PVI's Alpha MRAP resurfaces

OK, first a caveat or two.  There are some distinct design differences between the early images of the Oshkosh-built, PVI-designed Alpha MRAP and the FBI MRAP with the Oshkosh nameplate.

On the other hand, the design similarities and the Oshkosh nameplate, along with the fact that the Department of Defense expressed its intention to peddle the discarded PVI MRAPs to law enforcement make it extremely likely that this MRAP is the Alpha:

After starting the post, I've located some confirmation.

I ran across the image originally at NewScientist, where it carries the caption "Also on standby is a MRAP – Mine Resistant Ambush Protected – vehicle, similar to those used by US forces in Iraq and Afganistan to shield troops against roadside bombs."

Not that similar.

But it sure beats the the earlier images in terms of appearance.

Shooting magic blanks

Our favorite St. Petersburg Times commie columnist*, Robyn "Blumñata" Blumner is at it again, celebrating anniversary after anniversary of the perfect marriage between economic cluelessness and leftist ideology.

Perhaps that's redundant.

Anyhow, Blumñata's latest column blasts Republicans for supposedly presenting tort reform as a magic bullet for controlling the increase in health care costs before offering her own solution based on little more than a rhetorical "Abracadabra!"

On Republican magic bullets:

While everyone agrees that spiraling Medicaid costs are a problem that need addressing, Republican politicians would have you believe that tort reform is the magic bullet to cost containment, winning them plaudits and contributions from the medical community.

According to my recollection, Republicans advanced tort reform as a conspicuously missing piece of Democratic Party health care reform proposals.  Blumner apparently thought it unnecessary to provide any example of the type of advocacy with which she charges Republicans.

But at least she comes through with a stellar example when it comes to her own magical thinking:

While defensive medicine — where doctors order tests and procedures as a hedge against malpractice suits — undoubtedly adds unnecessary costs, it is not the main driver. That dishonor goes to one overarching factor: bad jobs — something Republicans don't want to talk about.

Blumner's claim is sheer lunacy, unless by "bad jobs" she literally means jobs that result in making it more likely that workers will require expensive medical care.  The only thing a bad job does is make health care, at whatever price it carries, less affordable.

This is an important distinction progressives like Blumner seem to handle with difficulty.  Suppose we had available a spinal replacement surgery, but it came a cost of $2 trillion per procedure.  In Blumner's world, spinal replacement surgery represents a terrible thing because it's just one more way that health care is unaffordable.  And such prices help necessitate universal coverage where "the rich" share the costs of expensive procedures.  That way, rich folks like Bill Gates can be forced to help underwrite spinal replacement surgery for dozens of people who can't even afford basic health insurance.

Of course, we don't have spinal replacement surgery at any cost--yet.  But the hypothetical procedure illustrates the primary driver of increased medical costs:  medical innovation.

If the only medical care we had was plaster casts, pain killers and 19th century surgical procedures then medical costs would be very low today.  It's not that hard to saw off a leg.  Medical costs increase rapidly because the technology to accomplish more medical treatment is increasing rapidly.  And even when a new advance is relatively inexpensive, such as treatment for erectile dysfunction, overall medical costs increase because people expect such treatments to make up part of their medical care.  That's why even Viagra was covered for a time under Medicare.

The cost (price) of treating erectile dysfunction went down.  The amount of money spent (cost) of treating erectile dysfunction went up.  It's a classic supply-and-demand curve.

And then there's the cost of health insurance as contrasted to the price of health care.  As above, if health insurance covered plaster casts, pain killers and 19th century surgical procedures then health insurance would be extremely affordable--no doubt a small fraction of what it costs today given coverage of everything from cancer treatment to substance abuse treatment.  But government regulators tell insurance companies what they have to cover.  And because so many expensive health procedures exist, the cost of covering the risk of providing those procedures grows right along with it.  The consumer foots the bill where the state mandates increases in the cost of shared risk.

If Blumner has any clue about any of this then her expertise in hiding it for the purpose of her columns cannot be questioned.


* I don't know that Blumner's a communist.  People in the comments section at the Times like to call her that, and I like alliteration ("commie columnist").  She likes organized labor and big government.  She calls herself an atheist.  So if she's not a communist then at least she has a thing or two in common. The description is not intended to identify her as a communist, however.  It is intended as alliterative hyperbole.



