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?

Grading PolitiFact: Mitt Romney and Obama's apologies

At PolitiFact's FaceBook page:

We had several readers ask us recently to fact-check whether Obama has apologized many times for the United States. Here's a report we wrote last year, for those who are interested in the issue.

The term "recycled garbage" comes to mind ...


The issue:

The fact checkers:

Angie Drobnic Holan:  writer, researcher
Morris Kennedy:  editor

Analysis:

What Romney wrote, with yellow highlights indicating the portions reproduced in the PolitiFact story:

Never before in American history has its president gone before so many foreign audiences to apologize for so many American misdeeds, both real and imagined," Romney writes. "It is his way of signaling to foreign countries and foreign leaders that their dislike for America is something he understands and that is, at least in part, understandable. There are anti-American fires burning all across the globe; President Obama's words are like kindling to them.

President Obama, always the skillful politician, will throw in compliments about America here and there.  But what makes his speeches jump out at his audience are the steady stream of criticisms, put-downs, and jabs directed at the nation he was elected to represent and defend.

In his first nine months in office, President Obama has issued apologies and criticisms of America in speeches in France, England, Turkey, and Cairo; at the CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, the National Archives in Washington, D.C., and the United Nations in New York City. He has apologized for what he deems to be American arrogance, dismissiveness, and derision; for dictating solutions, for acting unilaterally, and for acting without regard for others; for treating other countries as mere proxies, for unjustly interfering in the internal affairs of other nations, and for feeding anti-Muslim sentiments; for committing torture, for dragging our feet on global warming and for selectively promoting democracy.

The lone portion from the above not directly quoted by PolitiFact was accurately summed up via paraphrase.

After noting that criticizing Obama over apologies makes up a theme of conservative criticism, writer Drobnic begins the fact check:

(A)s we looked over Obama's remarks, we noticed that he never used the word that is the universal hallmark of apologies: "sorry." Merriam-Webster defines an apology as "an admission of error or discourtesy accompanied by an expression of regret." If someone is apologizing, it seems that is a discrete act that can be verified and fact-checked. We set out to discover how accurate Romney was in describing Obama as constantly apologizing.

Drobnic's approach provides ample reason for concern.  If "sorry" is "the universal hallmark of apologies" then wouldn't Merriam-Webster include that in the definition?  Or American Heritage, maybe?

To make excuse for or regretful acknowledgment of a fault or offense.

thefreedictionary.com (The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)

Regret may be expressed by means such as the tone of voice or even body language.  "Sorry" is not necessary.

From this precarious foundation, PolitiFact proceeds to specific examples.

Grading PolitiFact: Mike Pence and the job-killing financial regulation bill

What is it with these Republicans and their violent rhetoric?


The issue:

PolitiFact.com

Note the date of the statement from Pence.  July 15, 2010.  Such a timely fact check!  What brings this on?

The fact checkers:

Louis Jacobson:  writer, researcher
Morris Kennedy:  editor

Analysis:

The subject, as noted above, is the Dodd-Frank financial regulation bill that was passed with very little help from Republicans.

PolitiFact:

The law is complex -- here is a summary assembled by the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee -- but in general, the bill created an independent consumer protection agency, established new ways to liquidate failed financial firms, created a council to warn about systemic risks to the financial system and tighten regulatory scrutiny of the financial system while increasing transparency.

The portions of the summary mentioned by PolitiFact all come from the "Highlights of the bill" section of the summary.  The summary also includes stuff such as this:

Costs to Financial Firms, Not Taxpayers: Charges the largest financial firms $50 billion for an upfront fund, built up over time, that will be used if needed for any liquidation. Industry, not the taxpayers, will take a hit for liquidating large, interconnected financial companies.

The pledge that industry rather than taxpayers take the hit for bailout costs is laughable, by the way.  Such costs are always passed on to the consumer.  That even includes people who don't ordinarily pay federal taxes, like a person below poverty level who has late charges levied on their bank account.  In short, the bill sets up a tax that is embedded in the cost of doing banking.

