Monday, April 30, 2012

NPR and truth-hustler guests Adair and Nyhan


National Public Radio brought two of my favorite truth-hustlers on its "All Things Considered" program.   I refer to Bill Adair and Brendan Nyhan.

(clipped from npr.org 4/29/12)
Bill Adair serves as founding editor for Politico PolitiFact, a fact-checking operation started by a left-leaning Florida newspaper.  PolitiFact sacrifices journalistic objectivity in part for the sake of its marketing gimmick, called the "Truth-O-Meter."

Political scientist Brendan Nyhan mangles facts from the realm of academia.  Nyhan has tried to show that partisans don't accept facts that contradict their ideology.  His research often uses facts that beg the question (more on Nyhan), suggesting that Nyhan falls victim to his own research goal.

The relevant radio program segment deals with a column from Chicago Tribune columnist Rex Huppke, who bemoaned the state of truth following Rep. Allen West's statement, using Huppke's paraphrase, that "as many as 81" members of the Democratic Party are members of the Communist Party.

Huppke gets some kind of award for irony.  Journalists took West out of context.  West was jokingly, though to make a seriously point, referring to the Congressional Progressive Caucus.  The context makes that absolutely clear.

Stories like these are to Adair and Nyhan what the Trayvon Martin case is to Jesse Jackson and Rev. Al Sharpton.  The media want the narrative that the former two spin and so seek them out for commentary when these issues make the news.  Adair and Nyhan are the truth-hustler counterparts to race-hustlers.

Adair shows up to remind us how great it is that Politico PolitiFact is there to save the day, if only we can place sufficient trust in its work.

Adair (transcript mine, from the NPR audio):
"What's funny is sometimes I'll get an email that'll say 'You guys are so biased.'  But I won't know who we're supposed to be biased in favor of, because we get criticized a lot by both sides.  And I think that's just the nature of a very rough-and-tumble political discourse."
Funny is Adair still using the "we get criticized from both sides" dodge to avoid the issue of bias.  Fortunately a journalist asked Adair exactly the right question earlier this year with equally hilarious results.

PolitiFact's system is perfect for filtering the truth according to media ideology.

Academia, unfortunately, carries an ideological slant somewhat akin to that found in the U.S. media.  Nyhan perhaps represents one of academic liberalism's top leaders in the war over political truth. 

NPR brought forth an old example of Nyhan's supposed "backfire" effect, where a correction of a falsehood leads to stronger belief in the falsehood. Though Nyhan's own research  (see descriptions of "Study 2") appears to show that the phenomenon does not occur with clear corrections, that hardly dampens mainstream media enthusiasm for the idea.  They can claim they're doing a great job but the audience is the problem.

There is something of an information crisis, but Adair and Nyhan probably do as much damage as good in addressing the problem.  We're not getting the best information from either journalists or academia.  Journalists typically do not have the expertise to sift through complex issues of truth.  Academics have shifted left ideologically and do an inadequate job of critically reviewing the journals that ought to provide our best sources of trustworthy information.

We don't have a reliable gatekeeper for our pool of information.  And it's hard to come up with good solutions to the problem.

Test everything. Hold on to the good.
--Paul the Apostle, 1 Thess. 5:21



Saturday, April 21, 2012

Sen. Bill Nelson has budget crisis licked?

Got another Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) campaign email in the mailbox today:
We need to take a long hard look at everything we can to address our budget crisis. That means cutting wasteful spending where we see it, while strengthening our social safety net.
Cut wasteful spending.  Increase other spending. 

Sounds like a winner.  Just the kind of bold plan we need to avert the budget crisis, though perhaps not quite as good as the one where every American gets $10 million in loans.

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

PolitiFact's big oily mess

Context matters -- We examine the claim in the full context, the comments made before and after it, the question that prompted it, and the point the person was trying to make.
--Principles of PolitiFact and the Truth-O-Meter
"(O)ftentimes when readers, um, disagree with our work and very passionately disagree with us, they disagree with us using evidence that we gave them.  It's not like they're going out and researching these things and uncovering these facts."
--PolitiFact Florida editor Angie Drobnic Holan


PolitiFact slips up sensationally on oil claims

Oil production.

Producing oil was not one of President Obama's priorities early in his presidency.  He preferred to ramp up the use of renewable energy sources while allowing the price of oil and other carbon-based energy sources to rise.  The rise in cost would help encourage the use of renewables.

