PolitiFact, Barack Obama and That-Which-Shall-Not-Be-Named

I thought that PolitiFact was a bit tough on President Obama on a recent fact check item.

The president claimed a majority of Republicans favor addressing the debt problem with a combination of spending cuts and revenues.  That seemed perfectly true, to me.  After all, without some type of revenue coming in, one would have to cut all government spending in order to reduce the deficit or the debt.

Those Grinches at PolitiFact twisted the president's words and interpreted him to mean revenue increases.

Well, yeah, they were very probably right about that.  The president probably did mean increased revenues when he said "revenues." 

Maybe somebody should call the Word Police?

Just minutes ago while fishing for more PolitiFact flubs, however, I noticed something I had previously missed.  Take a look:

(clipped from PolitiFact.com)

We have two instances side-by-side of the president apparently using "revenues" as a euphemism for "tax increases" or even "revenue increases."  Doubtless the latter performed unacceptably well in focus group tests.  Two instances side-by-side starts to resemble a pattern.

Regarding the PolitiFact items, I suppose the ratings are a wash.  Taking Obama literally should improve both ratings.  But since Obama probably did not mean mere "revenues" literally--instead meaning increased revenues in the form of tax increases or the closure of tax loopholes (for those who draw a distinction between the two), his words tend to lead the audience down the primrose path via euphemism.

Grading PolitiFact: Jon Huntsman and the Nevada flat tax

We always try to get the original statement in its full context rather than an edited form that appeared in news stories.
--About PolitiFact

The issue:

(clipped from PolitiFact.com)

The fact checkers:

Louis Jacobson:  writer, researcher
Kevin Landrigan:  writer, researcher
Bill Adair:  editor


Analysis:

PolitiFact:

During a recent house party in Belmont, N.H., Huntsman responded to a voter's question about whether the aim of the federal tax system should be to raise revenue or influence behavior.

The "recent" house party occurred on July 4.  PolitiFact published this item on July 28.  The story probably skips mentioning the date because, like another recent fact check item from the New Hampshire newbies, the fact check is unusually late by PolitiFact standards.  Writer-researcher Kevin Landrigan works for the Nashua Telegraph, which is part of the group that will constitute PolitiFact New Hampshire.  Thus it figures that Landrigan probably covered Huntsman's July 4 appearance in Belmont, New Hampshire.  An associated website called "The Lobby" features video of Huntsman in Belmont, though I failed to locate a segment that corresponds to the portion quoted in the PolitiFact story.

But it seems safe to say that Landrigan could have provided the full context of Huntsman's statement.

Do we have enough of the context to accurately gauge Huntsman's meaning?  Probably.  But even so the context ends up arguing against PolitiFact's analysis.

The context as we have it (blue highlights added):

During a recent house party in Belmont, N.H., Huntsman responded to a voter's question about whether the aim of the federal tax system should be to raise revenue or influence behavior.

"That's one of those trick questions, right?'' Huntsman asked.

"Possibly,'' said Bill Goetz, a retired, manufacturing executive living in Belmont.

Huntsman went on to describe his philosophy and pointed to his record in Utah.

"We got a flat tax out of it, we cut income taxes by 30 percent, it was a cost-neutral affair where we took out the deductions, we took out the biases almost completely, some we didn't get out, and you know what? The state came to life in part because of that.''

PolitiFact deals with the highlighted portion.  They pretty much ignore the rest.  Then again, they ignore some of the stuff in the highlighted portion.

PolitiFact:

Republicans frequently talk a good game about supporting a flat tax, but they often have difficulty getting political support to change the complicated tax laws. So we wondered if Huntsman and the Utah legislature had succeeded in overhauling the state law to the point where it can be considered a flat tax -- and whether they cut income taxes by 30 percent.

There we have the two facts PolitiFact intends to check ...

We then divide the statement into individual claims that we check separately. For example, a Bill Richardson TV ad produced two claims. (We only make Truth-O-Meter rulings on those individual claims. We don't make them in our articles because they often summarize multiple Truth-O-Meter items that had different rulings.)