On July 15, 2010, shortly after the Senate passed the measure, then-House Republican Conference Chairman Mike Pence, R-Ind., released a statement critical of the bill. In part, it said, "This so-called financial reform bill will kill jobs, raise taxes, restrict the flow of credit, make bailouts permanent and turn the Democrats’ disastrous too-big-to-fail approach into federal law."

(...)

As part of our look at the range of bills that have been attacked as "job-killing," we thought we'd look at whether the charge is accurate when leveled against the Dodd-Frank bill.

 So there's the fact they're checking.  On with the fact check:

Grading PolitiFact: Sarah Palin & defense spending (Updated)

"There is ... a deep anti-military bias in the media. One that begins from the premise that the military must be lying, and that American projection of power around the world must be wrong."
--Terry Moran of ABC News, broadcast on the Hugh Hewitt Show May 18, 2005

Who knew?

Sarah Palin submitted a new post to her FaceBook page.  That's news, and time again for PolitiFact to fact check.


The issue:

PolitiFact did its work for two of Palin's claims.  I'm posting the main page blurbs together as they appeared there:

I'm including both images because the second one accounts for some of the context of Palin's statement about the 25th ranking for the U.S.

The fact checkers:

Louis Jacobson:  writer, researcher
Morris Kennedy:  editor

Analysis:

PolitiFact often deals with the literal statement as well as the underlying argument.

Louis Jacobson begins:

In a June 30, 2010, Facebook post, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin posted excerpts from a speech she gave in Norfolk, Va., primarily on national security. At one point, she said, "Did you know the U.S. actually only ranks 25th worldwide on defense spending as a percentage of GDP?"

PolitiFact claims that it grades claims while keeping them in context.  Perhaps revealing the her overall subject, national security, adequately fulfills that goal.  Just in case, here's more:

Our Defense Secretary recently stated the “gusher” of defense spending was over and that it was time for the Department of Defense to tighten its belt. There’s a gusher of spending alright, but it’s not on defense. Did you know the US actually only ranks 25th worldwide on defense spending as a percentage of GDP? We spend three times more on entitlements and debt services than we do on defense.
(yellow highlights added)

Note that the third sentence represents this fact check.  The following sentence is the one also receiving a fact check.  What is the underlying argument?  Most likely Palin sought to support her claim that there is no "gusher" of defense spending compared to other spending and chose two stats she expected to surprise her audience in order to underline that judgment.  That Palin presents one of the factoids as a question supports that interpretation.

Assuming I am correct, PolitiFact's decision to fact check the two claims at least partially validates her underlying argument.  PolitiFact found the claim surprising, as was made clear by Jacobson statement after he had quoted Palin:

At one point, she said, "Did you know the U.S. actually only ranks 25th worldwide on defense spending as a percentage of GDP?"

We didn't, so we decided to check up on her statistic.

We quickly tracked down the chart from which we suspect she pulled her factoid. (Her staff didn't return our e-mail query.) It's a credible source -- the CIA World Factbook -- and, as Palin said, the U.S. does rank 25th in the world, spending an estimated 4.06 percent of GDP on defense in 2005.

With the "False" and "Pants On Fire" ratings apparently ruled out, let's review the descriptions for the remaining "Truth-O-Meter" possibilities:

TRUE – The statement is accurate and there’s nothing significant missing.
MOSTLY TRUE – The statement is accurate but needs clarification or additional information.
HALF TRUE – The statement is accurate but leaves out important details or takes things out of context.
BARELY TRUE – The statement contains some element of truth but ignores critical facts that would give a different impression.

Review completed, back to Jacobson:

Case closed? Not really.

The list includes all countries, regardless of size, so some tiny countries outrank the United States on the CIA list. There's Eritrea at number 9 (with an economy about 1/1000th of the size of the U.S. economy); Burundi at number 11 (with an economy that's even less than 1/1000th the size of the U.S. economy); and Maldives at 13th (with an economy roughly the same size as Burundi's).

Though Palin specifically stated that the U.S. was 25th "worldwide," apparently she misled in Jacobson's eyes.

Jacobson:

All told, only four nations on the CIA list could be described as either industrialized democracies or major world players. They are Israel (6th), Turkey (16th), China (23rd) and Greece (24th).

