Checking the checkers at Politifact: Huckabee on the signers of the Declaration of Independence (Updated)

Liberal/progressive and secularist sites have apparently been making a big deal out of Mike Huckabee's declaration in one of the GOP debates that most of the signers were "clergymen."

I'm inclined to think that Huckabee simply misspoke (meaning "Christians" instead, which would put him in very safe territory), but it has been noted that the Huckabee statement has a parallel in the writings of David Barton, who has received abundant criticism over the accuracy of his accounts of American history.

While it is possible that Huckabee was echoing the views of Barton, one should hesitate to draw that conclusion without the benefit of additional evidence. For starters, one would think that some journalist might be interested enough in Huckabee's statement to ask him on what basis he made the statement.

I've run across some anecdotal evidence that Huckabee claims he simply misspoke. The followup question to such a statement from Huckabee is "What did you mean to say?"

And that brings me to the realm of political fact-checking. I've gone on record more than once praising Factcheck.org (Annenberg fact-check). And I've gone on record expressing my skepticism about the new political fact-check project from The St. Petersburg Times, called "PolitiFact."

The Annenberg folks don't even mention the Huckabee faux pas, and I think that's a justifiable move given the nature of the statement. It has little impact on the context of what Huckabee was saying at the time (he was stressing the importance of his pro-life stance).

PolitiFact is all over Huckabee, in contrast:

We'd like to give Huckabee every benefit of the doubt, but even if you consider former clergymen among the signers the best you could come up with is four. Out of 56. That's not "most," that's Pants-on-Fire wrong.
(PolitiFact)

The quotation above represents the summary paragraph. I have three main problems with the PolitiFact analysis. First, they fail to provide any evidence that they consider that Huckabee may have simply misspoke, which belies the claim that they would like to give Huckabee every benefit of the doubt. As such, that claim comes off as a sneer at Huckabee.

Second, they overlook the potential Barton connection, which is really the only way that the statement has any political import. It would be politically interesting if Huckabee had uncritically accepted bad historical information from Barton or the like. It is hardly at all interesting if Huckabee simply meant to say "Christians." The lack of interest in this angle paints PolitiFact as uninterested in anything but superficial facts in this case (for comparison, I intend to see if PolitiFact took note of Hillary Clinton's apparent belief that Pakistan's Pervez Musharraf was due to stand for election in January of this year--that's a politically interesting error).

Third (and I've complained about this before) PolitiFact uses a graphic to represent their judgment of truth value, and that graphic conveys moral judgments where moral judgment may be inappropriate. Note that they find Huckabee's error "pants-on-fire" wrong. Anyone who is culturally literate associates that phrase with the rhyme "liar-liar-pants-on-fire." If Huckabee simply misspoke (see PolitiFact's disinterest in that possibility at #1), there is no question of a moral lie. If I'm talking to a friend and say the Tampa Bay Lightning defeated New York Yankees at Spring Training, and I meant to say the Tampa Bay Rays then plainly I am not trying to sell the lie that a hockey team defeated the Yankees.

PolitiFact comes across as petty and unprofessional in this example.

Update:

Nothing at all at PolitiFact on Hillary Clinton's malaprop about Musharraf.

The CNN version carries the Clinton explanation, that she was referring to Musharraf's party, not to Musharraf himself. Compare her explanation with Thomas Houlahan's analysis
(read it all if you don't know the history):

She then said something that betrayed a serious lack of knowledge about Pakistan and called her own credibility on the subject into serious question.

"If President Musharraf wishes to stand for election," she told Blitzer, "then he should abide by the same rules that every other candidate will have to follow."

My immediate reaction was: "Did I hear that correctly?"

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