The issue:
The fact checkers:
Robert Farley: writer, researcher
Louis Jacobson: writer, researcher
Bill Adair: editor
Analysis:
Removing any suspense regarding the "Truth-O-Meter" rating given to Carly Fiorina, PolitiFact gives her the "Pants On Fire" rating reserved for "ridiculous" claims.
Can Farley, Jacobson and Adair back it up?
The latest ad from California Senate candidate Carly Fiorina -- who is running in the Republican primary to take on incumbent Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer -- mocks Boxer for saying in 2007 that "one of the very important national security issues frankly is climate change."Short of altering the audio (and video) there could be no doubt that Boxer was quoted accurately. The only question would be whether the quotation was taken out of context.
After playing a clip of Boxer's statement, Fiorina faces the camera and responds, "Terrorism kills, and Barbara Boxer's worried about the weather."
No one doubts that Boxer made the comment. But we wanted to check the context of Boxer's remark and see if Fiorina was quoting it accurately.
The PolitiFact story picks up by drawing attention to three elements of the story. Oddly enough, none of those elements includes the context of Boxer's statement.
The rest of the PolitiFact entry relates directly to those three elements, however, so it makes sense to list them:
- How well-accepted is the idea of climate change as a national security threat?
- Is it fair to say that Boxer's concern about climate change amounts to being "worried about the weather"?
- By focusing on the threat of climate change, did Boxer somehow ignore the issue of terrorism?