Probably Jacobson meant that only four of the nations rated above the U.S. on the list were major world players.  If the list "includes all countries" as Jacobson claimed earlier, then we ought to find every industrialized democracy and major world player on the list.  It's OK for PolitiFact to misstate things like that, however.  The important thing is the other guy is not accurate.  Apparently Palin should have asked "Did you know that U.S. actually only ranks 5th among major world players on defense spending as a percentage of GDP?"  That would have made a huge difference or something.

Then Jacobson drops what probably accounts for the bigger complaint:

Is there a better yardstick? We think there is -- using rankings of members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. The OECD is a group of 31 nations that are generally large, industrialized democracies. This list makes the comparison closer to one of peers.

Hmm.  How many of those "large, industrialized democracies" are members of NATO and thus substantially subsidized in their defense by the U.S.?  It's easier to list the world players not part of NATO:

• Australia
• Chile
• Korea
• Mexico
• New Zealand
• Sweden
• Austria
• Finland
• Ireland
• Japan
• Switzerland

We can add Japan and Korea immediately to the list of nations substantially subsidized in their national defense by the U.S.

Should any others qualify as resting under U.S. protection? I would suggest Australia (by treaty), Austria (nestled in the midst of NATO), Mexico (by proximity) and Switzerland (like Austria surrounded by NATO).

That leaves us only with Chile, New Zealand, Sweden and Finland as nations not unambiguously subsidized in their defense by the U.S. military. PolitiFact wants us to compare our military spending as a percentage of GDP with nations whose defense we subsidize plus two nations, Finland and Sweden, with an official policy of neutrality. New Zealand is geographically isolated and has a defense treaty with Australia. Chile has no history of using its military away from its home continent of South America. That's the best comparison? Ridiculous.

Additional sifting through the data revealed more problems. The OECD did not originate the data from which its list was derived. The data came from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.  And the following is from their description of their methodology:

SIPRI data reflects the official data reported by governments. As a general rule, SIPRI takes national data to be accurate until there is convincing information to the contrary. Estimates are made primarily when the coverage of official data does not correspond to the SIPRI definition or when there are no consistent time series available.

What makes SIPRI data better than CIA data?  Clearly superiority is not established by concentrating the comparison between the U.S. and other nations whose defense the U.S. subsidizes.  Just as clearly, giving non-transparent regimes (such as China) the benefit of the doubt minus strong evidence to the contrary tilts the board in favor of secretive nations.  To be sure, PolitiFact grants the caveat that secrecy is a problem--but then why prefer SIPRI as a data source in the first place?  Minus a recommendation from a consensus of neutral experts, PolitiFact's preference cannot count as an objective judgment.  It is opinion.

Speaking of expert opinions, Jacobson includes but one in his story:

Todd Harrison, a fellow with the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, said other factors set the U.S. apart.

"In absolute dollars, we spend almost as much as all other countries combined," Harrison said. "So saying we are 25th is a bit misleading and a selective use of facts."

OK, then, let's take the test.  It consists of one question:


Which of the following best matches "a bit misleading and a selective use of facts"?

A)  The statement is accurate and there’s nothing significant missing.
B)  The statement is accurate but needs clarification or additional information.
C)  The statement is accurate but leaves out important details or takes things out of context. 
D)  The statement contains some element of truth but ignores critical facts that would give a different    impression.

If you chose D then you have something in common with Louis Jacobson and PolitiFact:

Although she's technically correct, the numbers are wildly skewed by tiny, non-industrialized countries. We find her claim Barely True.

If, on the other hand, you thought Harrison's statement fit B or C just about as well if not better, I sympathize.

The fact is that Palin provided additional context that touched on the great expense involved in projecting power throughout the world:

It takes a lot of resources to maintain the best fighting force in the world – especially at a time when we face financial uncertainty and a mountain of debt that threatens all of our futures.

***

If we lose wars, if we lose the ability to deter adversaries, if we lose the ability to provide security for ourselves and for our allies, we risk losing all that makes America great! That is a price we cannot afford to pay.

***

Secretary Gates recently spoke about the future of the US Navy. He said we have to “ask whether the nation can really afford a Navy that relies on $3 to $6 billion destroyers, $7 billion submarines, and $11 billion carriers.” He went on to ask, “Do we really need... more strike groups for another 30 years when no other country has more than one?”

