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.

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.

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.

PolitiFlub: The unaccountable redefining of "unaccountable"

Few things succinctly illustrate PolitiFact's incompetence than its routine re-imagining of word definitions.

PolitiFact's March 22 item on Mitt Romney's claim that ObamaCare "ends Medicare as we know it" (the parody wasn't obvious to PolitiFact, apparently) included a repeat of PolitiFact's insistence that the Independent Payment Advisory Board is not an "unaccountable" body.

What does "unaccountable" mean?

I'll put the bulk of the evaluation at the end (see "Afters"), but the Oxford Advanced American Dictionary provides the operative definition:

2 unaccountable (to someone/something)  
not having to explain or give reasons for your actions to anyone 

• Too many government departments are unaccountable to the general public.

PolitiFact confuses the limits on the IPAB's power with accountability:

Is IPAB unaccountable? The answer is: No.

Members are chosen by the president and confirmed by the Senate. The board would not issue edicts. It would make recommendations. If Congress does not act on its recommendations within a set time, the recommendations are automatically implemented.

But Congress has other opportunities to intervene. According to a Kaiser Family Foundation analysis, the full House and Senate may consider amendments that change or repeal the board's recommendations as long as those changes meet the same fiscal criteria as the board itself uses. Congress is even granted a one-time opportunity to introduce legislation to dismantle IPAB permanently. This would require approval between January 2017 and Aug. 15, 2017, with the support of three-fifths of the members of the House and Senate.

So Congress has multiple ways to intervene. This negates the argument that its actions are "unaccountable."

PolitiFact's supposed negation of Romney's argument relies on making up a new definition of "unaccountable," something along the lines of "able to do whatever you want no matter what anybody says or does."

By the operative definition, however, the IPAB is unaccountable by design, name and definition.  It is the Independent Payment Advisory Board.

The word "Independent" does not occur in the name by accident.

The board is specifically designed to work independently of executive branch authority just like the Supreme Court (appointed by, but not under the authority of).  And it is likewise independent in exercising authority within its statutory limits without owing any reason or explanation for its decisions to anyone, including Congress.

In short, the IPAB is unaccountable by name and definition but PolitiFact can't figure it out.


Afters:

Webster's New World College Dictionary is the standard for publications using AP style.  PolitiFact publishes based on a variant of AP style.  Here's "unaccountable" as defined by Webster's New World College Dictionary:

Not accountable; not responsible

Not much help, is it?  Perhaps we can fill in the blanks with the definition of "accountable":

Obliged to account for one's acts; responsible

And there it is, approximately as clear as in the Oxford Advanced American Dictionary version.  The IPAB never has to account for its actions.  It was made explicitly independent.  Congressional actions that forestall implementation of IPAB recommendations are irrelevant to the accountability of the IPAB.

What does it say about PolitiFact that it can flub this issue with no less than a writer/researcher, editor and a team of three editors overseeing the final product?



Correction/Update:  Changed "'Medicare are we know it'" to "'Medicare as we know it.'"  The team of three editors that reviews my work prior to publication has been sacked.

Grading PolitiFact: Obama, Bush and the auto bailout

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

 Apparently context doesn't matter much, depending on the subject.

The issue:

(clipped from PolitiFact.com)

The fact checkers:

Molly Moorhead:  writer, researcher
Martha M. Hamilton:  editor


Analysis:

This fact check serves as an outstanding example of narrowing the story focus to fish a grain of truth out of an overall falsehood.

The incompetence is overpowering.  Note that PolitiFact frames the issue by stipulating that the $13 billion "given" by the Bush administration was gone "By the time Obama took office."   That bit of timing isn't mentioned in the film, so far as I can tell, though I was able to note that it used a Dec. 2, 2008 television news clip to emphasize the immediacy of the crisis faced by President Obama.

The film and PolitiFact omit a number of important facts.  First, GM received another $4 billion loan in February under the agreement worked out with the Bush administration.   Part of the agreement required the two automakers to submit plans for achieving financial stability by February.  The report of the Congressional Oversight Panel details the response from the Obama administration:

On February 15, 2009, President Obama announced the formation of an interagency Presidential Task Force on the Auto Industry (Task Force), that would assume responsibility for reviewing the Chrysler and GM viability plans.

The timing is far more complicated than either the film or PolitiFact lets on, and the loans from Bush were not necessarily "gone" when Obama took office, particularly in the case of the $4 billion received by GM in February, though that amount is not counted in the $13 billion through the magic of cherry picking the facts.

Let's pick up with PolitiFact's telling (bold emphasis added):

On the subject of Detroit, car company CEOs appear onscreen asking for money in Washington, followed by pictures of empty factories and dire news headlines. The movie talks about the financial pressures on the new president and the unpopularity with the public of more bailouts. But Obama, [narrator Tom] Hanks says, acted anyway to help American workers.

