Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Live so that if you miss a day of work people aren’t hoping you’re dead.

‘Museums aren’t America’s attic for its racist shit.’

Innocent people don’t delay justice.

The lights are all blinking red.

Speaker Mike Johnson is a vile traitor to the House and the Constitution.

Hi god, it’s us. Thanks a heap, you’re having a great week and it’s only Thursday!

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires Republicans to act in good faith.

He wakes up lying, and he lies all day.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

I like you, you’re my kind of trouble.

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

The gop is a fucking disgrace.

Trump’s legal defense is going to be a dumpster fire inside a clown car on a derailing train.

I also would like a pony to improve my balloon juice experience.

The arc of the moral universe doesn’t bend itself. it’s up to us.

“What are Republicans afraid of?” Everything.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

Happy indictment week to all who celebrate!

“Loving your country does not mean lying about it’s history.”

… gradually, and then suddenly.

It’s a new day. Light all those Biden polls of young people on fire and throw away the ashes.

This has so much WTF written all over it that it is hard to comprehend.

You are here: Home / Too easy

Too easy

by | 68 Comments

This post is in: 

I can’t believe this idiot took me seriously:

CHILI, NY
Bravo for some good *centrist*, non-partisan fact checking! Both sides do it. And both sides got the same number of Pinocchios. That proves you are doing a good job! Keep up the good work. Was the spirit of David Broder communing with you as you did your fact-checking?
– December 22, 2011 1:16 PMPermalink
A.
GLENN KESSLER :
Thank you for this comment! I recently attended a conference on fact checking, and it seems that many people point to David Broder’s columns after the 1988 election as helping pave the way for today’s fact checking organizations.
– December 22, 2011 1:41 PM

Reader Interactions

68Comments

  1. 1.

    Villago Delenda Est

    I’m afraid Mr. Kessler has passed, with flying colors, the “this guy is too fucking stupid to be allowed to continue to live” test.

    What a fucktard. He has no idea how much Broder, and Broder’s successors, are loathed in most of the country.

  2. 2.

    SW

    That is one for the ages. The true personification of the term ‘useful idiot’. Absolutely hilarious. Too bad the dip shit will probably never see this. Still, he probably did wade through Froomkin’s screed which was probably wasted on him.

  3. 3.

    Brachiator

    I can’t believe this idiot took me seriously.

    Not everyone is adept in the ways of snark.

    Or it was a double snark reply.

  4. 4.

    Ron

    Sarcasm doesn’t always translate in print. (P.S. Why the hell is your town’s name pronounced “Chy-ly”?)

  11. 11.

    schrodinger's cat

    Where the hell is Chili in NY? Next to Burrito or Garam Masala? Or is it real town that I have never heard of?

  12. 12.

    taylormattd

    it seems that many people point to David Broder’s columns after the 1988 election as helping pave the way for today’s fact checking organizations

    It really is glorious, isn’t it?

  13. 13.

    KCinDC

    Wow:

    This week, PolitiFact’s decision to award its “Lie of the Year” trophy to Democratic claims that the GOP “killed” Medicare has earned it and its fact checking brethren additional scorn from the left.

    If Democrats had claimed that the GOP killed Medicare, that would definitely be a legitimate Lie of the Year, but even PolitiFact never said that happened.

  14. 14.

    jrg

    The fact that the truth is completely independent of how something is seen politically, centrist or not, is completely lost on these people, isn’t it?

  16. 16.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Brachiator:

    Or it was a double snark reply.

    You could read the reply that way, can’t you?

    Pretty horrific thought there are reporters who are just cringing that the nonsense they are being made to produce.

  20. 20.

    Warren Terra

    I genuinely LOL’d (I’m alone in the room, though; is there a gradation of LOLs by possible social consequence?)

    While the Broder thing was a thing of beauty, I think not enough appreciation is being paid to this little stroke of the scalpel:

    both sides got the same number of Pinocchios. That proves you are doing a good job!

    As I’ve ranted about at some length, Politifact gave the game away when they posted their ten finalists for “lie” of the year, and had to balance ten obvious whoppers from major Republicans with an equal number from non-Republicans, even though they only manged to do this by nutpicking, denouncing statements that weren’t actually untrue, and tut-tutting about some mild hyperbole.

  21. 21.

    schrodinger's cat

    Math Prof by day, BJ blogger of many names by night. Master troll all hours of day and night. I has an impressed.

  23. 23.

    pragmatism

    “both sides do it” is only useful to people who want to retain access to the party that actually does “it”.

    nice work dougj

  24. 24.

    TooManyJens

    @Brachiator:

    Or it was a double snark reply.