Well, my answer is pretty simple: Yes, we can and, yes, we do because we must. Our Navy has global responsibilities.

Palin was "technically correct."  So what was misleading in the underlying argument?  What numbers were supposedly "wildly skewed" by Palin's use of the CIA fact book?  Jacobson never identifies the target he claims Palin missed other than to claim that U.S. defense spending ought to be compared to nations either under our protective umbrella or with other reasons for low defense spending that do not allow for a fair comparison.  And he uses a dubious source to make the critical comparison with the nations who might tend to cause defense concerns for the U.S.

The grades:

Louis Jacobson:  F
Morris Kennedy:  F

PolitiFact left important data hidden and inserted opinion, if not error, by preferring a different measure based on incoherent grounds.

The fact check is not so much horrible for its rating of Palin but for the fact that PolitiFact does the same types of things for which Palin is faulted.  If it is wrong for Palin to leave out relevant data then it is wrong for PolitiFact to leave out relevant data.

Afters:

Grading PolitiFact: George Will on perfect game umpiring

Sometimes PolitiFact fact checks claims about sports.  I guess it beats delving into whether or not Sen. Barbara Boxer is certifiably insane when she claims the Deepwater Horizon oil spill serves as an example of the harmful effects of "too much carbon."  That in the context of defending the EPA's claim to regulatory power over carbon dioxide emissions.


The issue:

While arguing that Major League Baseball should not overrule the baseball umpire, Will stated that the last pitch in Don Larsen's World Series perfect game was "a foot and a half, probably, high and outside."  My transcription is better than the one PolitiFact used, for the record.



The key portion occurs at about the 2:15 on the video.  PolitiFact chose to fact check the distance factor on Larsen's third strike to Dodgers batter Dale Mitchell.

The fact checkers:

Louis Jacobson:  writer, researcher
Morris Kennedy:  editor

Analysis:

While providing the background information on the fact check, Louis Jacobson took a curious step outside the normal realm of objective reporting.  "This Week" host Jake Tapper had introduced earlier portions of the Round Table segment by tipping the audience and the panel that the later discussion would include the much-publicized baseball controversy.  Jacobson wrote that Tapper asked Will about the perfect game that wasn't.  Note how Jacobson starts the subsequent paragraph:

Will -- a bestselling author on baseball and one of the game's most prominent fans -- took Tapper's bait as if it were a hanging curve ball.

Hanging curve ball?  A hanging curve ball is mistake.  Tapper wasn't trying to strike anybody out.  He was pitching batting practice.  It wasn't "bait."  It was just another part of the buffet.  The implication that Tapper was out to somehow trap Will is ridiculous.

Jacobson never really recovers from the bad beginning:

"In the most important perfect game ever pitched -- 1956, Don Larsen in the World Series -- the 27th out was made by Dale Mitchell," Will said. "A wonderful batter's eye he had. He struck out 119 times in 4,000 Major League at-bats. The umpire (Pinelli) -- it was his last game, by the way -- called strike three on Dale Mitchell. It was a foot and half probably high and outside. He was so eager to get the game over."

A foot and a half outside the strike zone seemed to us like a pretty badly blown call. We thought it would be worth checking to see if Will was correct in how he described Pinelli's call.

I have no problem with PolitiFact placing a focus on the amount of space between Larsen's pitch and the strike zone.  But the fact check will not be complete without keeping to the context of Will's remarks.  Even if taken literally rather than as hyperbole, Will is reasonably entitled to the normal imprecision we employ with numbers.  "A foot and a half" is a reasonable expression of 15 inches.  That is, it represents the standard round-up from the halfway point between one foot and "a foot and a half." 

I wonder what sort of measuring tape Jacobson will use to fact check Will?

Jacobson tried to contact Will to see if he had viewed the game.  That was a sensible move, but Will reportedly did not respond.  Jacobson then started picking over other aspects of Will's statement, such as the claim about Mitchell's sense of the strike zone:

Let's note that Will is correct about Mitchell's career statistics -- he struck out only 119 times in 3,984 at bats -- but did not mention that Mitchell was at the end of his career, with some baseball experts saying he'd lost a step. Mitchell's plate appearance against Larsen was the second-to-last of his career, and he batted just .204 (11-for-54) during the 1956 regular season and went hitless in four at-bats in the World Series.