"He decided to intervene, but in exchange for help the president would demand action. The Bush administration had given the car companies $13 billion, and the money was now gone," Hanks says.

Then President Bill Clinton appears onscreen to lend his voice.

"He didn’t just give the car companies the money, and he didn’t give the UAW the money," Clinton says. "He said you guys gotta work together and come up, and everybody’s gotta have some skin in the game here. You gotta modernize the automobile industry."

This segment of the film is not about the history of $13 billion out of a total of $17 billion loaned to automakers by the Bush administration.  It is fully intended to build a contrast between the incoming president and his supposedly irresponsible predecessor.  That point is extremely misleading, as we shall continue to observe.

PolitiFact:

Bush authorized initial loans to Chrysler and GM (and their respective financing arms) before leaving office, using money from the Troubled Asset Relief Program. Chrysler initially received $4 billion, and GM got $13.4 billion in bridge loans meant to keep the companies afloat for a little longer.

Apparently the math amounts to $4 billion plus $13.4 billion equals $13 billion.  And that $13 billion was gone by Jan. 20 even though $884 million was loaned to GMAC on Jan. 16.  It lasted only four days by PolitiFact's account.

Of course the excess $4 billion was loaned in February as described above.  You just don't get to learn that from the PolitiFact version of events.

PolitiFact:

Early in 2009 [mid February], Obama convened a task force to study the companies’ viability. Both were required [through the agreement with the Bush administration] to submit plans for getting back to solvency, but both failed, the task force determined. In the meantime, they were running short of money again.

Pardon my editorial counterspin--which shouldn't be necessary for a fact check.  Unfortunately it is necessary.  GM, by the way, received its last Bush loan on Feb. 17, two days after Obama announced his task force.

PolitiFact:

A report from the Congressional Oversight Panel details the chronology of the spending, including an additional $6.36 billion that GM received between March and May 2009.

The $6.36 billion does not include the $4 billion loaned in February under the agreement with the Bush administration.  Nor does it include $8.5 billion sunk into Chrysler by the Obama administration as part of its restructuring.  Neither does it include the $30.1 billion subsequently sunk into GM as part of its eventual restructuring.  Both the latter figures come from the Congressional Oversight Panel's report PolitiFact cited.

PolitiFact interviewed former Obama team member Steve Rattner about the bailout numbers.  PolitiFact presents Rattner as agreeing that the funds from the Bush administration were exhausted "before we really were in the saddle."  Rattner states that the loans from the Bush administration weren't intended to rescue GM and Chrysler but rather to tide them over until the Obama administration could deal with the situation.

PolitiFact does not totally ignore the film's point about Bush:

We also think it’s worth mentioning the implication in the video that the Bush administration did not put enough restrictions on the money. "He decided to intervene, but in exchange for help the president would demand action," narrator Hanks says just before mentioning the Bush loans.

In case PolitiFact isn't the only party who missed it, note that the filmmaker uses the quotation of Bill Clinton to hammer the point all the more.  It was the main point of the segment, and it was untrue.

What's the verdict?

PolitiFact:

The Obama campaign movie says, "the Bush administration had given the car companies $13 billion and the money was now gone."

It's important to note that the $13 billion was provided as loans, not as grants, as the wording might suggest.

Referring to the time Obama took office, January 2009, GM and Chrysler by then had received almost $14 billion in bailout money. News reports also reflect that the money was basically used up. So, that much is correct. But the movie ignores the fact that this was not unexpected. The Bush administration’s loans were always just a temporary lifeline, meant to keep the companies operating so the new president would have time to decide what to do long term.

This is important information left out of the movie’s extensive discussion of the auto bailouts. That the $13 billion was gone when Obama arrived was no surprise. We rate the statement Mostly True.

The film glosses over quite a few facts that PolitiFact fails to note.  The point of the film is the contrast between the president who demands accountability and Bush who simply gives money away to big corporations.  The movie's account of the auto bailout is thorough spin.  Fact checking isolated statements in the fabric of this filmmaker's fiction will never fully reveal the misleading nature of the narrative.

If Obama went against popular sentiment on the bailout then so did Bush.  If Obama demanded accountability then so did Bush, albeit the latter's attempt was hamstrung by the end of his tenure as president.

PolitiFact disgraces itself again by connecting the film's distortion with a "Mostly True" label.


The grades:

Molly Moorhead:  F
Martha M. Hamilton:  F

PolitiFact let the main misleading message of the auto bailout segment slide.  PolitiFact's reporting corrected a fraction of the film's omissions and shades on the truth.  PolitiFact's version is scarcely an improvement on the original.

But President Obama and his campaign might like it.  That's got to count for something.


Clarification:  Changed to "the film's distortion" instead of "this distortion" in the final paragraph of the analysis portion.
Update 3/24/2012:  Fixed a couple of bad links.