As gas prices rose and Obama faced tougher prospects for his re-election, he started to make claims about oil production in order to co-opt Republican calls for more domestic drilling.

Here we'll examine the way PolitiFact treated a closely-related set of oil production claims over approximately the past year.

March 11, 2011:


Jan. 24, 2012:


March 28, 2012:


April 10, 2012:


There's little dispute about the facts.  Domestic oil production is up.  But things get a bit murkier when one starts trying to assign credit.  And that's precisely where PolitiFact flubs this series of fact checks.

Sunday, April 15, 2012

There was something fishy about the "red herring" ...

After PolitiFact's ironic suggestion that Mitt Romney had used a red herring with his argument about fading female participation in the work force under President Obama, I purposed to have a look at PolitiFact's past use of the term "red herring."

Apart from a number of uses of the term by expert sources, I found only one example.  This one was again by writer Louis Jacobson

The fact check concerned Senator Jon Kyl's assertion that the American Bar Association's rating was surprising considering Kagan's lack of courtroom experience.

Let's have a read of the relevant passage (bold emphasis added):
We didn't comb through her semester-by-semester course loads or pro-bono assignments to track her practical legal work, but we think this line of argument is a red herring anyway. The sentence sets up two alternatives -- either "distinguished accomplishments in the field of law or experience that is similar to in-court trial work." We see no requirement that the "distinguished accomplishments" be directly related to the in-court practice of law.
The fairly obvious way to check Kyl's claim would have involved looking at the way the ABA historically treated potential nominees with a lack of courtroom experience.  Judging from the list of references, Jacobson did nothing of the kind.  As a second choice, an investigator might solicit the opinions of legal experts.  Jacobson did not take that course, either.

Instead, we get Jacobson's opinion of the ABA's criterion stacked against Kyl's.  With Jacobson rather than Kyl writing the fact check, we find Jacobson preferring his interpretation of the criterion to Kyl's.  Jacobson apparently determined that the validity of Kagan's ABA rating was not a central issue with respect to the the confirmation process for Kagan.  Instead, it was a mere distraction.

Dare I point out that Jacobson again achieved unintended irony with his use of the term "red herring"?

Where's the fact check?

Sheila Bair: Fix income inequality with $10 million loans for all

Via Power Line:
Sheila Bair was chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation for a five-year term that expired last year. At the agency she was a power player with sharp elbows that she deployed to defend and extend the agency’s turf. Today RealClearPolitics features her Washington Post column “Fix income inequality with a $10 million loan for everyone.”
And from Bair's column in the Washington Post:
Under my plan, each American household could borrow $10 million from the Fed at zero interest. The more conservative among us can take that money and buy 10-year Treasury bonds. At the current 2 percent annual interest rate, we can pocket a nice $200,000 a year to live on. The more adventuresome can buy 10-year Greek debt at 21 percent, for an annual income of $2.1 million. Or if Greece is a little too risky for you, go with Portugal, at about 12 percent, or $1.2 million dollars a year. (No sense in getting greedy.)
I published a parallel proposal to PolitiFact's Facebook page back in 2010.
Why wouldn't it work for the government to give everyone jobs with the federal government paying $1 million per year?
I used the challenge repeatedly to expose liberal thinking on economic policy and especially the supposed problem of income inequality.

Great minds think alike.  Though it's worth mentioning that vacant minds also think alike.

To be clear, the general idea of an expansive federal income subsidy, whether via loan or employment, is a pretty natural reductio ad absurdum for the "fairness" aspect of income inequality arguments.  I don't think Bair stole my idea.  But I'll claim my slice of credit.

Friday, April 13, 2012

PolitiFlub: Noted enabler of political distractions identifies "red herring"

Red herring:
  1. A smoked herring having a reddish color.
  2. Something that draws attention away from the central issue.
--Answers.com
The logic-challenged fact checkers at PolitiFact believe they have discovered a red herring amidst Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney's criticisms of President Obama's record on women's issues.

Romney charged that the Obama administration has the worst record for participation of women in the work force.  The summary from PolitiFact's response, in part:
The increases for presidents between 1948 and the late 1980s are largely due to broader social trends beyond the control of any president, so saying that Obama did worse than them is a red herring.
Hmmm?  And from what central issue is Romney distracting?

PolitiFact's response is just too funny.