Losing a step doesn't typically affect a player's sense of the strike zone.  Taken literally, it makes him slower to first base.  Taken charitably, it makes his bat slower.  The latter can make a player more susceptible to striking out even if he has a good sense of the strike zone.  But none of that, including the stats provided by PolitiFact, seems to affect Will's point that Mitchell had a good sense of the strike zone.

Jacobson then takes up a second distraction, noting that Will was not correct that Larsen's perfect game was not the last as umpire for Babe Pirelli.  It was his last game as a home plate umpire.  I'd say that was probably what Will meant, but PolitiFact doesn't show much of a propensity for using charitable interpretation.

Next, Jacobson provided a series of quotations from expert sources affirming that the called third strike was outside the strike zone.  Jacobson's assessment followed:

But none of this proves that Pinelli's call was as flagrantly out of the strike zone as Will suggests.

Barbaric grammar aside (Pinelli's call might have been flagrantly wrong, but the issue isn't whether the call was outside the strike zone), Jacobson is correct that the expert sources do not confirm the distance figure offered by Will.

Jacobson finishes by noting that the bulk of the experts he contacted agreed that Will was exaggerating but that the pitch was likely not a strike.  Some experts defended the call on the basis that the pitch was "too close to take."  With that, Jacobson is ready for his conclusion:

So let's recap. There's ample evidence -- including the players' eyewitness testimony -- that the pitch was not a down-the-middle, obvious strike. In all likelihood, it was somewhat out of the strike zone. But we found wide agreement among our experts that Will is exaggerating when he says that Larsen's pitch was a foot and a half outside the strike zone. And if it wasn't a flagrantly bad call like Joyce's earlier this month, then the example's value for Will is reduced. As umpire, we rate Will's statement Half True.

Note Jacobson's assertion that "the example's value for Will is reduced" if the call was not as blatantly wrong.  Jacobson appears to have missed the point of the example.  Will, after describing the bad call by the World Series umpire, went on to suppose that baseball's commissioner was in the stands and that he might move onto the field and call a do-over.  The example drew its strength from the critical (and now historic) situation more than from the degree of poor judgment from the umpire.

As always, I have no problem with noting exaggeration where it has likely taken place.  But PolitiFact would improve its service to its readers if it more often recognized the legitimacy of hyperbole in normal communication.

The grades:

Louis Jacobson:  F
Morris Kennedy:  F

The sheer amount of ridiculousness easily overshadows the potentially valuable survey of expert sources.  And it could have been mentioned that Will himself is arguably as expert as any of the others.

Afters:

I was bugged by one particular aspect of the video material for the Don Larsen's World Series perfect game.  The camera angle for every pitch except the final pitch was from directly behind the plate.  The camera angle for the final pitch--the one allegedly high and outside--was from the right of the plate.  The altered camera angle makes it more difficult to gauge the degree to which the call was blown.

I find it hard to imagine that the cameraman suddenly decided to move over to the right (and back?) in between pitches during what might turn out as the final out of a World Series game.  Most likely a different camera angle was used to make it less obvious that the call was questionable at best.

Follow this link to see an at bat by Duke Snider in the same game.  Every pitch matches the camera angle at left in the image above.

I'd be interested in hearing from anyone who has viewed the third strike to Mitchell from the left camera angle, or who knows the story behind the different camera angle we see on the right side.



July 22, 2010:  Clarified Pirelli's "last" as umpire.

Grading PolitiFact: Chris Matthews and Cheney's signing bonus

Chris Matthews blurted out plenty of interesting things during a May 20 appearance on "The Tonight Show" with host Jay Leno.  And PolitiFact was there.  Sort of.