Hat tip to JD for pointing out the mess I had made of the third paragraph.  A redundancy has been removed and the phrasing changed slightly to meet my exceedingly high standards of something-or-other.

Columbia Journalism Review botches critique of PolitiFact

Though PolitiFact is increasingly regarded as dependably left-leaning by conservatives, it also receives abundant criticism from the left.  PolitiFact often uses the criticism from both sides as an evidence of its neutrality.  But it doesn't quite work that way.  It's possible to flub up stories unfavorably for both Democrats and Republicans while still giving one of the parties the predominantly short end of the stick.

In addition, the criticisms from the right tend to better strike the mark.  As an example, let's examine a recent pan of PolitiFact from the respected Columbia Journalism Review dealing with a Fox News claim about teacher pay in Wisconsin relative to the national average for private sector pay.

CJR's Ryan Chittum scolded PolitiFact for grading a false statement "Barely True."  But Chittum's critique overlooked both the nature of the facts and PolitiFact's description of its "Truth-O-Meter" ratings.

But it's worth starting out with Chittum's immediate digression in treating the claim by Fox News' Eric Bolling:

Here’s what Bolling said:

“We got blackboard, here it is, Wisconsin teachers make a salary of $51,000…Benefits $38,000 per year, that comes to a whopping 89,000 bucks, while the rest of us, all workers in the United States, union, non-union, etc., $38,000 is your average salary…there, $10,000 in benefits, a quarter of what you make, that you would make if you were a Wisconsin teacher, to 48 grand, almost half the amount. Yet collective bargaining says that is OK. That’s not anti-free market?”

The whole thing is flat false, but first, I can’t let this pass uncommented, because it’s pure Murdoch/Fox: Here we have a guy who’s a rich TV anchor/commodities trader including himself with “the rest of us, all workers in the United States” to carp about teachers bringing home 700 bucks a week. Dude’s a real man of the people.

Chittum could hardly have chosen a more direct way undermine his credibility.  Bolling wasn't presenting himself as a man of the people, he was accurately counting himself as a private sector employee whose salary figures into a national average for private sector employees.  Does Chittum hate Fox News?  Judging form this out-of-place swipe at Bolling we have reason to think so.  His opinion of Fox apparently clouds his judgment.

Chittum goes on to unpack a set of figures that contrasts with those Bolling used on his Fox News segment, concluding that Bolling was so far off that PolitiFact was obligated to affix a rating of "False" to his statement.

Chittum's argument doesn't stack up as to the facts.  As one commenter on Chittum's post ("padikiller") pointed out, PolitiFact's numbers were not definitive.  Rather, they were estimates.  Estimates provide a poor grounding for a definitive finding of "False."

In addition, Chittum appears to misunderstand PolitiFact's grading criteria.  PolitiFact editor Bill Adair has written that the most important aspect of a "numbers claim" is the underlying point.  The wrong figure, if not too far out bounds--and granted PolitiFact does little to pin down the boundaries--can support the underlying point and result in ratings well above "False."

Unfortunately, the PolitiFact writer in question, Robert Farley, apparently didn't know about his own grading system enough to use it to defend the rating:

UPDATE: Rob Farley of PolitiFact and the St. Pete Times says on Twitter that Politifact’s judgment “takes into account that Bolling gave corrected numbers the next night.”

And so it does, saying in the kicker that “We don’t take too much issue with the raw numbers provided by Bolling (the clarified ones).” Bolling, to his credit, had corrected his original numbers with ones closer to reality a day after his report ran.

But I’m not sure that parenthetical in the last paragraph was good enough. I’m sure I’m not the only one who read the piece as PolitiFact taking on the original statement. That’s what the headline says:

In Wisconsin, teachers make $89,000 in salary and benefits, compared to $48,000 for all other workers in the United States.

As well as the subhed:

Fox Business News’ Eric Bolling says Wisconsin teachers get compensated nearly double those in private sector

I agree that Farley's excuse seems thin.  On the other hand, didn't media critic Chittum notice any problem at all with PolitiFact's blurbs other than the one he mentions?  Look at the second one he quotes.  The blurb suggests Bolling set up a comparison between  "Wisconsin teachers" and "those in the private sector," where the latter are also teachers.  While that would have represented an apples-to-apples comparison, it isn't what Bolling said.