About PolitiFact

Yeah, well ... never you mind about that.  PolitiFact, you see, manages to botch both parts of this fact check.  So they might as well combine them into one.

Is it a flat tax?

PolitiFact:

The research arm of the Utah Legislature maintains it was not a flat tax in the purest sense. "Although the new system has a single statutory rate of 5.0 percent, it is not a proportional or 'flat' income tax system. Rather, Utah’s new income tax system remains progressive through tax credits,'' said a January 2010 report of the Utah Office of Legislative Research and General Counsel.

 It's not a flat tax "in the purest sense."  But Huntsman did not present it as a flat tax in its purest sense, so this criticism can't really count against him ("we took out the biases almost completely, some we didn't get out").

PolitiFact:

Conservative groups give Huntsman high marks for the overhaul and have said they consider it to be a flat tax.

Hmmm.  That can't be relevant, can it?  Between the tax counting as a flat tax short of its purest sense and with Conservative groups counting it as a flat tax, one could almost think that Huntsman spoke accurately.


PolitiFact:

On the flat tax question, the changes under Huntsman certainly made it a flatter tax than the one it replaced, since the changes he oversaw combined several tax brackets into one. But the tax remains more complicated to calculate than a pure flat tax would be. In fact, Utah’s system of tax credits make the tax somewhat progressive in practice, which is something a true flat tax would not be.

So ... if it's not a "pure" flat tax then Huntsman's claim is ... "Mostly False"?  Even though Huntsman didn't present it as a "pure" flat tax?

Great, let's see how the lyin' Republican does on his other claim:

30 percent?

PolitiFact:

As for Huntsman's claim that they "cut income taxes by 30 percent," we find that is a significant exaggeration.

He is close to correct if you compare the statutory rate in the top tax bracket before and after the tax system changed. The top rate declined from 7 percent to 5 percent, which is a decrease of 28.6 percent.

In terms of an adjustment to the top marginal rate, that's not significant exaggeration.  It's called "rounding up."

PolitiFact:

But there are two problems with this measurement. First, it doesn’t address the lower tax brackets. Remember, the lowest rate went up from 2.3 percent to 5 percent. So Huntsman’s 30 percent decrease in the statutory rate didn’t apply to them.

There's one big problem with this supposed problem:  PolitiFact doesn't apply it consistently.

...we were not convinced that Obama had actually intended to make the more detailed comparison

What was it that made Huntsman more convincing on that point?

PolitiFact:

Which brings us to the second problem with Huntsman’s 30 percent description -- that just looking at the drop in the statutory rate, as Huntsman does, says very little about how a taxpayer actually fared after the change.

The big problem with the second supposed problem is that Huntsman did not "just" look at the drop in the statutory rate.  He specifically and immediately noted that some biases remained in the system.

PolitiFact:

Huntsman’s 30 percent claim is more misleading. It’s true that the statutory rates in the top bracket declined by almost that much, but the actual reduction in tax dollars paid was far smaller for the overwhelming majority of taxpayers -- usually less than 1 percent of a taxpayer’s adjusted gross income. We think most people hearing Huntsman's comment would believe he was touting a 30 percent cut in what people actually pay at tax time, and the numbers aren’t close to that. So we rate his claim Mostly False.

PolitiFact has assumed for Obama's sake that "tax rates" refers to the top marginal rate.  Minus some convincing justification, Huntsman should receive the same benefit of the doubt as to his intent.  And on the face of it, PolitiFact's contention that "most people" would think Huntsman was talking about a reduction in the tax bill rather than a reduction in the top marginal rate seems ridiculous.  Huntsman asserted that the tax reform was cost neutral.  That means that the costs would remain essentially unchanged for somebody, that somebody depending on Huntsman's intent.  If he means the taxpayer then a small change in the tax bill is exactly what his words lead the listener to expect rather than a significant reduction.  If, on the other hand, he refers to the government, using the term akin to "revenue neutral" then we're left with largely the same logical conclusion.  To keep tax receipts the same the tax bills will collectively have to add up about the same.