The issue:

The fact checkers:

Louis Jacobson:  writer, researcher
Morris Kennedy:  editor

Analysis:

Before getting the nod from George W. Bush to join him in the race for the White House, Dick Cheney was CEO of a major American company.  Big companies often end up giving departing CEOs an "exit package" of eye-popping numbers.  Chris Matthews made a big deal of the amount Cheney received from Halliburton back in 2000.  What made this newsworthy?   Here's how PolitiFact tells it:

The oil-services and infrastructure giant Halliburton is a favorite target for critics of former Vice President Dick Cheney, who used to be the company's CEO. During the presidency of George W. Bush, the company's Iraq War-related contracts attracted wide attention. Now, the company's role in the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has brought Halliburton back into the headlines.

With Halliburton back in the headlines we must be halfway to Cheney.

During a May 20, 2010, appearance with Jay Leno on the Tonight Show, MSNBC host and political commentator Chris Matthews revived the Cheney-Halliburton connection while discussing the spill.

At one point in the interview, Leno said, "All right, a lot going on in politics with this BP thing. This is the one-month anniversary. Where are we? Who’s the lying scum here?"

And off went Matthews:

Matthews responded, "Yeah, it’s the scariest thing I’ve ever seen, and, you know, I don’t know where to start. I mean, Halliburton. Sound familiar? Cheney. Cheney was head of Halliburton. When he got to be vice president, when he was signed for vice president, the oil company gave him a $34 million signing bonus to become vice president of the United States."

It's the scariest thing Matthews has ever seen.  He can't be talking about the $34 million, can he?  It must be the oil spill.  But when Matthews didn't know where to start on the scariest thing he's ever seen, he started with Cheney's pay, didn't he?  Surely PolitiFact will get to the bottom of this.

We'll grant Matthews some artistic license with his comment. We know he doesn't mean that Cheney literally got a signing bonus for becoming the vice presidential candidate, as a newly signed free agent would in baseball. But we thought it was worth checking whether Cheney did in fact end up with a $34 million payout when he stepped down as CEO to join Bush on the ticket in 2000.

How much artistic license does Matthews get, here?  Matthews has as much right to a charitable interpretation as the next guy.  But how do we go from item #1 of the scariest thing Matthews has ever seen to fact-checking a fairly ordinary CEO exit package?  Unfortunately, PolitiFact doesn't tell.  Wasn't the disconnect obvious between the nature of the claim and the proposed fact check?

Apparently not.  Writer/researcher Louis Jacobson pored over two income/asset statements from Cheney and, after a fashion, confirmed Matthews' $34 million figure.

Jacobson's methods seemed geared toward helping Matthews:

(W)e decided to take the most cautious approach and only use the numbers from the second filing, which covers the whole year.

That still leaves a total of $35.1 million earned from Halliburtion reported on the May 2001 filing. Of that total, just over $800,000 represents salary and bonus, which Cheney would have earned regardless of whether he joined the ticket or not. Many of the other categories were subject to some calculation and/or negotiation, as would happen in the case of any CEO who left a position early, so it seems fair to call the rest of the income he received an exit package.

Sticking with the second filing was a good, cautious move.  But the second sentence of the second paragraph throws caution to the winds.  Is Cheney receiving an exit package for joining the ticket with Bush?  Or an exit package because he was taking an exit (retiring)?  PolitiFact rhetorically mixes the two.

The term "exit package" can fairly encompass benefits such as stock options in which an employee was fully vested at the time of retirement.  But it would not be fair to imply that such fully vested benefits were not earned depending on whether the employee joined a presidential ticket.  A little bit of clarity on that point would have been nice, given that this was supposed to be fact checking.

Though there are potential problems even with the fact check as it is, for example counting $7.5 million of "imputed income" as part of a $34 million "payoff" or "payday" as PolitiFact called it, the real problem occurred back when PolitiFact decided to grant artistic license.

On what basis should we grant artistic license?  Precisely where the context calls for artistic license in making the best sense of the commentary.  PolitiFact determined, as though by magic, that Matthews was not talking about a literal signing bonus.  No apparent effort was made to determine the best sense in which to take Matthews' comments.  It was assumed, in the end, that Matthews was simply talking about the amount of Cheney's "exit package."