And another thing.  Both Chittum and PolitiFact pay particular attention to Bolling's claim that Wisconsin teachers make nearly double what private sector employees make nationally.  But though Bolling does make that claim implicitly, he does it in the context of comparing $48,000 to $89,000.  Bolling did not use the figures to support the argument that Wisconsin teachers make double the compensation of the private sector nationally.  Rather, he was making an observation about the numbers.  In that context his claim was an accurate approximation.

So Chittum's critique is off the mark and PolitiFact's Farley doesn't know how to defend his organization by its own standards.


Afters:

Ironically, while taking Bolling to task for an apples-to-oranges comparison, PolitiFact did the same thing.  It used a study comparing comparing government employees (union and otherwise) to private sector employees to undercut Bolling's argument.  But Bolling's point concerned the pay of government employees as influenced by union representation.

Chittum didn't notice?

Grading PolitiFact (Ohio): Tom Niehaus and the defecation implication

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.
--Bill Adair

The issue:

The fact checkers:

Reginald Fields:  writer, researcher
Robert Higgs:  editor


Analysis:

What's the scoop on the poop at the Statehouse building in Ohio?

The PolitiFact account tells of of a "raucous" protest outside the Statehouse building by "over 5,000 union workers."

The protesters’ target was Republican Gov. John Kasich and the GOP-controlled Senate that is pushing the bill.

If the protesters end up murdering Kasich and the GOP-controlled Senate then it will be the fault of Fields and Higgs. "Target." Tsk, tsk.

I'm joking about the martial rhetoric. But the use of adjectives and adverbs in this story does represent a concern in terms of journalistic style.

Use sparingly. Inject colour into copy with strong verbs and facts, rather than adjectives. If you use more than two adjectives before a single noun then rewrite the sentence. A reader struggles with The one-eyed poverty-stricken Greek house painter. Avoid adjectives that imply judgment, e.g. a hard-line speech, a glowing tribute, a staunch conservative.

Reuters Handbook of Journalism

The other problem with adjectives is that they can unwittingly transmit a reporter's bias or feelings. 

About.com:  Journalism

The problem is the same for adverbs.  Speaking of which:

Even Republican Senate President Tom Niehaus the next day grudgingly expressed admiration for the groups’ ability to coordinate so well and make themselves part of the lawmaking process.

We've got video of the grudgingly:



I know!  Total grudgefulness, like, for sure.  Practically raucous in his grudgefulness, he was.

Setting style points aside, what about the facts?

PolitiFact:

It is clear that Kasich and Statehouse Republicans are frustrated by being upstaged by protesters over SB 5 (Thousands more were expected to rally at the Statehouse on Tuesday, March 1).

Oops, sorry, that was an opinion. The facts are a little further in:

Did protesters really defecate in the Statehouse?

We asked Niehaus’ staff about the "documented instances" and were told that several were reported to the senator and that he confirmed them with Statehouse management. That management is handled by the Capitol Square Review and Advisory Board.

PolitiFact phoned the Capital Square Review and Advisory Board and left an inquiry message of some sort.  The reply from the board was via voicemail, though the text of the story suggests a direct conversation:

We called the CSRAB, the curators of the Statehouse, for an accounting of any incidents in the building during the protest.

"There was defecation in the stairwell to the parking garage," said CSRAB spokesman Gregg Dodd, but not inside the Statehouse. Furthermore, there is no proof it was left by protesters, and Dodd expressed his doubt. He noted that CSRAB has dealt with this issue before when there are no demonstrations taking place at the Statehouse.

"Unfortunately it happens from time to time even when there are no events going on, and we think it is either a homeless person or persons, or someone waiting for the bus stop," Dodd said, explaining that this particular stairwell leads up to the street level where there are stops for the Columbus bus system.

How do I know Dodd communicated through voicemail?  Simple.  I check the source list PolitiFact provides.  It says "Gregg Dodd, Capital Square Review and Advisory Board, voicemail message, Feb. 25, 2011."

The short source list and voicemail communications suggest a slapdash effort to check this set of facts.  But let's give PolitiFact the benefit of the doubt and assume that Dodd was aware of any and all incidents occurring at or near the time of the protest and reported them accurately to PolitiFact.

That makes Niehaus wrong, doesn't it?

Actually, no.  Though Dodd thought that the doodie was done by a homeless person or the like unassociated with the protest, he did not rule out the possibility.  Why, then, does PolitiFact go on to rule Niehaus' claim "Pants on Fire" as a supposedly ridiculous claim?