It's quite the accomplishment by PolitiFact to ignore so much of the context of Huntsman's words with so little context to work from.

Yes it's a flat tax except in some absolutist sense and yes the top marginal tax rate was cut by (approximately) 30 percent.  The "Truth-O-Meter" rating of Huntsman is a rip off.


The grades:

Louis Jacobson:  F
Kevin Landrigan:  F
Bill Adair:  F

The label "journalists reporting badly" applies.

A reconsideration

I've put myself on record repeatedly defending PolitiFact staffers from the charge of intentional bias in their work.

I've said that I consider intentional bias unlikely for a number of reasons.  But there's one persistent evidence that makes me question my stance in defending PolitiFact writers and editors on that point.

They don't seem interested in fixing obvious mistakes.

Take the recent example of a "Obameter" rating from President Obama.  The "Obameter" supposedly rates whether the president keeps his campaign promises.  In an earlier entry I documented how PolitiFact far over credited President Obama in delivering on this promise:

"Barack Obama and Joe Biden will establish a 10 percent federal Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) to require that 10 percent of electricity consumed in the U.S. is derived from clean, sustainable energy sources, like solar, wind and geothermal by 2012."

No change at all was made to the Renewable Portfolio Standard, yet PolitiFact rated the promise as kept because the energy industry happened to exceed 10 percent usage of the energy sources listed in the president's promise.

This is an unambiguous error and continues to stand in need of correction.  I had visits from St. Petersburg Times computers immediately following the publication of my criticism, so it is overpoweringly likely that PolitiFact staffers are aware of the criticism.  Yet the story has received no correction.

How do I continue to defend PolitiFact staffers as to their moral integrity when they refuse to fix such an obvious error?

The best I can do in defending their morality is to assume that they do not perceive the need for the correction.  Yet that makes them appear unfit to engage in fact checking in the first place.

I don't like where this is going.

"It is a change we don't make lightly"

Big news came down from PolitiFact today.  The fact checking organization will change its "Barely True" rating on its "Truth-O-Meter" to "Mostly False."

PolitiFact editor Bill Adair explains:

Today, Barely True becomes Mostly False.

It is a change we don't make lightly. The Truth-O-Meter has been the heart of PolitiFact since we launched the site four years ago, and we were reluctant to tinker with it.

If the powers that be at PolitiFact show such reluctance in making this minor cosmetic change then it sends a strong signal that PolitiFact will remain unwilling to make the substantial changes it would have to make to avoid its ongoing branding as the mainstream cousin to the partisans at Media Matters.

And I can't help but react with a wry smile when PolitiFact makes this change while leaving intact a long-running discrepancy in the descriptions of its ratings.  The "Principles of PolitiFact and the Truth-O-Meter" page describes "Half True" as  "The statement is partially accurate but leaves out important details or takes things out of context."  At "About PolitiFact" another version of "Half True" reads "The statement is accurate but leaves out important details or takes things out of context."

Between the new definition of "Half True" and the change from "Barely True" to "Mostly False" where both have the same definition, which is the more significant change?

But don't look for PolitiFact to reconcile its differing definitions with any fanfare.  There is still a reputation to protect.  Look for PolitiFact to (again) break the pledge it made about what it would do when it makes a mistake:

We strive to make our work completely accurate. When we make a mistake, we correct it and note it on the original item. If the mistake is so significant that it requires us to change the ruling, we will do so.

Grading PolitiFact: President Obama and routinely raising the debt ceiling

TRUE – The statement is accurate and there’s nothing significant missing.
MOSTLY TRUE – The statement is accurate but needs clarification or additional information.
--Principles of PolitiFact and the Truth-O-Meter

The issue:

(clipped from PolitiFact.com)

The fact checkers:

Robert Farley:  writer, researcher
Martha Hamilton:  editor


Analysis:

For PolitiFact and its Truth-O-Meter, the difference between "True" and "Mostly True" rests on whether an accurate statement needs additional clarification or information.