The context fails to support that interpretation:

"Yeah, it's the scariest thing I've ever seen. And, you know, I don't know where to start, I mean, Halliburton. Sound familiar? Cheney. Cheney was head of Halliburton. When he got to be vice president, when he was signed for vice president, they gave him, the oil company gave him a $34 million signing bonus to become vice president of the United States. (inaudible) Yeah, that's what they gave him. A cash check for 34 million bucks. To become vice president. You think they had an interest in this guy? So the time he's vice president of the United States, he began holding secret meetings with the oil company, press wasn't allowed in, BP, private meetings with BP all along the way, an interesting little deal there going on."

(bold emphasis added, transcript mine)

"A cash check for 34 million bucks."  No problem.  Give Matthews more artistic license.  The problem is that the guy just couldn't keep his mouth shut.  He went on:

Jay Leno:

Let me ask you something, now. Should, why is Cheney so quiet, now? He was (inaudible) ...

Chris Matthews:

Uh-huh! Because he's got a lot to hide. I mean, all the money. I just keep wondering, why would an oil company give a guy 34 million bucks when he becomes the vice president of the United States? Well, one thing might be, you know, good will. So what's good will? Private meetings. We're letting, the energy policy of the previous eight years was written in the back room with Cheney and the oil companies. And that's a fact. They don't have any regulation.

(bold emphasis added)

How do we grant Matthews his due charitable interpretation? The process is fairly simple. We take each sense Matthews might have intended and see what results.

First, let's try the notion that the $34 million was a "exit package" in the normal sense of the term. It was the collected benefits that one carries away when one parts ways with the company.

We immediately run into problems using that interpretation. Matthews can't figure out why Halliburton would give Cheney that kind of money even though CEOs of large corporations often receive amounts that make Cheney's appear modest by comparison:

• Jan 2000:  Michael Ovits leaves Disney after 14 months with $100 million
• Feb 2000: Jill Barad leaves Mattel with nearly $50 million
• Mar 2000: Richard Corpan leaves little old Florida Progress with $15 million

Pity Chris Matthews.  None of the CEOs above were signed on to run as vice president.  Matthews is probably still scratching his head trying to figure out why they got so much money. 

Seriously, taking Matthews to mean that Cheney simply received an exit package of $34 million cannot make good sense of his intent.  That interpretation makes him appear ignorant of the routine nature of valuable exit packages from large companies.

Nor can we make good sense of Matthews' statements by taking him to literally refer to a "signing bonus" like that of a professional athlete.  Such a signing bonus would be both legal and ethical under ordinary circumstances.  And Matthews' plainly has in mind the notion that Cheney's exit package was unethical.  That is illustrated by Matthews' example of the "good will" that Halliburton may have expected in return for that "cash check" of $34 million:  secret meetings and a continued policy of zero government regulation of the oil companies.  Never mind that Matthews' rant makes no sense.

A charitable interpretation that makes nonsense of the communication must be discarded.  Granted, taking Matthews to mean that Halliburton paid Cheney for special consideration should he achieve of the office of vice president also makes his statements a form of nonsense, but at least the nonsense is self-consistent with the general direction and tone of Matthews' comments in their broader context.

PolitiFact failed to make a good-faith effort to determine Matthew's probable intent.  As a result, the fact check focused on an unlikely literal meaning and totally ignored Matthews underlying argument.  That's a perfect recipe for displaying content bias.

PolitiFact gave Matthews the only rating he could not have deserved ("True").

The grades:

Louis Jacobson:  F
Morris Kennedy:  F

Afters:

Grading PolitiFact: McCain the maverick? (Updated)

PolitiFact has a chronic problem with the failure to offer charitable interpretation.  Particularly when the subject is a Republican.

The issue:

The fact checkers:

Louis Jacobson:  writer, researcher
Morris Kennedy:  editor

Analysis:

Some of Louis Jacobson's introductory comments seem revealing:

(I)t came as a surprise to us when McCain was quoted on Newsweek magazine's Web site on April 3, 2010, saying, "I never considered myself a maverick. I consider myself a person who serves the people of Arizona to the best of his abilities."

Debunking this one wasn't a question of "if" but rather "how can we avoid piling on?"

If that last statement hints that Jacobson's mind was made up as soon as he saw the quotation of McCain, the rest of the story does nothing to dispel that impression.  Jacobson's story offers no evidence that he attempted any critical examination of the context of McCain's statement, though later he will inadvertently stumble over some statements that ought to have forced him to reconsider his course toward the "pants on fire" rating.

