted that this is said with the caveat that I may possibly have missed one or two when I filtered them because I am not familiar with every governor in every state, and that I did not include those running for governor who lost, for example, Alex Sink in Florida, even though she had a lot of rulings.  Beginning in 2012 I am considering recording the person's official position in my database for another filter key. 

Cha-cha-chains...chains of Fibs. There were 106 chain e-mails through the end of 2011 with an overall Truth Index of -103.3. Those e-mails of unknown or non-partisan origin, comprising 50 of them, had a Liar, Liar Pants on Fire Truth Index average of -114.00.

Blogs, Dogs and Groundhogs. There were 23 “bloggers” subjected to the Truth Index and they did worse as a group than the chain e-mails, with an overall Truth Index of -110.87. And those of unknown or non-partisan origin scored the very lowest, nine rulings with an average of -133.33.

But the “animals” rated by PolitiFact over its history, Spike the Romney Attack Dog and General Beauregard Lee (who should be presenting himself soon) both scored a Mostly True for a 50 Truth Index.  At least they'll tell you the truth.

Grading PolitiFact *Liberal*-Style: Pink Slipping PolitiFact

Last night (January 25) MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow did a small segment on PolitiFact (PF) wherein she “fired them.” It was because of its correction of a ruling on Obama. During his state of the union address, he said “In the last 22 months, businesses have created more than 3 million jobs. Last year, they created the most jobs since 2005."

Maddow noted that while PF found both statements to be true using BLS (Bureau of Labor Statistics) data, it initially rated it Half True, and she displayed the text of its reasoning: 

Obama is correct on both counts when using private-sector job numbers. But he went too far when he implicitly credited his administration policies. So we rate the statement Half True.

Maddow took issue with the fact that Obama credited businesses, saying “businesses have created more than 3 million jobs” not “I, Barack Obama” or “my administration” or “the Stimulus” or “my policies.” She jokingly said something to the effect that “Obama didn’t wake up in the morning and look in the mirror and say ‘good morning, businesses!’”

From the Huffington Post

She noted that PolitiFact reviewed it again and then issued an update, upgrading the ruling from Half True to Mostly True. Based on what I’ve seen in cases like this, it appears PolitiFact will not move the Truth-o-Meter needle too far, thereby admitting something it investigated and ruled on turned out to be almost the opposite. Loath to admit to such gross errors, it will try to stand by its ruling come hell or high water, and if it moves it, it will be a one notch, which is what it did here.

Maddow then concluded that she had had it with PolitiFact and then “terminated their position” in the inimitable Grand Vulgarian Donald Trump fashion along with a few other choice criticisms.

"PolitiFact, you are fired. You are a mess! You are fired! You are undermining the definition of the word fact in the English language by pretending to it in your name. The English language wants its word back. You are an embarrassment. You sully the reputation of anyone who cites you as an authority on fact-ishness, let alone fact. You are fired."

But in the long thread of angry Facebook comments (for which most liberal-media-bashers would chomp at the bit to deride), the publicized correction and Maddow’s televised dismantling of PF’s ruling, there wasn’t a whisper from my conservative counterpart and his partner in crime over on the “red” side of politifact detractors. Nope, while they were both busy on Facebook at the same time, Bryan White going completely non sequitor over another Obama SOTU remark on spilled milk, and Jeff Dyberg beating the dead horse called Solyndra one more time, they somehow failed to notice this one.

In fact, the corrected Obama ruling was right next to the spilled milk ruling. It had a great deal more comments—more than double that of the spilled milk ruling--and being as it was a straight sort of “numbers” claim, it should have attracted Bryan’s or Jeff’s attention. Here’s the snipped screen print showing their side-by-side placement on PolitiFact's Facebook page:

Grading PolitiFact *Liberal*-Style: Flat Tax Fever

Rick Perry's Tax Plan appears to have a different satirical pop culture twist than the “9-9-9” Cain Tax Plan: Herman Cain’s plan comes from the game SimCity 4, while Perry’s pandering “Taxpayer’s Choice” is not taken from anyone (except maybe Steve Forbes) and amounts to nothing more than maybe one of the Seven Dwarves: Dopey. Well, he was acting that way recently himself, so maybe there’s a connection.