PolitiFact:

In a televised address to the nation on July 25, 2011, to discuss the pending deadline on the debt ceiling, President Barack Obama made his pitch for a "balanced" approach to reducing the deficit -- one that includes spending cuts as well as revenue increases from tax increases for wealthier Americans.

With the debt ceiling issue caught in a political deadlock over how to reduce the deficit, Obama noted that raising the debt ceiling has been a relatively routine exercise for decades.

There's the rub.  President Obama speaks in the context of a battle over deficit reduction.  The United States faces a two-pronged threat to its credit rating.  One from the failure to address profligate spending (debt) and the other from a government default (to one degree or another) in the wake of a failure to raise the debt ceiling.  What does the president say?

PolitiFact:

"Understand –- raising the debt ceiling does not allow Congress to spend more money," Obama said. "It simply gives our country the ability to pay the bills that Congress has already racked up. In the past, raising the debt ceiling was routine.  Since the 1950s, Congress has always passed it, and every President has signed it. President Reagan did it 18 times. George W. Bush did it seven times. And we have to do it by next Tuesday, August 2nd, or else we won’t be able to pay all of our bills."

Did the U.S. face a drop in its credit rating from overspending under Reagan or George W. Bush?  If not, aren't we missing a crucial piece of context?  Is it proper, in other words, for a raise in the debt limit to occur routinely when the nation is under the threat of a drop in its credit rating if it doesn't stem the growth of its debt?

Mr. Obama, in his address, only gave the subtlest of hints of any threat to the U.S. credit rating (correction:  from the first of the two aforementioned prongs).  Indeed, I am probably generous to credit him with giving any hint at all.  I challenge any reader to detect it.

PolitiFact:

Here, we are looking at Obama's claim that, "President Reagan did it 18 times. George W. Bush did it seven times."

A strict focus on the numerical claim might serve to excuse the lack of critical context in the president's remarks.  On the other hand, PolitiFact's editor Bill Adair tells us "the biggest factor is the underlying message" for a numbers claim.  And PolitiFact appeared to identify Obama's underlying message early in the story ("Obama noted that raising the debt ceiling has been a relatively routine exercise for decades").  Obama sends the message that nothing should stop Republicans from reaching a quick agreement on this routine issue.

With its fact check, PolitiFact confirms that debt ceiling increases occurred routinely in the past as Obama said.  So does Obama get a "True" for leaving out nothing important?

PolitiFact:

We would be remiss if we failed to note that Obama opposed one of those increases to the debt ceiling under George W. Bush and criticized Bush for a lack of leadership.

Fortunately for Obama, he is not remiss in PolitiFact's eyes for omitting that fact from his remarks.  Whew!  Close one!

Having cleared that minuscule hurdle we can join PolitiFact in leaping to the conclusion:

Typically, the party that controls the White House has had to take the difficult vote to raise the limit, while the other party was free to criticize. An analysis of the past 10 years of votes on the debt limit from the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center shows the vote usually splits along partisan lines, with the president's party voting in support.

Nonetheless, Obama is correct that raising the debt ceiling has been an issue repeatedly tackled by Republicans and Democrats alike. President Reagan raised the debt ceiling 18 times and George W. Bush did it seven times. We rate his claim True.

"True."  That means that Obama leaves out nothing significant.  It is not significant that he opposed raising the debt limit while he was in the Senate.  It is not significant that the nation faces the threat of a credit downgrade in the absence of a change in course regarding the increasing debt.

They're kidding, right?

The grades:

Robert Farley:  F
Martha Hamilton:  F

Liberals are great

Just sayin'.

(clipped from Facebook.com/politifact)

I don't see Jeremy Towle's Facebook post above unless I view the page while not logged in or through a different account because Jeremy apparently has me blocked.  And that's funny.  But it's not the funniest part.

This is:

BFF.

I don't have the precise times available, but what I do have indicates that the two Facebook actions above took place at roughly the same time.  Liberals are great.

Piquing PolitiFact: What definition of "Half True" is used at PolitiFact Ohio?