Possibly the duo of Fields and Higgs relied on PolitiFact's burden of proof criterion.  If Niehaus doesn't prove it was a protestor who dropped the dookie then it wasn't a protester.  That reasoning perfectly fits the form of the appeal to ignorance fallacy, as I have pointed out in previous posts.

More importantly, did PolitiFact miss Niehaus' point?  Was he trying to portray the protesters as slovenly barbarians?

If so, Niehaus could have used some coaching.  He erred in praising the majority of the protesters for their adherence to decorum and for specifically saying that only a small minority marred that adherence to decorum.  Oh, you didn't know that Niehaus said that?  PolitiFact must have neglected to mention it.  Review the embedded video.

Given that Niehaus did such a horrible job of selling the point that the protesters were excrementalists, is it possible that he was making a different point?

Returning to the context, it is plain that Niehaus praised the behavior of the majority of the protestors, grudgingly or not.  And he gave two examples of blemishes on that exemplary behavior.  One, the unauthorized bowel movements.  Two, the writing on the walls.  PolitiFact gave Niehaus a "small nod" for the accuracy of the latter statement.  If Niehaus' purpose was either to admonish those who perpetrated the acts or to encourage even better adherence to decorum by protesters, then his complex statement supports those aims even if the offending offal was not left behind by the protesters.

The conclusion makes clear the hypocrisy of PolitiFact's fact-checking criteria:

As Senate president, Niehaus is one of the most influential people in the state government and when he speaks people listen. Yet this claim is beyond inaccurate. It’s a ridiculous assertion that is unsupported by the people who actually take care of the Statehouse.

Supposedly Niehaus' claim is "beyond inaccurate."  But in terms of the facts of the story, Niehaus' claim was merely unconfirmed, which is notably echoed in the subsequent sentence ("unsupported by the people who actually take care of the Statehouse.")

PolitiFact, then, is stating that the protesters did not evacuate before leaving the building.  But all they've got in evidence is the hypothesis of one man who works for the board.  If we apply PolitiFact's own standard to PolitiFact's claim, then PolitiFact would have about the same amount of evidence in support of its claim that Niehaus has for his.

Just to make clear, I think it probably wasn't the protesters who were responsible.  The point here is that PolitiFact is making an unequivocal judgment based on equivocal evidence.


The grades:

Reginald Fields:  F
Robert Higgs:  F

Hypocrites who need remedial practice in objective reporting.  That's overlooking a skimpy list of sources.  The reporting looks rushed.

I suppose they can blame their hypocrisy on the ludicrous operational standards required by PolitiFact, namely the ill-conceived burden of proof criterion.

Grading PolitiFact (Virginia): Tim Kaine on jobs & pop

To assess the truth for a numbers claim, the biggest factor is the underlying message. 
--Bill Adair

The issue:

The fact checkers:

Sean Gorman:  writer, researcher
Warren Fiske:  editor

Analysis:

Kaine's claim obviously represents a numbers claim, so we'll be on the lookout for the underlying point.  That's the most important thing when fact checking a numbers claim.  Or so it is said.

Take it away, PolitiFact:

Kaine said in a speech that during the Bush administration "while the population in that period grew by 10 percent, the number of jobs in the nation grew by 1 percent."

We wondered if that was really the case. Alec Gerlach, a DNC spokesman, couldn’t identify the source on which the former Virginia governor based his claim. So we tried to find it on our own, comparing census records from January 2001 - the month Bush was sworn in - to January 2009, when Bush left office.

It makes sense to investigate the raw numbers prior to assessing the underlying point.

PolitiFact found that the population increased by about 7.8 percent according to Census Bureau estimates.  Kaine's number was inflated by about 22 percent in order to reach the minimum reasonable interpretation of "10 percent" (9.5 percent).  Insisting on the full 10 percent--and I don't--would represent an inflation of about 36 percent.

Additionally, PolitiFact found that non-farm employment increased only about .83 percent from the start of Bush's two terms to the end.  Kaine could be viewed as doing Bush a favor by rounding that figure up to 1 percent.

While Kaine’s numbers are a little off on employment and census, he’s right in suggesting that that U.S. population grew 10 times faster that (sic) jobs during George W. Bush’s presidency.

Hmmm.  Could that be the underlying point?  Or was it hidden in the three paragraphs' worth of caveats?

Even so, several economists told us comparing raw population growth and job numbers is not a preferred way to examine job creation versus demand. That’s because not all of the new people -- such as babies born during the Bush administration -- need jobs.