The "Republican War on Women" rhetoric from Democrats is the red herring.  The central issue is the economy.  The Romney campaign is ingeniously addressing the Democrats' rhetoric of distraction and bringing attention back to the economy.  PolitiFact flags Romney for using a red herring.

Priceless.

And now to look up PolitiFact's past attempts to use "red herring" correctly in a sentence.

Thursday, April 12, 2012

The three Hilary Rosens

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney says he knows three Hilary Rosens.



Carney's doing very well with his personal acquaintance with Hilary Rosens, considering AnyWho could only come up with six.

I suppose I should cut Carney a break since he's probably counting multiple spelling variations for the first and last name.

Still, this is a great response to highlight just a week after the spin job Carney put on President Obama's misstatement about the Supreme Court.


Correction 4/13/2012:  
Hat tip to Jeff Dyberg for pointing out that I had "Rosen's doing very well ..." after the video break.  Changed that to "Carney," and I tend to blame my mistake on Jay Rosen.

Wednesday, April 11, 2012

The ideological pyromaniacs at PolitiFact

In my most recent "Grading PolitiFact" story I mused that President Obama's "False" rating would probably drop to "Pants on Fire" if it had come instead from a Republican.

PolitiFact has helpfully provided an illustration bearing out the truth of my statement.

PolitiFact had graded Obama "False" on his statement that a Supreme Court overturn of his health care law would represent "an unprecedented, extraordinary step of overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected Congress."  There was nothing true about Obama's statement.  There was simply a subsequent explanation semantically irreconcilable with Obama's original statement.

In Ryan's case, PolitiFact ruled "Pants on Fire" a statement that was true given its most charitable interpretation:
UPDATE: After our story appeared, Ryan’s office got back to us. They said that they had been using fiscal year 2008 as their base year, rather than fiscal year 2009. Using the 2008 figures, federal outlays do roughly double between 2008 and 2021 under Obama’s fiscal year 2012 budget proposal. However, we think it’s inaccurate to use fiscal 2008 as the base year, since that year ended about four months before Obama took office. In any case, our previous concerns -- using figures for 2021, when Obama will have been out of office for either five or nine years, and ignoring the role of mandatory spending in expanding federal outlays -- still stand, and we’re keeping the rating at Pants on Fire.
It makes sense to PolitiFact to use as a baseline a fiscal year for which Obama was partially responsible for the spending--including the initial spending from his 2009 stimulus bill.  How nice to have one of your most expensive legislative initiatives partially included in the baseline to which your increases in spending are compared!   It's a little like timing your leg of a track relay starting a full second after you receive the baton.  Wow!  Fast!

Even under PolitiFact's original reasoning, using fiscal year 2009 as the baseline, it calculated a 66 percent increase in spending by the end of Obama's 10-year budget, and Ryan's statement in context clearly referred to that budget projection.  Hilariously, PolitiFact scolded Ryan because he supposedly should know better.  No such scolding resulted from Obama's head-scratching comment about constitutional law despite his history teaching constitutional law.

Ryan:  "Pants on Fire"
Obama:  "False"
PolitiFact:  Untrustworthy.

PolitiFact has had since 2007 to figure out how to apply its standards consistently.  It doesn't look like it will ever happen.

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Grading PolitiFact: Obama and unlisted loopholes

Words matter -- We pay close attention to the specific wording of a claim. Is it a precise statement? Does it contain mitigating words or phrases?
--Principles of PolitiFact and the Truth-O-Meter


The issue:

(clipped from PolitiFact.com)

The fact checkers:

Angie Drobnic Holan: writer, researcher
Martha M. Hamilton:  editor

Analysis:

PolitiFact, we are told, pays close attention to the specific wording of political claims.

We'll see.  Already in the clipped image above one can note semantic drifts between "refuse" and "won't" along with "willing to close" and "want to repeal."

To be sure, the paraphrases can work if one keeps context carefully in mind.  Let's fix the context carefully in mind:
Now, the proponents of this budget will tell us we have to make all these draconian cuts because our deficit is so large; this is an existential crisis, we have to think about future generations, so on and so on.  And that argument might have a shred of credibility were it not for their proposal to also spend $4.6 trillion over the next decade on lower tax rates.