According to Rachel Maddow, this plan “accomplishes the same goal of huge tax cuts for rich people and big tax hikes for everyone else." The “same” refers to Cain’s “9-9-9" Plan. PolitiFact’s verdict on the ruling:

Some other Americans--including 45 percent of residents earning $19,343 to $39,862--also would see tax cuts, a projection that does not support the claim that the plan means big tax increases for everyone but the wealthy. Perry’s plan allows every taxpayer to continue under the current system. No one would pay more unless he or she chooses the flat tax against their financial self-interest.

Maddow’s statement, leaving the incorrect impression that Perry’s tax plan hugely benefits the rich while everyone else pays more, rates Mostly False.

Here’s what FactCheck.org has to say about the Perry Tax Plan: (emphasis added)

But that’s not true for everyone, even though the Perry plan would result in a dramatic decrease in overall revenues, according to the Tax Policy Center analysis. The Tax Policy Center predicts that Rick Perry’s “flat tax” plan would amount to a tax cut of $570 billion in its first year after enactment, compared with current tax rates. More than half the benefits would flow to persons making more than $1 million a year.

However, many lower-income persons and families would see taxes go up. That’s because, although Perry has said he would continue the “current” income-tax system for those who prefer it, the TPC said Perry’s plan seems to allow all the Bush cuts to expire on schedule, including lower marginal rates at the bottom.

As a result, either the new Perry flat tax or the “current” tax system (once the Bush cuts expire) would mean higher taxes for many, compared with what they would pay at current rates. The TPC projected, for example, that taxes would go up for 63 percent of individuals and families earning between $40,000 and $50,000 a year, for an average increase of $248 in 2015. For those earning between $20,000 and $30,000, the tax hike would be even more painful, amounting to an average of $462 in higher federal income taxes.

Based on this information we can conclude that the Perry Tax Plan:

Politi-Express Mostly True Review

It was difficult deciding how to classify or tag this post: it’s not a criticism of one of Sublime Bloviations’ Grading PolitiFact (PF) series, so it’s not a Lil White Lie; it’s not really about another PolitiFact Detractor. It’s not about the Politi-Score (although my conclusion takes it into account), but since it is about PolitiFact, it doesn’t really belong under the Sidebar tag. It’s also not Grading PolitiFact Liberal Style, as I’ve noted some Democrat rulings to be lacking. I’ve decided to include it under the PolitiFact Detractor category, as sort of my own PolitiFact Detraction.  It's also being called "Politi-Express" since this one post covers 13 rulings briefly and "expressly" instead of one detailed post for one ruling.

My goal was to look at “numbers” claims to see just how far they off they could be to make the grade as a “Mostly True” ruling. Here I am examining 13 Mostly True rulings of 8 Democrats/Liberals and 5 Republicans/Conservatives done during the first quarter of 2011. What I found was at least two designations or categories of Mostly True judgments. The first one is the one most subject to allegations of selection bias, and the most contentious as to the validity of the ruling--these are claims where the number is essentially correct, and often very close or right on the money, but is used to misrepresent or distort another point.  The second one is fairly straight-up numbers claims where the message or point is more in keeping with the number.

Saved by Zero. NewsMax, a conservative news website, sent out an e-mail in January stating: "The refusal of many federal employees to fly coach costs taxpayers $146 million annually.". PolitiFact ruled Mostly True, although the number was right on, off by “zero.” But their using the word “refusal”  is what pushed it from True to Mostly True.  PolitiFact:

The GAO's methodology doesn't delve into the question of the employee's motives when seeking a premium-class flight, so we think '"refusal" is too strong a word for Newsmax to use when describring how the federal employees reacted to the idea of flying coach.

Besides spelling describing “describring” there can be a number of reasons for not flying coach which would not come under “refusing”: if the travel arrangements were done at the last moment, it could be that first class was all that was available. There are also security considerations, which is why most businesses fly employees “business” class overseas. If the employee is carrying special, crucial equipment which was checked, first class would guarantee the “luggage” would not be lost, since that’s (usually) part of first class service. There may also be time considerations.

PolitiFact was generous (or should I say, charitable) in giving NewsMax a Mostly True on this one. But I also have mixed feelings on a Half True ruling.

Not so fair and balanced. Bill O’Reilly, who calls himself a political Independent, but we all know better, said on his Fox News show in February: "The right-to-work states have much lower level of unemployment than the union states do."