It's going to appear shortly.

Allegedly.

(clipped from cleveland.com)

I should have saved the image from the first time I tried to post the nearly identical message.  It's possible that I did something that kept it from posting, but as far as I can tell I followed the exact same procedure this time and received the message that my reply was received and would appear shortly.

Perhaps the idea is to delay the appearance of my comment until the discrepancy can be fixed.

Good luck with that.  I took note of it quite some time ago and I've been posting about it occasionally on the 'Net for weeks.

A number of comments do a nice job of pressing editor Robert Higgs for needed explanations.  One even brought up Eric Ostermeier's study suggesting selection bias at PolitiFact.  Higgs' reply to that one is hilarious:

I don't know enough about how the Minnesota study was done to talk about it. It's (sic) focus was PolitiFact.com, our national counterpart. Feel free to contact them via email. If you send them questions, you'll likely get a response.

What I can tell you about PolitiFact Ohio is that in our first year we did 81 Truth-O-Meter rulings on statements from Democrats and 103 from Republicans (more on the GOP side principally because Kasich is governor and there's twice as many Republicans in power as Democrats).

The average grade for Democrats: Half True

The average grade for Republicans: Half True

Some say the Texas Rangers have a better team batting average than the Seattle Mariners.

What I can tell you about it is that right now both teams are in the American League.

The Seattle Mariners are batting roughly .250.

The Texas Rangers are batting roughly .250

Higgs isn't saying anything.  The "average" when there are only six positions on the scale is a very rough approximation, just like rounding the Rangers' batting average down from .272 and the Mariners' battering average up from .226.  Is a difference of .46 statistically significant?  You betcha.  It's huge.

The question is, does Higgs buy his own explanation or does he really not know any better?  Either option is a bit scary.


***
The reply has appeared.  Now we'll see if it lasts.


Correction 7/25/11:  Used strikethroughs to improve the sense of the final paragraph.

Grading PolitiFact: Obama, Reagan and the debt

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
Bill Adair:  editor

Analysis:

What a contrast to the PolitiFact piece on Mitt Romney I published yesterday.

The Romney story seized on a minor detail supporting an accurate underlying point.  The Obama story focuses on the minor point while ignoring a highly doubtful underlying point.  Both men phrased their minor points sloppily but Romney gets condemnation while the president gets a pass.

Let's get into the specifics:

With much glee, Democrats have seized on old audio recordings of President Ronald Reagan talking about the debt limit. House Democrats have even posted a snippet on YouTube.

Here's what the Gipper had to say on the matter back in 1986:

"Unfortunately, Congress consistently brings the government to the edge of default before facing its responsibility. This brinkmanship threatens the holders of government bonds and those who rely on Social Security and veterans benefits. Interest rates would skyrocket, instability would occur in financial markets, and the federal deficit would soar. The United States has a special responsibility to itself and the world to meet its obligations. It means we have a well-earned reputation for reliability and credibility -- two things that set us apart from much of the world."

So far so good.  The quotation is legitimate.  The question is the use to which it is applied.

PolitiFact:

President Barack Obama, meanwhile, invoked Reagan when he answered a question from NPR on why negotiations to increase the debt ceiling have taken so long.

Obama said it was more than just one thing.

"You've got some members of the Republican Party who've been downplaying the consequences of default. The irony is, you know, Ronald Reagan, I think, when he was president, repeatedly talked about how irresponsible it would be to allow the full faith and credit of the United States to be impaired in any kind of way. I think that there is some politics. And compromising with me, among some Republican leaders, is bad politics for them," he said on July 21, 2011.

Reagan supposedly said it would be irresponsible to allow the full faith and credit of the United States to be impaired in any way.  Remember Obama's phrasing, because PolitiFact supposedly pays close attention to the specific wording of a claim.

And let the spin begin:

Intrigued by the audio files going around the Internet, we decided to fact-check Obama's statement that Reagan repeatedly talked about avoiding debt limit showdowns.