As noted, McCain's statement was published at Newsweek magazine's Web site:

Many of the GOP's most faithful, the kind who vote in primaries despite 115-degree heat, tired long ago of McCain the Maverick, the man who had crossed the aisle to work with Democrats on issues like immigration reform, global warming, and restricting campaign contributions. "Maverick" is a mantle McCain no longer claims; in fact, he now denies he ever was one. "I never considered myself a maverick," he told me. "I consider myself a person who serves the people of Arizona to the best of his abilities." Yet here was Palin, urging her fans four times in 15 minutes to send McCain the Maverick back to Washington.
(Yellow highlights added)

The context:  McCain was apparently engaged in private conversation with the Newsweek reporter, David Margolick.  We do not have the context of that conversation, but rather the context in which Margolick chose to present the quotation.  The "I never considered myself a maverick" line is probably not the sort of thing McCain would push minus some explanation.  Any such explanation was up to Margolick to provide.  There isn't much to stop a reporter from dropping the context, unfortunately.

But rather than try to give consideration to the context, PolitiFact's Jacobson went immediately from his "piling on" comment to the following:

We ignored cases in which Palin or other campaign surrogates used the term on McCain's behalf, sticking instead to instances when McCain himself used it, or when he blessed television advertisements using that term with the words, "I approve this message." (This message, by the way, is a requirement of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, which McCain himself spearheaded.)

In other words, Jacobson took for granted that a wooden-literal interpretation minus any nuance of understanding was in order for McCain's statement.  At worst we ought to have seen Jacobson blame that interpretation on Margolick, for that is pretty much the way Margolick presented it in his story.  But is trusting the uncorroborated implications from a reporter really fact checking?

Jacobson proceeded to provide a list of statements where McCain embraced the label "Maverick" to one degree or another.

It makes sense to conclude that if a person embraces a label that he thinks the label applies to him in at least some sense.  But is there more than one sense of the word "maverick"?  Merriam-Webster only lists one relevant sense.  But John McCain has emphasized some nuance with respect to the term.  Jacobson uncovered a clue without recognizing its worth:

In McCain's (slight) defense, we should say that he has on a number of occasions expressed a degree of ambivalence about the title "maverick" -- including his highest-profile use of the word, in his 2008 Republican National Convention acceptance speech. “You know, I’ve been called a maverick; someone who marches to the beat of his own drum," he said. "Sometimes it’s meant as a compliment and sometimes it’s not. What it really means is I understand who I work for. I don’t work for a party. I don’t work for a special interest. I don’t work for myself. I work for you.”
(Blue highlights added)

This quotation of McCain seems to make clear that he found at least two meanings in the term "maverick."  "Maverick" can refer to a person who marches to the beat of his own drum.  McCain rejected that uncomplimentary meaning as applied to his political career in favor of the positive one in his subsequent explanation of  "(w)hat it really means."

Jacobson, after interpreting McCain's remarks as "ambivalence" toward the "maverick" label, counts this as a "slight" defense.  More likely it was the entire key to properly understanding McCain's statement to the Newsweek reporter.

Let not evidence stand in the way of a foregone conclusion:

(E)ven if McCain is now listening more closely to his inner ambivalence about the term, it cannot erase the eagerness with which his 2008 presidential campaign touted that particular characteristic as a major selling point for candidacy. So we rate his statement that "I never considered myself a maverick" to be Pants on Fire!

 McCain's statement to Margolick seems consistent with his resistance to the negative connotation of "maverick," though the lack of context makes a firm conclusion elusive.  PolitiFact takes the lack of context as a license to place the least charitable interpretation on McCain's statement.

The grades:

Louis Jacobson:  F
Morris Kennedy:  F

I'd like to have your parents in for a conference.

Update

RealClearPolitics gives us a video update.

Chris Wallace of Fox News Channel pressed McCain on the "never considered myself a maverick" comment.  McCain pretty much dodged the question with more comments consonant with the attempt to keep to a positive take on his failure to maintain strict party loyalty. 

The video doesn't add much to the story except to contribute to the impression that McCain has trouble giving a clear and straight answer on the issue.