Charlie Bass (R, NH-2) tried to use Polifact’s “Lie of the Year” designation to yank ads claiming he “voted to end Medicare” when he voted for the Ryan plan, and he was denied (via):
[…] The Bass campaign sent letters to two New Hampshire stations — WMUR and WHDH — demanding the ads be yanked. Crucially, the Bass campaign repeatedly cited PolitiFact’s Lie of the Year designation to bolster its case.Both stations refused.
“Our lawyers looked at the ad and concluded it’s within the bounds of robust public debate,” Jeff Barlett, the general manager of WMUR, tells me. “If Charlie Bass and his supporters disagree with this, they’re free to create their own ad and tell their side of the story.”
Am I wrong to so thoroughly enjoy how Polifact’s “both sides do it” attempt to validate its credibility completely backfired? Remember, they flushed twice: first when they named Democratic opposition to the Ryan plan “Lie of the Year”, and second when they doubled down with a post from on high accusing their critics of living in an echo chamber and failing to see how “dangerous” and “disruptive” Polifact really is. When two small market TV stations totally disregard you, a different word comes to mind: irrelevant.
Schlemizel
I think you are reading too much into this. “Within the bounds of of robust public debate” covers an awful lot of bullshit and it will be seen as just more of the same.
BO_Bill
mistermix; the TeeVee stations are strapped for cash and were not going to give the money back. Instead, they invited the politician in question to provide them with another source of funding, by writing another check to promulgate a different viewpoint. Things are very simple.
Now, a cross-eyed professor from Harvard University who attests to Barack’s high intellect.
Scott
Why should any station jump just because some Florida wingnut blog wants to redefine obvious truths as lies?
Napoleon
@Schlemizel:
Television stations will pull ads so I don’t think MM is reading too much into it.
MattF
And so, Polifact’s attempt to rise above mere partisan debate has failed. A good thing, because politics matters.
Schlemizel
@Napoleon:
Thats good otherwise tv political ads would contain lies and bullshit all the time . . . oh wait.
Joseph Nobles
@MattF: If Politifact had wanted to rise about mere partisan debate, they should have chosen an actual lie as the lie of the year. I’m sure Democrats have a reliable few for them to trot out.
BruinKid
Argh, these Ron Paul money bomb ads are all over this site!!
Eh, I guess if Paul wants to throw away the money his devoted followers give to him by wasting it here, I shouldn’t mind. :-)
iriedc
Politifact pandered and this is the thanks they get? Oh, well.
Comrade Javamanphil
And Politifact will just use this as proof that the media has a liberal bias and they were right in their designations. Who lives in the echo chamber again?
Triassic Sands
@BO_Bill:
I think Gardner overrates Obama’s interpersonal intelligence. And so does Obama himself, which is why I believe he thought he could persuade Republicans to cooperate with him. Of course, he failed completely, despite clinging to the idea long after its failure was obvious to everyone else. In fact, I think it is Obama’s failure to recognize or accept his own failure that suggests his interpersonal intelligence isn’t as high as he and Gardner think it is. Maybe he needed a little less interpersonal intelligence and a little more “reality intelligence.”
Of course, it is possible to argue that interpersonal intelligence doesn’t work with lunatics. If so, Obama needed some other kind of intelligence to help him realize the futility of his mission and he seems to be wanting in that area.
jeffreyw
We’ll take your money too, Charlie. Equal opportunity – “It’s not just the Law, it’s Good Business.”
ChrisB
It’s anything but irrelevant when Republicans across the country use Politifact to give them some credibility. The people they’re trying to convince may have a positive view of Politifact and know nothing of its mistakes.
Triassic Sands
I just want to say one more time that Politifact’s choice for “Lie of the Year” was the most incompetent exercise of analysis, decision-making, and discretion by any media source in 2011. They blew it horribly; and made their mistake orders of magnitude worse with their whining defense of their choice.
Fortunately, Politifact’s incompetence probably won’t result in dead bodies like some of the MSM’s other failings have.
Elias
Dangit BJ, why am I getting Ron Paul ads on your website?
rikyrah
this is good news this morning
Sasha
@Triassic Sands:
Unless it was Obama’s interpersonal intelligence that informed him exactly how to maximize GOP intransigence so that they found themselves holding and espousing the most lunatic of positions.
As frustrating as its been to watch, no one who’s actually seen Obama and the GOP talk can accuse him of being irrational.
ant
@Triassic Sands: what?