We’re told that these tax cuts will supposedly be paid for by closing loopholes and eliminating wasteful deductions.  But the Republicans in Congress refuse to list a single tax loophole they are willing to close.  Not one.  And by the way, there is no way to get even close to $4.6 trillion in savings without dramatically reducing all kinds of tax breaks that go to middle-class families -- tax breaks for health care, tax breaks for retirement, tax breaks for homeownership.
President Obama is saying that the Ryan budget "spends" $4.6 trillion on lower tax rates, and the way the lower tax rates will "supposedly be paid for" is via closing tax loopholes and eliminating deductions to the tune of $4.6 trillion.

Obama is engaging in doublespeak.  If the budget pays for the $4.6 trillion by increasing taxes by closing loopholes and eliminating deductions then it isn't "spending" $4.6 trillion on lower tax rates. There are honest and forthright ways to express skepticism that the Ryan proposal remains neutral on income tax revenue.  Obama did not use one of them.

PolitiFact for its part glosses over the doublespeak to focus on the claim that "Republicans in Congress refuse to list a single tax loophole they are willing to close."

PolitiFact (bold emphasis added):
In principle, it’s certainly possible to eliminate exemptions and lower tax rates while keeping tax revenues the same. It’s usually called "broadening the base", and it was part of the 2010 Simpson Bowles budget commission that Obama has praised, though he’s stopped short of endorsing the bipartisan commission’s recommendations.

The point Obama made, though, was that the House Republicans haven’t said which exemptions they would end. Some of the largest exemptions are the most popular, such as tax exemptions on employer-provided health insurance, home mortgage interest and charitable donations, as well as special lower tax rates for income from investments, such as capital gains and dividends.
Note the portion receiving bold emphasis.  Once again, PolitiFact has applied semantic distortion.  Obama did not simply say that House Republicans haven't said which exemptions they would end.  He said they refused to name so much as one exemption they were even willing to cut.

We're supposed to believe that PolitiFact pays close attention to the wording of a claim.

PolitiFact's semantic presto chango in this case potentially makes the difference between "True" and "False."

The new Ryan budget does not list any single example of a tax loophole it would close ("True").  On the other hand, the budget's plan to close tax loopholes logically implies that it would close no less than one tax loophole.  Amplifying that point, one could say of the Ryan budget that it does not name a single loophole it would leave intact.

PolitiFact:
Committee staff pointed us to this statement on the House Budget Committee website:

"This budget calls for lowering tax rates and broadening the tax base. All corners of the tax code should be on the table. The House Ways and Means Committee, led by Chairman Dave Camp of Michigan, has held dozens of hearings over the past year examining how best to simplify the tax code while maximizing economic growth."

That doesn't entirely let House Republicans off the hook, though.
If it lets Republicans off the hook at all in any way then why does PolitiFact give Obama a "True" rating?

Alternatively, do Republicans refuse to name a single tax loophole they're willing to cut?


PolitiFact quoted part of a Fox News Sunday interview of Ryan.  Interviewer Chris Wallace asked Ryan for specifics.  Ryan deferred to the Ways and Means Committee, but Wallace pressed further:

PolitiFact (bold emphasis added):
Wallace: "All right. I understand, this is not your committee, it's the Ways and Means Committee. Can you tell me any (tax exemptions) that you're willing to say, do away with it?"

Ryan: "What I would say on doing away with it, is who would we do away with it for. And what we're saying is the people who disproportionately use those, it's the top two tax rate payers use almost of those tax expenditures. We would limit these things to those higher income earners."

Wallace: "Even things like the deduction for health insurance and pensions and home mortgage?"

Ryan: "Yes, right. Instead of giving these write-offs to the people in the top tax bracket, take those tax shelters away. For every dollar that's parked in the tax shelter is taxed at zero. Take away the tax shelter, subject all of their income to taxation, you get more revenue, and we can lower everybody's tax rate in return. So, we're saying let's limit these kinds of deductions to the higher-income earners so that everybody can enjoy lower, flatter tax rates in return.
Ryan affirmed that the plan targets specific items like the deduction for health insurance and pensions along with the home mortgage deduction.

PolitiFact apparently doesn't interpret Ryan as effectively naming three separate loopholes or tax shelters.  The fact check offers no additional comment on Ryan's response and moves straight to its conclusion:
Obama said, "Republicans in Congress refuse to list a single tax loophole they are willing to close." House Republicans have said they want to handle tax changes through the Ways and Means Committee, and the plan’s top proponent, Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, said he would limit deductions and exemptions for people who report higher incomes.