Those paying close attention to the specific wording of Obama's Reagan argument note the absence of the words "debt," "limit" and "shutdowns."  The PolitiFact team is ignoring Obama's specific wording and replacing it with their own very liberal (using the term advisedly) paraphrase.  Obama said Reagan was against subjecting U.S. credit to a threat "in any kind of way" if we pay attention to what Obama said.  That could certainly include the debt ceiling, but let's refrain from jumping to that conclusion just yet.

PolitiFact:

Reagan made the comments quoted above in a radio address to the nation on Sept. 26, 1987. But Reagan also laid out other principles for Congress in that address: cut spending, leave the defense budget alone, don't raise taxes. (Read the entire address via the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library.)

Reagan's address made it clear that he would sign the bill sent to him by Congress because he believed it was necessary to raise the debt limit.  Reagan's statement did not castigate Democrats prior to the passage of a bill designed to raise the debt ceiling.

Looking for more examples of Reagan "repeatedly" warning about the debt ceiling,we also ran across a letter Reagan wrote in 1983 to then-Senate Majority Leader Howard Baker, R-Tenn., asking for help. (The Washington Post posted the letter to its website.)

PolitiFact accurately describes Reagan's letter as encouraging Baker to pass an increase in the debt limit.

But is that the same as warning against harming the full faith and credit of the U.S. government "in any kind of way"?

PolitiFact unaccountably fails to mention the key difference between the scenario today and the situations during Reagan's presidency:  As things currently stand, the U.S. credit rating may be harmed regardless of raising the credit ceiling.

That's right.  Moody's, among others, has warned that the U.S. faces a review of its credit rating if it merely fails to demonstrate a significant attempt to rein in its rapidly growing debt:

The U.S. government’s Aaa bond rating will come under pressure in the future unless additional measures are taken to reduce projected record budget deficits, according to Moody’s Investors Service Inc.

Bloomberg.com

Unlike the 1980s, the current milieu presents a threat of a credit rating hit even if the debt ceiling is raised.  Only a middle ground involving a significant cut to runaway spending and a higher debt ceiling would address Reagan's supposed concern with "any kind" of threat to U.S. credit.

That doesn't sound so good for the president.  We need PolitiSpin from PolitiFact:

Interestingly, we also found statements from Reagan supporting changes to the tax code that increased revenues. That's a major sticking point in today's negotiations between Obama and Republicans. In a lengthy 1982 speech, he noted that some people called the bill he favored "the largest tax increase in history." But Reagan said it was tax reform, not a tax increase.

Note that PolitiFact has already admitted that its first citation of Reagan included his insistence on no new taxes.  Now Drobnic Holan and Adair make Reagan into Robin standing as ally to the tax-increasing Batman Obama.

By all means, read the 1982 speech.  PolitiFact reports Reagan's words inaccurately.  He described the bulk of the revenues as tax reform but also admitted to allowing new taxes for cigarettes and telephone service.  But he reminded people that in light of earlier tax cuts they were still paying less and that the tax increase involved a 3 for 1 deal:  $3 in spending cuts for every $1 increase in taxes.  Is that the deal Obama has proposed?

PolitiFact also used Reagan biographer Lou Cannon to support Obama's point.  Cannon's contribution is sufficiently represented in the conclusion to the story:

Obama said that Reagan "repeatedly talked about how irresponsible it would be to allow the full faith and credit of the United States to be impaired in any kind of way." We found two examples and a Reagan expert said they typified his approach to the federal debt. Reagan talked about other things more, like keeping taxes low and funding defense. But his remarks on the debt ceiling are real and apparently heartfelt. We rate Obama's statement Mostly True.

1)  Note the logical break between Obama's interpretation of Reagan and PolitiFact's two supposed examples.  As we saw above, neither example addresses "any kind of way" U.S. credit might face a threat.  They address only the credit ceiling.
2)  Cannon, rather than agreeing that Obama presented Reagan accurately in context, says the two examples accurately represent Reagan.  Those examples have Reagan acting in a way that preserves the U.S. credit rating while fighting to cut spending and keep taxes low--not a good match for the Obama administration's role in the debt ceiling debate.
3)  As noted at the outset, the PolitiFact team ignores the specific wording of Obama's claim and replaces it with spin.  The situations now and then are different.  If Reagan was concerned with any threat to the U.S. credit rating then he would all the more champion spending cuts where making the spending cut helped avoid the possibility of damaging the U.S. credit rating.