    I wondered about that, but this

    it seems that many people point to David Broder’s columns after the 1988 election as helping pave the way for today’s fact checking organizations.

    strikes me as an unusually subtle and detailed double-snark response to have come up with on the fly.

  25. 25.

    schrodinger's cat

    @Gin & Tonic: Not difficult at all, but unnecessary in this case, since I got my answer with even less effort. Being a physics cat I believe in the principle of least action.

  26. 26.

    El Tiburon

    These people really do exist in a completely different universe.

    Hannity = Maddow
    O’Reilly = Olbermann

    Can we please have an OWS occupy the MSM? They are the real guilty culprits in all of this clusterfuckery.

  29. 29.

    El Tiburon

    @Warren Terra:

    Politifact gave the game away when they posted their ten finalists for “lie” of the year, and had to balance ten obvious whoppers from major Republicans with an equal number from non-Republicans,

    And if you read some of the other Q&A with Kessler, you’ll see another common theme:

    Q: Did you realize you had the same number of Democratic and Republican lies?
    A: What? Ha ha that is so funny, no I didn’t even realize it. You see, I don’t care who said it, just WHAT was said.

  30. 30.

    Warren Terra

    @KCinDC:
    That article is an odd ‘un. Yes, it mischaracterizes the assertion about the GOP and Medicare that Politifact (falsely) called a lie – but it doesn’t actually say whether it agrees with Politifact’s verdict. Notably, Politifact’s “lie of the year” didn’t even make the list of contenders in the article.

  32. 32.

    Brachiator

    @TooManyJens:

    I wondered about that, but this

    Yeah, most likely the guy was clueless. Or just in a hurry, scanning bunches of messages, and not looking for snark, which is why I think doing irony twists is often wasted. People just want to get to the meat (Yea! Nay!) and move on.

  34. 34.

    Rick Massimo

    I’m probably pointing out the obvious, but:

    it seems that many people point to David Broder’s columns after the 1988 election as helping pave the way for today’s fact checking organizations.

    Because if you correct lies BEFORE they influence elections that’s partisan and unfair. But if you cluck your tongue at the lies AFTER they’ve worked you’re the Sage of the Deans of the Geniuses or something.

  37. 37.

    Satanicpanic

    Nicely done, and you were laying it on pretty thick here:

    Bravo for some good centrist, non-partisan fact checking! Both sides do it. And both sides got the same number of Pinocchios. That proves you are doing a good job!

    A child could figure out you’re patronizing them with this kind of talk.

  38. 38.

    TooManyJens

    @El Tiburon: This was quite the dance, I thought:

    It was not conscious. I am amazed people even bothered to count. The point was not who said it, but what was said.
    __
    Please note–I did not say both sides are equally dishonest. Instead, I said: “There is little difference between Democrats and Republicans in terms of twisting the facts and being misleading when it suits their political purposes.”
    __
    In other words, they both stretch the truth when they think it furthers their political objectives. I make no judgement on whether one party is more dishonest than the other.

    No, because why would a fact checker make judgments about something like that?

  40. 40.

    MikeJ

    @Rick Massimo:

    Because if you correct lies BEFORE they influence elections that’s partisan and unfair.

    Remember when the NYT said they spiked the warrentless wiretapping story because they were afraid it would influence the ’04 election?

  41. 41.

    WarMunchkin

    Laughed so hard my saliva went into my nose, and it burns now, and I’m at work. I love how he uses “it seems that” in referencing the popularity of Broder.

  43. 43.

    Comrade Javamanphil

    He will wear this as a badge of honor, and use it as proof he is doing a good job. (You see, the liberal blogs mocked me for partisan purposes. I must be right!) They have preemptively inoculated themselves from any criticism.

  45. 45.

    ericblair

    Also, too, a “fact checking conference?” Was this in Vail, Maui, Davos, or Paris? Did they have special executive guest speakers who explained that when you see a fact, maybe you should check it? Did he get the discount rate at the Ritz to attend, and did he get just the normal business class seat or did he manage to upgrade to first class? How was the goodie bag?

    And more importantly, how do I get my company to pay for this shit for me?

  46. 46.

    Jamey: Bike Commuter of the Gods

    Why can’t you believe it, DougJ? Suspension of disbelief is Kessler’s job description.

  47. 47.

    Downpuppy

    Any question of whether Kessler is clueless was answered at the end :

    But I cannot do my job correctly if I think one party is more dishonest than the other.

    Yes.

  48. 48.

    ericblair

    @Downpuppy:

    But I cannot do my job correctly if I think one party is more dishonest than the other.

    Absolutely correct, once you figure out what “his job” actually is.

  49. 49.

    Triassic Sands

    Reference to Broder conveys automatic credibility in Washington and probably triply so at the Post itself.