But without more details on eliminating exemptions, it’s impossible to know if the tax plan will substantially reduce tax revenues or not. It’s also not possible to know what all the implications are for taxpayers. We rate Obama’s statement True.

PolitiFact's conclusion ignores the facts and focuses on an irrelevancy.

The fact is that the Ryan plan intentionally allows the House Ways and Means Committee to exercise its discretion in achieving the budgetary goals.  PolitiFact says it doesn't get Republicans off the hook entirely, apparently meaning it doesn't get them off the hook at all.  Ryan affirms three specific loopholes and deductions he's willing to see eliminated.  But those don't count and PolitiFact does not explain why.  Then we're supposed to believe it is relevant to Obama's claim that the lack of detail makes it hard to tell whether the plan would substantially reduce revenues or not.  PolitiFact should have noticed the ease with which Obama scored the loss of revenue:  $4.6 trillion using the assumption that Republicans would cut no loopholes or deductions at all.

Obama claimed Republicans refused to name any tax deductions or loopholes they are willing to make.  PolitiFact quoted Ryan offering three exceptions but somehow failed to notice.

PolitiFact twisted Obama's claim into something like "Republicans haven't made a concrete proposal about what deductions and loopholes they would eliminate."  That's true, but it isn't what Obama said.  And what Obama said leaves out gobs of critical context even aside from its literal falsehood,.


The grades:


Angie Drobnic Holan:  F
Martha M. Hamilton:  F

I'm amazed that a team effort can produce results this horrifyingly awful.  Obama's literal claim was simply false if Ryan is counted as naming three specific examples by answering the interview question.  PolitiFact offered no reason for dismissing the legitimacy of the examples. 

Obama's underlying argument is effectively irrelevant if PolitiFact identified it correctly via the creative paraphrase.

The fact check consists mainly of semantic games and incoherent reasoning. 

These are journalists reporting badly.



Correction/Clarification 4/10/2012:  "Fact checkers" section had only Angie Drobnic Holan listed with her "F" grade.  Altered that section to its customary appearance with all contributors listed along with their roles. Also on 4/10 eliminated one of two uses of the word "discretion" in the same sentence.
Clarification 4/11/2012:  Changed "Republicans" to "lower tax rates" to make sense of a sentence in the paragraph following the quotation of Obama's remarks.

Saturday, April 07, 2012

Obama administration digs its Supreme Court hole even deeper

I caught a bit of the Neal Boortz radio program the other day that clued me to this story, so here's a hat tip for Mr. Boortz. 

It's amazing to observe the Obama administration ignore the first rule of holes with its nonsensical attempt to somehow make true President Obama's claim that a Supreme Court overturn of his health care law would represent "an unprecedented, extraordinary step of overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected Congress."

The latest spin from the White House is pure comedy gold (even without the Boortz delivery):
MR. CARNEY: What I accept and what I think I acknowledged yesterday --

Q This is a former --

MR. CARNEY: -- is that in speaking on Monday, the President was not clearly understood by some people. Because he is a law professor, he spoke in shorthand.
The President was speaking in shorthand!  Because he is a law professor!

The thing that really makes this statement from Carney so very delicious comes from the context.  The reporter brought up Laurence Tribe, a Harvard law professor (a real law professor) who says that Obama "clearly misspoke."

So ... shouldn't the fact that Tribe is a law professor mean that he would understand the shorthand of law professors?

I suppose it's just too late now for the White House to simply admit that the Mr. Obama misspoke.

Friday, April 06, 2012

Krauthammer brings the hammer

Perhaps the best one-line summary so far concerning the Supreme Court case considering the individual mandate:
Partisanship is four Democrat-appointed justices giving lock-step support to a law passed by a Democratic Congress and a Democratic president — after the case for its constitutionality had been reduced to rubble.
Awesome line.  The rest of Charles Krauthammer's column is similarly excellent.

Liberals in growing need of shark attacks

Thanks to some good reporting from a Fort Myers television news team, here's a video update of the voter fraud story PolitiFact graded about a month ago:



Florida obviously needs more shark attacks.

As I pointed out in my critique of PolitiFact, elections supervisors in Florida have few tools allowing them to detect and root out voter fraud.  The video helps confirm it.  It's nice to hear that jury duty forms declaring non-citizenship as a reason for avoiding jury duty will now go to where they can help close one easy method of illegal voting.