Obama tried to cite Reagan in support of the Democratic Party's position on the debt ceiling situation.  Obama's specific wording misrepresented Reagan and Obama's underlying point finds no significant support in Reagan's position when the latter is considered in context.

Another disgraceful performance by PolitiFact.

The grades:

Angie Dronic Holan:  F
Bill Adair:  F

At the risk of sounding like Vicini, I find it inconceivable that the same editor could handle the Romney story and this one and not find something deeply amiss.  The tag "journalists reporting badly" applies.

Grading PolitiFact: Mitt Romney and Obama's dictator tour

In deciding which statements to check, we ask ourselves these questions:

• Is the statement rooted in a fact that is verifiable? We don’t check opinions, and we recognize that in the world of speechmaking and political rhetoric, there is license for hyperbole.
• Is the statement leaving a particular impression that may be misleading?
• Is the statement significant? We avoid minor "gotchas"’ on claims that obviously represent a slip of the tongue.
• Is the statement likely to be passed on and repeated by others?
• Would a typical person hear or read the statement and wonder: Is that true?

--Principles of PolitiFact and the Truth-O-Meter

The issue:

(clipped from PolitiFact.com)

The fact checkers:

Josh Rogers:  writer, researcher
Bill Adair:  editor


Analysis:

Context is a wonderful thing.  Even PolitiFact shows signs of realizing it:

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

Following PolitiFact's example, let us examine the claim in the available context (blue highlights added):

(W)hen Romney was asked about Iran during a town hall in Wolfeboro, N.H., on July 5, 2011, he noted that it is "the national sponsor of terror groups across the globe" and lamented that the U.S. doesn’t do a better job of promoting itself abroad.

"The President, when he was running for office, said he was going to engage Iran, and engage North Korea. Remember in his first year he was going to visit Kim Jong-ll and Ahmadinejad and Assad and Chavez – the worst actors in the world. And how did that work out?"

What was it about the highlighted portion that drew PolitiFact's interest?

Was the statement rooted in a fact that is verifiable?  Sure, at the very least in the same sense that one may verify whether it "rained cats and dogs" by checking for a mixture of feline and canine DNA in rain gauges.  In other words, it may be verifiable but whether it's worth verifying depends on Romney's meaning.

Does the statement leave a misleading impression?   Yes, removed from its context as we see it in the PolitiFact headline material PolitiFact makes it seem as though Romney accuses President Obama of breaking a pledge to go visit four renowned dictators.  But kept in its context the statement is unlikely to mislead.

Is the statement significant?  In its original context the statement does not appear significant.  The audience was unlikely to believe that Obama specifically pledged to meet with Kim Jong-ll, Ahmadinejad, Assad and Chavez, let alone meet with them specifically in their own countries.  Taken out of context, the statement is significant in that it may be used to damage Romney politically.

Is the statement likely to be passed on and repeated by others?  PolitiFact excluded, no.  Romney made the statement on July 5, 2011 and nobody appears to have taken note of it until PolitiFact blew the whistle about two weeks later.

Would a typical person hear or read the statement and wonder: Is that true?  The typical person reading the statement out of context might wonder if it is true.  The same person reading the statement in its original context probably would not.  Why not?  Because Romney does not emphasize the statement.  Romney emphasizes Obama's conciliatory attitude toward unfriendly nations and the lack of results for that approach.  It isn't important to Romney's point whether Obama literally said he would visit each of the foreign leaders.  That said, Obama's willingness to meet those tyrannical world leaders is a well-known aspect of his election campaign.  Politically aware persons would likely know the historical reference point without explanation.  Surely that is true of the unidentified reporter from whom we receive Romney's words.