We were told a more meaningful measure is labor force participation: the percentage of the population between 16 and 64 that is either employed or looking for work. According to BLS, participation was at 67.2 percent when Bush took office and 65.7 percent when he left.

Here’s another thing to keep in mind: Economists have told us time and again -- on this claim and others -- that the policies of presidents and governors have only minor impact on economic cycles and job creation. "They get too much credit and too much blame," said Sylvia A. Allegretto, economist at the Institute for Research on Labor & Employment at the University of California, Berkeley.

... and hinted at in the introductory paragraph(?):

Democratic National Committee Chairman Tim Kaine may not have given the crowd at the Feb. 19 Jefferson-Jackson Dinner in Richmond the scoop on whether he’s running for the U.S. Senate, but he made no secret of his disdain for former President George W. Bush’s record on job creation.

No, apparently the 10:1 thing was the underlying point, if the conclusion is any indication:

Kaine’s numbers are a little off his and spokesman doesn’t know where they came from. Even so, his suggestion that population growth outpaced job growth by a ratio of 10 to 1 is pretty much on the mark, so we rate his claim Mostly True.

The grades:

Sean Gorman:  F
Warren Fiske:  F

The grades assume that Bill Adair knows what he's talking about when he says the underlying argument is the most important aspect of a numbers claim.  Making the supposed 10:1 ratio the underlying point is little better than making the raw numbers the underlying point (and thus the same as the superficial point).


Afters:

The presentation by Gorman and Fiske left it unclear just how far off the mark Kaine ended up with respect to the supposed 10:1 ratio.  Divide 7.8 by .83 and the resulting 9.4 ends up reflecting a ratio closer to 9:1  than 10:1.

Notes on the war for Wisconsin

The battle between some public employee labor unions and the state government in Wisconsin means a great deal in the modern political landscape, as numerous pundits have suggested.  I'm going to weigh in by juxtaposing a pair of recent stories from David Cay Johnston and Robert Tracinski.

Johnston's story bemoans the media's mistake in adopting Gov. Walker's language in calling for public employees to bear a greater share of the expense for their medical and pension costs:

Out of every dollar that funds Wisconsin' s pension and health insurance plans for state workers, 100 cents comes from the state workers.

Johnston's point is trivially right.  The Republican-controlled state is asking public sector workers to take a reduction in its overall compensation.  But Johnston's point also misses the point.  There are two corporate entities involved, the state and the public workers.  The state is the employer and 100 cents out of every dollar that funds Wisconsin's pension and health insurance plans comes from the employer since the employer is paying for both salary and non-salary benefits.

The point is that Johnston is silly to make a big deal about the money coming entirely from the workers.  Walker would fire a bunch of them if the bill didn't pass, simply because the state's budget could not bear the costs.

The answer to Johnston's point clicked entirely into place when I read through the fourth paragraph of Tracinski's column:

There is something that almost amounts to a twisted idealism in the Democrats' crusade. They are fighting, not just to preserve their special privileges, but to preserve a social ideal. Or rather, they are fighting to maintain the illusion that their ideal system is benevolent and sustainable.

Johnston's trying to sustain the illusion.

Think about those deferred wages.  Suppose for the sake of argument that a Wisconsin employee put in 10 years at $30,000 per year and earns a pension of 50 percent of their salary in perpetuity.  Suppose the employee goes on to live for 50 years on that pension.  The state will have paid that employee, using Johnston's terms, $750,000 in deferred salary.  So the employee did not make a mere $300,000 over ten years but over $1 million in 10 years.

The example is made up, but the principle is real.  Some of the union deals are too expensive, and the employers (the people and their representatives) need to do some serious work to get them back in line with fiscal reality.

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.

Strange citation of the week

Some chap going by the screen name of "KarateKid" helped bump traffic here a bit by linking one of my posts in a commentary thread over at the Huffington Post.

The citation, along with similar ones from Hot Air and Reason, not to mention a sore thumb oddball from Time's Swampland blog, did not appear to make much sense:

For those of you who think Politifacts (sic) is some kind of objective bible, read some of this. I DARE you, righties.

http://rea­son.com/bl­og/2010/12­/17/politi­facts-lie-­of-the-yea­r-is

http://hot­air.com/ar­chives/201­0/12/17/po­litifacts-­biggest-li­e-2/

http://sub­loviate.bl­ogspot.com­/2011/02/p­olitifacts­-numbers-r­acket.html

http://swa­mpland.blo­gs.time.co­m/2010/12/­17/politif­acts-lie-o­f-the-year­/

Sorry, you righties. St. Petersburg Times is a conservati­ve paper. Maybe they can fool you but here, you're among educated people so save your _palaver.