If only PolitiFact had shown one-tenth of the initiative shown by NBC2 in Fort Myers.

Thursday, April 05, 2012

PolitiFact spins Obama's Supreme Court falsehood

President Obama's astonishing statement to the effect that the Supreme Court doesn't strike down congressional legislation that passed with a strong majority has drawn a good bit of attention.  Over at associated blog PolitiFact Bias the statement was marked early as a good candidate for a fact check.  The Wall Street Journal obliged promptly via editorial.  PolitiFact weighed in yesterday with a "False" rating on its patented and silly "Truth-O-Meter."

So it's all good, right?

Not quite.

The "False" rating was a fairly easy call, and I hesitate to criticize the rating owing to my stance that PolitiFact's definitions make its "Pants on Fire" rating inherently unfair.  Such ratings are subjective.

With the rating off-limits for criticism, the reporting remains fair game.

Pondering ponderous majorities

First, PolitiFact's tale of the passage of the PPACA has a substantial hole in it.  Look for it:
In the case of the health care bill, the House and Senate had each passed different versions in 2009. It was expected the two bills would be integrated in conference committee, then voted on again. But before that could happen, the Democrats lost their 60-seat, filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. (Republican Scott Brown in January 2010 won the seat formerly held by the late Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass.) Anything that came out of conference committee at that point could have been held up in the Senate, blocked by 40 Republican senators.

Democrats decided to get around this by having the House simply accept the Senate’s version of the bill. Then Democrats in the House and Senate used a different measure -- a reconciliation bill, which requires only a simple majority -- to modify the law they had just passed.

The vote to pass the Senate version of the bill had been 60-39.

The bill passed the House 219-212 on March 21,2010.
Congressional Democrats used a bit of gamesmanship to push the bill through to the presidents desk.

Without reconciliation the bill does not pass.  Therefore, the votes on the reconciliation bills constitute a critical bit of context:
In a fitting finale to the yearlong health care saga, the budget reconciliation measure that included the final changes was approved first by the Senate and then by the House on a tumultuous day at the Capitol, as lawmakers raced to complete their work ahead of a two-week recess.

The final House vote was 220 to 207, and the Senate vote was 56 to 43, with the Republicans unanimously opposed in both chambers.
PolitiFact and The New York Times both omit the fact that the votes opposed exceed the number of Republicans.  The vote wasn't even along strict party lines.  A small number of Democrats crossed over in both houses of Congress to oppose the reconciliation bill.

In the House the main bill passed with a 50.8 percent majority.  The reconciliation measure passed with a 51.5 percent majority, an improvement of almost one percentage point but still a slim majority.

In the Senate the main bill passed with a 60.6 percent majority while the reconciliation bill passed with a 55.6 percent majority--a decline of five percentage points and also a slim majority.

PolitiFact's version of events inflates congressional support slightly.  The Democratic Party's strategy was necessary in particular because support for the bill in both houses of Congress was right around the threshold needed for passage.

PolitiFact's summary of the section repeats both minor points of spin:
Numerically speaking, neither vote reflects a very large margin of victory. In the Senate, 60 votes was actually the exact minimum needed to prevent a filibuster -- not a vote more. And in both chambers, not a single Republican voted for for the bill.

Charitable interpretation to the nth

In addition to spinning the vote totals, PolitiFact bends over backward to give Obama's post-gaffe explanation the benefit of the doubt:
This one, we’ll acknowledge, puzzled us.

The Supreme Court routinely reviews laws passed by Congress and either upholds or overturns them. For Obama to suggest that such an action would be unique in American history is something of a head-scratcher.
It's probably a puzzling head-scratcher because of its ridiculousness (read:  "Pants on Fire") if PolitiFact was not aware that Obama is the smartest person to live in the White House since Hillary Clinton. Since Obama is so smart, there must be a logical explanation.

After reviewing the historical evidence against Obama's literal statement, PolitiFact looked for a logical explanation.

I'll emphasize yet again that I favor charitable interpretation for all.  Charitable interpretations need to be reasonable, however.

PolitiFact:
Obama’s response: "We have not seen a court overturn a law that was passed by Congress on an economic issue, like health care ... at least since Lochner. Right? So we’re going back to the ’30s, pre-New Deal."