Again:  What was it about Romney's statement that made PolitiFact decide to rate it?

Could it be the ease with which the statement may be taken out of context and used to discredit Romney?

To check whether Romney was right, we explored two questions: Did Obama actually say he was going to meet in the first year of his presidency with North Korean leader Kim Jong-II, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez? And did Obama say those meetings would take place in the leaders' home countries?

It's fine for PolitiFact to point out what Obama actually said.  But it's not okay for PolitiFact to ignore the context and fail to give Romney credit for his point. 

Obama was asked whether he was willing to meet each of the despotic leaders without preconditions during his first year in office.

"I would," he replied.

The resulting fact check gives us a comedy of pompous expert statements courtesy of two experts on diplomacy along with PolitiFact's tendentious explication.

The tendentiousness:

First, when he was in that town hall meeting in Wolfeboro, Romney didn’t say Obama said he was "willing to meet " the leaders; Romney said Obama "was going to."  Those are two very different things in the precise language of diplomacy. And Romney didn’t use the word "meet," as Obama and McCain did. Instead, he substituted "visit."

The pomposity:

"There is a big difference between visiting a capital and being willing to meet with another government, another government’s leaders -- so it would be unfair to suggest that’s what Obama said. He didn’t say that, and in international politics and diplomacy the difference is quite important," says R. Nicholas Burns, a professor of diplomacy and international politics at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. Burns was Ambassador to Greece under President Bill Clinton and Ambassador to NATO under President George W. Bush.

There's no need to regale us with the political difference between meeting here versus meeting there since it misses Romney's point.  On top of that, if Obama insisted on meeting here rather than there then he attaches a precondition to the meeting when the question stipulated he would not.  Perhaps we'd better stick with simply denying that Obama committed to going through with the meetings he said he was willing to have?

In fairness to Burns and Kurt Volker and as I do not possess the context in which they gave their answers, I will not rest much blame on either man for the appearance of pomposity.  That effect may result more from the way PolitiFact elicited and presented their expert opinions.

The PolitiFact ruling:

There is a small amount of truth in Romney's claim, but his wording exaggerates what Obama really said. When asked if he would be willing to meet with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea -- "without precondition, during the first year of your administration, in Washington or anywhere else" -- Obama said he would. But in the language of diplomacy, that is significantly different than saying he "was going to visit" them, which is how Romney characterized it. We find his statement Barely True.

In context, Romney's statement is essentially true.  PolitiFact apparently failed to consider the possibility that Romney's language was the type of hyperbole that serves to ridicule.  PolitiFact has reason to know the technique, since it used the first paragraph in a recent story to do the same thing to Republican presidential candidates.

It takes practice to offer charitable interpretations to those who differ with us ideologically.  Hopefully PolitiFact will eventually acknowledge the importance of charitable interpretation.  And then promptly undertake some productive practice sessions.

Don't hold your breath.

The grades:

Josh Rogers:  F
Bill Adair:  F

What's that, again?

The Cleveland Plain Dealer's PolitiFact Ohio operation celebrated a birthday this month.

Bureau chief for the Plain Dealer Stephen Koff offered up a bizarre line in his celebratory column:

Here's to the 56 True ratings over the last 12 months. Here's to the 32 claims that PolitiFact Ohio rated False on the fanciful Truth-O-Meter.

The fanciful Truth-O-Meter.   I suppose Koff means to say the PolitiFact folks gave their system a fanciful name, as in "the fancifully named Truth-O-Meter."

But since that is not what Koff wrote, we critics of PolitiFact may well wonder if his statement represents some type of Freudian slip:

1. not based on fact; dubious or imaginary

The second definition is almost as good:

2. made or designed in a curious, intricate, or imaginative way

Isn't it curious that the principles of the Truth-O-Meter mention absolutely nothing about charitable interpretation?

Isn't it curious that PolitiFact offers two different definitions for one Truth-O-Meter rating?

So what are you saying, Mr. Koff?  Double meaning, maybe?