The post here was about PolitiFact's inconsistent standards in handling numbers claims. While the post does note that PolitiFact went soft on Ron Paul compared to Mitt Romney, there's nothing else in it to support the notion that PolitiFact has a conservative bias. PolitiFact was soft on Paul respecting an issue more popular with the left and libertarians than with mainstream Republicans.

The point was that PolitiFact's methods are suspect, not that the example amounts to an ideological bias, though if one tried to wring evidence of bias out of it the evidence probably favors the left more than the right.

I don't recommend using the example as evidence of bias except where many other examples show that one side is favored clearly more often than the other.

Is "KarateKid" a troll? I've no idea. His number of fans (2073) argues against it, at first blush.

Grading PolitiFact (Wisconsin): Scott Walker and the budget repair plan

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?
--Bill Adair, PolitiFact

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.
--Bill Adair, PolitiFact

The issue:

The fact checkers:

Dave Umhoefer:  writer, researcher
Greg Borowski:  editor

Analysis:

PolitiFact's presentation of this fact check raises an immediate red flag for those who agree with Bill Adair that words matter.  The quotation of Gov. Scott Walker includes a parenthetical portion provided by PolitiFact.  Those editorial embellishments are customarily intended to assist the reader in understanding the context of the statement.  But reporters and editors sometimes fail to accurately convey the context with such interpolations.

PolitiFact examines two associated statements from Walker.  In each, we get an accurate idea of Walker's exact words:

1)

A reporter asked if the move to limit union power was payback for pro-union moves made by Democrats in the past.

"It’s not a tit for tat," Walker responded. "The simple matter is I campaigned on this all throughout the election. Anybody who says they are shocked on this has been asleep for the past two years."

2)

Asked if he was "ramming through" the budget-repair bill, Walker said:

"We introduced a measure last week, a measure I ran on during the campaign, a measure I talked about in November during the transition, a measure I talked about in December when we fought off the employee contracts, an idea I talked about in the inauguration, an idea I talked about in the state of the state. If anyone doesn't know what's coming, they've been asleep for the past two years."

And, for review, the PolitiFact paraphrase of Walker's position based on the two quotations above:

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker says he campaigned on his budget repair plan, including curtailing collective bargaining.

PolitiFact described/justified the above framing in the story like so:

There is no dispute that Walker campaigned on getting concessions on health and pension benefits from state employees. And, to be sure, that is an important part of the measure.

But for Walker to be right, he has to be correct on the entirety of the plan. So we’ll look more deeply at the collective bargaining side of the equation, which has caused the ongoing firestorm in Madison.

The key premise in PolitiFact's argument occurs at the start of the second paragraph just above:  "(F)or Walker to be right, he has to be correct on the entirety of the plan."  That key premise is based, in turn, on PolitiFact's interpretation of Walker's words at two press conferences, one on Feb. 17 and the other on Feb. 21.

Given the critical nature of the respective interpretations, we examine each in turn.

Keeping up appearances at PolitiFact

Yesterday PolitiFact published a piece by editor Bill Adair apparently intended to reassure readers that PolitiFact is, well, politifair in the way it does business.

Given Adair's recent past of expressing indifference to the public's perception of bias at PolitiFact this is a significant development.  Eric Ostermeier probably deserves a great deal of the credit for putting PolitiFact on the defensive.  Ostermeier published a study of PolitiFact's results suggesting the strong possibility of selection bias and called for PolitiFact to make its selection process transparent.

Though Ostermeier's name might as well have been "Voldemort" for purposes of Adair's article, the latter probably serves as Adair's response to Ostermeier's call.

How does the answer measure up?

Editor's Note: We've had some inquiries lately about how we select claims to check and make our rulings. So here's an overview of our procedures and the principles for Truth-O-Meter rulings.

The editor's note is about half true.  PolitiFact didn't just have inquiries.  It found itself criticized by a serious researcher who made a good case that PolitiFact ought to be viewed as having a selection bias problem unless PolitiFact could allay the concern by making its methods transparent.  The editor's note isn't exactly transparent.

Adair's off to a great start!