He further explained that, because the court has extraordinary power as the final say on laws, it "has traditionally exercised significant restraint and deference to our duly elected Legislature, our Congress. And so the burden is on those who would overturn a law like this."
Mr. Obama's explanation does not address what he actually said, though it's at least plausible on its face as a version of what Obama meant to say.

Does it pass muster with PolitiFact?

PolitiFact:
So, when given the chance to explain, Obama wasn’t saying it would be unprecedented simply for the Supreme Court to overturn a federal law.
So he wasn't saying what he said?  Did Obama misspeak, then?  And forget to inform his press secretary?
Carney defended that take at a White House press briefing on Wednesday, when asked if the president regretted his initial remarks.

“Not at all,” Carney said. “As I’ve said a number of times now, the president was making the unremarkable observation about 80 years of Supreme Court history.”
When asked if that meant the president was now clarifying his remarks, Carney shot back, “Only because a handful of people didn’t understand what he was referring to.”
No, it seems that the White House insists that Obama spoke quite clearly, or at least clearly enough so that a mere "handful of people" (dolts?) failed to understand what he meant.  Though legal scholar Laurence Tribe might object:
Constitutional law scholar Laurence Tribe, a Harvard Law School professor and former mentor to President Barack Obama, said the president “obviously misspoke” earlier this week when he made comments about the Supreme Court possibly overturning the health-care law.
PolitiFact ignores the dissonance between the original statement and the subsequent explanation.  PolitiFact compounds the problem by accepting the explanation at face value.
Obama’s elaboration a day later at least gives us more to think about. He argued that invalidation of the health care law would represent a court action unseen since the Great Depression on an issue that affects every American. [Norman] Ornstein echoed that interpretation, saying that a ruling by the court which overturns a major social policy and challenges prior court rulings would be unprecedented.
Wait a minute.  Did Obama argue that it would be unprecedented for the Court to undo a law "on an issue that affects every American"?

He did not.  The creative paraphrase is apparently PolitiFact's invention on behalf of Mr. Obama.  The paraphrase enables the writer to tie Obama's after-the-fact justification/rationalization to the remarks of an expert liberally quoted in the story, one Norman Ornstein of the conservative American Enterprise Institute.  The construction of the section featuring Ornstein leads me to suspect that PolitiFact takes Ornstein partially or wholly out of context, manipulating his words to agree with PolitiFact's mutation of Obama's explanation.

Add to this scathing criticisms of Obama's citation of Lochner v. New York by James Taranto and Eugene Volokh.

Conclusions:
PolitiFact:
But we’re taking Obama literally, and that historical perspective was not reflected in his original statement, which is what we're ruling on. He simply said the law passed with a strong majority and overturning it would be unprecedented. Wrong and wrong. We rate the statement False.
Let's give PolitiFact partial credit for "taking Obama literally."  The problem with PolitiFact taking Obama literally, however, is that Obama's statement leaves no discernible room for any interpretation but the literal.  The most charitable interpretation credits Obama with misstating what he meant to say.  Yet the White House rejects that position.

While I think that all "Pants on Fire" ratings are fundamentally unfair because PolitiFact has established no objective means of justifying the rating compared to a rating of "False," it seems highly likely this statement coming from Sarah Palin or a host of other Republicans would receive a "Pants on Fire" rating.  The fact that the statement came from a person lauded for teaching constitutional law makes it worse, not better.


Update 4/13/2012:
Eliminated a redundant use of "majority" in the sentence dealing with votes on the ACA reconciliation bill.

Monday, April 02, 2012

Grading PolitiFact: Reince Priebus and the CBO

HALF TRUE – The statement is partially accurate but leaves out important details or takes things out of context.
--Principles of PolitiFact and the Truth-O-Meter
The above is not to suggest that PolitiFact has eliminated its inconsistency with respect to defining the "Half True" rating.  But that's another story.


The issue:

(clipped from PolitiFact.com)

The fact checkers:

Louis Jacobson: writer, researcher
Bill Adair: editor


Analysis:

I repeatedly try to give PolitiFact the benefit of the doubt as trying to do its job fairly and objectively.  Cases like this one featuring Reince Priebus make granting the benefit of the doubt very difficult.  Cases like this one look like simple partisan hackwork instead of journalism.  Comparing this fact check with one of President Obama helps highlight the mockery of journalistic objectivity, especially since writer/researcher Louis Jacobson and editor Bill Adair contributed to both stories.