    Fact-checking turns out to be opinion-based, rather than fact-based and the opinion of someone whose main goal is to appear balanced as opposed to accurate is going to be worth much.

    It’s instructive that the fact-checkers themselves are in agreement over the end Medicare “lie.” Apparently, if Kessler answered an ad in the paper for a 2011 Lexus and found the actual vehicle for sale to be a 1980 Yugo, he’d be satisfied that the seller had not misrepresented his offering.

    I recently installed a new hard drive and when re-creating my bookmarks, I didn’t bother with any of the fact-checking sites. The plague that is “false equivalence” is now at the heart of fact-checking, which renders these services utterly useless, except as fodder for satire. The real “Lie of the Year” is the lie of false equivalence, a phenomenon that has contributed hugely to the failure of the MSM to do their job responsibly. This, in turn, is severely damaging this country, but there is no sign that a change is even possible anymore.

  51. 51.

    Downpuppy

    @ericblair: And clueless. If he is aware of his True Purpose, he has to understand that it only works if he pretends to be honest.

    Seriously, anybody who has taken on a political fact-checker job should have thought for at least 30 seconds about objectivity vs neutrality, and be able roll out something that at least sounds objective.

    Kessler is far beyond lame.

  52. 52.

    Dave Ruddell

    Where the hell is Chili in NY? Next to Burrito or Garam Masala? Or is it real town that I have never heard of?

    IIRC, it’s pronounced with two long i’s, so it sort of rhymes with jai alai

  54. 54.

    TooManyJens

    @Downpuppy:

    But I cannot do my job correctly if I think one party is more dishonest than the other.

    And a science reporter couldn’t do their job correctly if they didn’t think creationists and real scientists were equally credible, amirite?

  55. 55.

    The Thin Black Duke

    @Triassic Sands:

    Change is inevitable.

    Problem is, reality doesn’t bullshit. And unfortunately, the way things are in this country right now is unsustainable.

    Either the United States will make the necessary changes happen or the changes are gonna happen to us and we ain’t gonna like it.

  56. 56.

    Jerry

    @Dave Ruddell: And Charlotte Beach in the Rochester area is not pronounced like the city in North Carolina but instead shar-LOT. I think cities change pronunciations just to mess with out of towners.

  57. 57.

    Jamey: Bike Commuter of the Gods

    @Jerry: Just ask any New Yorker who’s visiting HOW-ston, Texas … or the Frenchman who gets lost in Ver-SALES, Pa.

  59. 59.

    FormerSwingVoter

    …Okay, this is gonna catch me a lot of flak, but am I the only Democrat who thinks that “Republicans voted to end Medicare” is kind of a lie? Or at least misleading? I mean, I get it – these things need to be compressed into short bullet points that people will remember, and “Republicans voted to replace Medicare with a voucher program that won’t pay for all of seniors’ medical needs” or “Republicans voted to end Medicare for everyone currently under 55” don’t have the same kind of zip to ’em. And putting it as the “Lie of the Year” is absolutely ridiculous.

    But if they’d just given it 2 or 3 Liar Points instead of 4, I don’t think I’d have any complaints at all.

  61. 61.

    SectarianSofa

    Ha! Am I crying or laughing?
    Poor Glenn Kessler. Never send to know for whom the DougJ trolls, he trolls for thee.

  62. 62.

    tomvox1

    That is so fucking awesome, Doug. Not only did the guy not figure out you were blowing smoke but you got Kessler to admit on the record that the Church of High Broderism is a real and living thing guiding the Villagers, with the holy rite of “balance” replacing objective journalism.

    Chapeau, hombre, chapeau.

  64. 64.

    Kevin Ray

    Wow.. I’m still wrapping my head around “But I cannot do my job correctly if I think one party is more dishonest than the other.”

    Hell, with criteria like that, Mitt Romney’d be a fool NOT to lie.

  65. 65.

    OGLiberal

    I couldn’t find any details of a recent fact checking conference but i did find a tribute to Broder (post-mortem) at Politifact.com where they basically called Broder the patron saint of fact checking. (for, of course, saying that GHWB’s ads about Dukakis were BS….after the fucking election). Found a Politico story about fact checkers that said same. (isn’t Kessler a Politico alum?…or am I confusing him with Glenn Thrush?) So i don’t think it was return snark.

  66. 66.

    Anne Laurie

    Bravo, DougJ — this one deserves to be framed & mounted over the fireplace. And probably included in your obituary, many many many years down the road…

  67. 67.

    Thymezone

    I can’t believe this idiot took me seriously:

    Meh, you’ve been fooling people here into doing it for years. You’re the master. The King of Spoof around the world. We bow.

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