Grading PolitiFact: Chain e-mail used to smear Sen. Kyl

PolitiFact continues its shameless version of fact checking, this time with an illicit association of Senator Jon Kyl with a debunked e-mail.

Fact-checking the fact checkers

The fact checkers:

Robert Farley: writer, researcher
Bill Adair: editor


The issue:

The issue was supposedly the claim in a chain e-mail that $20 million in aid money earmarked for the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip. But it quickly turned into a smear of Sen. Jon Kyl (R, AZ):

Claims in chain e-mails we are asked to check have so often proved to be ridiculously and maliciously false, we wonder who takes these things seriously anymore.

In this case, the answer seems to be be...a U.S. Senator.

Instead of objectively checking the facts, PolitiFact uses the opportunity to attack Kyl. And journalistic objectivity gets trounced in the process.

So--did Kyl believe the chain e-mail or not? Note that PolitiFact leaves itself considerable wiggle room: "the answer seems to be..." (emphasis added). "Seems" denotes subjective impression, and subjective impressions quite simply do not belong in objective reporting unless one is objectively reporting somebody else's subjective impressions. And even then the objectivity of the reporting is often thrown in doubt.

On what evidence was the impression based? Precious little. The first swipe at Kyl consists of noting that he offered a resolution barring any of the funds from being used to relocate Palestinians from Gaza to the United States.

(O)ur fellow fact-checkers over at Snopes.com ... first knocked down these false e-mail claims with an item posted on Feb. 17, 2009. Two days later, on Feb. 19, 2009, FactCheck.org debunked it as well. We note the dates, because two weeks later, Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., the Senate Minority Whip, offered an amendment to the Omnibus Appropriations Act of 2009, a "prohibition on the use of funds in this bill for resettlement into the United States of Palestinians from Gaza."

Explained Kyl: "There has been a suggestion that perhaps that might be permitted, and we simply want to make it clear that will not be permitted with any funds in this bill."

Farley clearly means to imply that Kyl should have known better. But even though Snopes.com and FactCheck.org remain head, shoulders and virtually all other body parts above PolitiFact, can either one of them ensure that a vaguely worded presidential order which turns millions of dollars over to an arm of the chronically corrupt United Nations will not result in funding the movement of Gazan refugees into the United States?

Sorry, but I just don't trust journalists with that type of guarantee. But at least the fact checking efforts at Snopes and Annenberg hew far better to pattern of objective reporting.

Note carefully what Farley has done. He has shifted emphasis away from the chain e-mail and has effectively twisted the findings of the two better fact-checking organizations. Snopes and Annenberg emphasized the wild claims in the e-mail along with the apparent nature of the refugee programs set to receive the presidentially authorized funds. Farley twists this in an attempt to undercut any justification for Kyl's push to bar the use of the funds to bring Gazan refugees to the United States. But also note carefully what Kyl did, as related by Farley:

... Kyl withdrew the amendment after receiving a letter from the Department of State, which he entered into the Senate record.

Kyl made a shrewd move, though Farley presents it as an attempt to save face. By entering the letter into the Senate record, Kyle had the Department of State on its word regarding the use of funds, and by putting it in the record achieved essentially the same effect that this resolution would have had.

Kyl did what a responsible Senator should do. He addressed an ambiguous statement from the executive branch with a call for clarity. He got clarity and he put it in the public record. It is important to note, since PolitiFact fails to do so, that Kyl's actions in no way logically entail that he accepted the e-mail claims at face value. That assumption from Farley, having endured the editing of Bill Adair, accounts for the severe grading to follow.


The grades:

Robert Farley: F
Bill Adair: F


Afterword:

I wanted to keep the main point of my analysis fairly streamlined, but this issue was rich in blogworthy material. In the afterword I will address three things. First, the ambiguity of the president's statement. Second, the statement of John Kyl. I'll simply quote the material to make my point.

Presidential Determination No. 2009-15:

By the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, including section 2(c)(1) of the Migration and Refugee Assistance Act of 1962 (the "Act''), as amended (22 U.S.C. 2601), I hereby determine, pursuant to section 2(c)(1) of the Act, that it is important to the national interest to furnish assistance under the Act in an amount not to exceed $20.3 million from the United States Emergency Refugee and Migration Assistance Fund for the purpose of meeting unexpected and urgent refugee and migration needs, including by contributions to international, governmental, and nongovernmental organizations and payment of administrative expenses of Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration of the Department of State, related to humanitarian needs of Palestinian refugees and conflict victims in Gaza.

You are authorized and directed to publish this memorandum in the Federal Register.
(GPO.gov)

The statement of Sen. Kyl:

Mr. President, until Senator McCain arrives, let me briefly describe these three amendments.

Amendment No. 630 requires a report on countersmuggling efforts in Gaza. Within 90 days of the enactment of the Act, the Secretary of State, in consultation with the Director of National Intelligence, shall submit a report to Congress on whether additional funds from our military foreign financing assistance, provided annually to the Government of Egypt, could be expended, No. 1, to improve efforts by the Government of Egypt to counter illicit smuggling, including arms smuggling across Egypt and the Gaza border, and No. 2, to intercept weapons originating in other countries in the region and smuggled into Gaza through Egypt. This amendment requires a report to ensure the Egyptian Government can be even more effective in dealing with this difficult problem.

Amendment No. 629 is a prohibition on the use of funds in this bill for resettlement into the United States of Palestinians from Gaza. There has been a suggestion that perhaps that might be permitted, and we simply want to make it clear that will not be permitted with any funds in this bill.

Finally, related to Gaza reconstruction, amendment No. 631 provides that none of the funds available in this bill may be made available to aid reconstruction efforts in Gaza until the Secretary of State certifies that none of such funds will be diverted to Hamas or entities controlled by Hamas. The reason for that, of course, is that in providing money to people in Gaza, it is very difficult to ensure that money doesn't go to terrorists, and we want the Secretary of State to ensure that doesn't
happen. That is what this amendment would provide.

Mr. President, that is the explanation of these three amendments, and I now yield to my colleague from the State of Arizona, Senator McCain.
(C-SPAN)

I did mention three things. The third consists of a statement worth fact-checking. PolitiFact quoted it without questioning the content, which suggests that they trust that the information was reliable.

"Frankly, it is unnecessary and for the United States, a Nation of immigrants, it goes against everything we stand for," said Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont. "We don’t resettle anybody from Gaza, nor do we resettle anybody from Gaza who is living in the U.N. refugee camps in the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, or Jordan. The amendment is a solution looking for a problem. If a Palestinian from Gaza gets to a place like Italy, or somewhere in Europe, the amendment would prevent the State Department from even considering that person for resettlement to the United States. We would have to tell them 'Sorry, you can’t come in, because you are from a place that has terrorists.'"

An amendment barring the use of the $20 million to assist refugees coming to the United States would bar the State Department from even considering that person for resettlement in the United States? It seems to me that the State Department could consider the move all it wished, and even put the move into effect if it was accomplished without using the $20 billion earmarked for Gazan refugee assistance.

Check that one, PolitiFact.