PolitiFact introduces us to the statement by RNC chairman Reince Priebus (bold emphasis added):
Priebus pointed to what he saw as a range of problems with the law, but we zeroed in on one claim. "While millions will be added to the government rolls, millions more will also lose their current health-care coverage," Priebus wrote, later explaining, "According to the (Congressional Budget Office), as many as 20 million Americans could lose their employer-based insurance thanks to Obamacare."

Is the health care law really going to leave 20 million American workers without health insurance from their employers?
Note that the second paragraph asks a question that alters Priebus' claim.  The Obama story does the exact same thing, so both stories contain the same type of error on this point.  Both men said "as much as" and PolitiFact dropped the phrase in both cases while identifying the target claim of the fact check.

PolitiFact:
When we asked the RNC to back up its number, a spokeswoman pointed us to a March 2012 study by the Congressional Budget Office. We often cite CBO’s research because we consider their work to be independent, nonpartisan and credible. We wondered whether Priebus had used CBO’s figure appropriately, and with sufficient context.
It's fair to judge Priebus on whether Priebus used the CBO figure accurately and appropriately along with sufficient context.  If PolitiFact uses similar standards for figures like the president then so much the better.

Ranging for ranges

Sunday, April 01, 2012

Open mic gaffe? What open mic gaffe? (Updated)

"In the know, in the Times" goes the jingle for the St. Petersburg Times.  I don't know if the paper uses the jingle. The paper changed its name to the Tampa Bay Times at the start of this year.

Are Times readers "in the know"?

From time to time I'll plug some search terms into the newspaper's online search feature to see what comes up.  This time I tried "Medvedev Obama mic" to see if Times readers knew about Obama telling Russia's president that he would have more flexibility with respect to cutting a deal on antimissile systems after his election.

I got this from a story about Florida senator Marco Rubio endorsing Mitt Romney:
Rubio defended his endorsement to the Daily Caller this week, saying he was motivated by Obama's open-microphone gaffe with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.
That's it.  That's as much description of the incident as this story contains.

Two other search hits came from years past.

Any reader who makes it all the way to the twelfth paragraph of the Rubio story, if relying on the Times for news, apparently has no idea what Obama did to edge Rubio toward endorsing Romney.  It's a hole in the story and perhaps a hole in the newspaper.


Update 4/2/2012:

I sent reporter Drew Harwell a message inquiring whether the Times had published anything to do with the Obama/Medvedev mic incident.  He replied a short time ago, pointing me to a story from The New York Times he says (I have no reason to doubt him) appeared in the March 28 version of the Tampa Times.

I should have remembered, having encountered this issue before, that the Times' website does not include results like those printed from other papers or (iirc) material from the Associated Press.

With that context added, I'd call the hole in Harwell's story minor.  Barely a pockmark.

Note to self: Don't expect comprehensive results from the Times' search feature.

April Artist: Points North

May was a good month for me in the new music department.

A new project featuring favorite guitarist Steve Morse along with some other big-name talent, Flying Colors, saw release last week.  It sounds great and may turn into a classic.  Musically it falls in the wide and eclectic space between Toy Matinee and 90125 (Yes) with a bit of Queen thrown in for good measure.

Two weeks prior to the release of Flying Colors, a new instrumental trio called "Points North" released its debut.  It's pretty easy to sell me on instrumental music that takes cues from Steve Morse and/or Eric Johnson.  Points North gets the nod as the April artist, edging Flying Colors thanks to the fact that the latter has no ReverbNation embed gadget.

Listen to Points North here, check out Flying Colors at Facebook or Amazon.com. I recommend the tune "The Phoenix." 

Hrm.  ReverbNation has changed the embed to make it 95 percent less groovy.  No fancy graphics or mini-jukebox appearance.  On the plus side, "The Phoenix" appears to play first by default.  Good choice!

Here's a Points North video featuring the song "Steve's Morsel's":




Addendum: 

Popular artist Frankie Rose (actually literally popular) also caught my ear in a big way in May, garnering honorable mention here.  Rose's solo  album ("Interstellar") has 60s girl-group pop sensibilities combined with fractured guitars reminiscent of those found in the music of Tonio K and T-Bone Burnett, all delivered on a sumptuously atmospheric palette.  Good stuff.



Correction 4/2/2012:  I should have known better than to put an "e" at the end of "T-Bone Burnett."  It didn't look right and I should have double-checked.  Apologies to Mr. Burnett.