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
@Sasha: The ghost from the Triassic misunderstands one thing: this is a political consideration, not merely interpersonal.
Of course, if you want to talk about Barack Obama’s “failure,” you might want to also note that somehow he’s gotten the GOP to practically advertise their neo-Confederate psychosis. To the point that even the wired-for-Republicans MSM is starting to notice.
Yeah, that’s failure all right.
Waynski
@Scott: This. If the Republicans proposed that Grandma gets a voucher at the Salvation Army worth 10% of her once guaranteed and paid for Social Security check, I guess that’s still Social Security as far as Politifact is concerned. Just a little tweak to the program…Douche bags. I wonder if they like firing people too.
Triassic Sands
@Sasha:
I’m not sure I agree. It was pretty obvious who the Republicans were in 2009 when Obama took office. Still, based on his campaign rhetoric, it was probably worth a try to see if Republicans would negotiate in good faith.
Months later, however, there was no longer any question in most “rational” people’s minds — the Republicans demonstrated openly in word and deed that their one goal was to stop Obama (and by extension Democrats) from accomplishing anything. Their own rhetoric was insane, grotesque, and thoroughly dishonest. The US desperately needed health care reform, but a watered down bill filled with ideas taken from Republicans failed to get a single Republican vote in Congress. Worse still, Republicans couldn’t even discuss the legislation without resorting to ridiculous hyperbole and outright lies.
Somehow, Obama didn’t get the message. Was that irrational? That would be one way to characterize it. Another might be to observe that perhaps Obama’s ego was getting in the way — his own belief in his interpersonal wonderfulness simply wouldn’t let him accept the futility of his efforts. Or maybe he saw the promise to work cooperatively with Republicans as the most important campaign pledge of all, and he simply couldn’t bring himself to give up.
Irrational? Unrealistic? Delusional? Naive? I don’t know the answer. Whatever it is, Obama continued to try to get Republicans to negotiate in good faith long after everyone, except perhaps Obama himself, knew there was no point. Clearly, that opinion is shared by a huge cross section of political observers — from all across the political spectrum, and including both political supporters and opponents.
Waynski
@Triassic Sands: Those were a lot of words to let us all know you’re the chairperson of the Jane Hamsher 2012 steering committee.
Triassic Sands
I’m sorry, but I think this is giving credit where none is really deserved. The Modern Republican Party requires no assistance from Obama to advertise their lunacy. It is who they are, and they’re proud of it. Further evidence of this is the fact that they respond the same way no matter what Obama does. If he’s conciliatory, they treat him like Stalin and call him a commie. If he confronts them, they treat him like Hitler and call him a Nazi. Or vice versa. Or both at the same time.
If you’re attributing the GOP’s “neo-Conservative psychosis” to Obama’s being African American (or mixed race), I don’t see how that helps. It’s not like he made a choice to be black. It’s not a strategy.
If Clinton had won, I imagine the racism of the last three years would have been replaced by sexism. The Republicans are lousy human beings. Everything else follows from that.
scav
And Triassic Sands can’t distinguish what is obvious to his all-important self and what is obvious to other people. Well, people disagree with you, get over it. Many us of us have gotten over that you disagree with us but you keep dragging the subject back up and kicking the poor equine.
Triassic Sands
@Waynski:
You’re so wrong, it’s just plain laughable. I can’t stand Hamsher and I’ve never supported her at all.
I have an opinion that you don’t like about something concerning Obama and you reflexively translate that into something it is not. The world is a lot more complex than you can grasp — apparently.
At BJ the resort to Hamsher needs a Godwin’s Law analog.
Starfish
The PolitiFact person was on NPR defending his decision yesterday. He was creating the false equivalence by stating that Sarah Palin’s death panels and the “vote to end Medicare” commercial throwing old people out of wheel chairs were both classified as “Lie of the Year” in different years so both sides do it. He was particularly proud of himself for exposing almost an equal number of lies on both sides with a few more Republican lies because there has been so much focus on the Republican primaries.
I did not put my fist through my radio. That was my achievement for yesterday.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@Triassic Sands:
Sure he did. You just don’t seem to understand the message that was being sent, or even who it was from. The message was from Blue Dog Democrats, and it was that they had zero intention of voting for the health care reform you wanted to see. Obama’s compromises were never about finding Republican votes. They were about not losing Democratic ones.
B W Smith
@Triassic Sands: It is wrong to attach a Hamsher tag to you. You obviously have arrived at the reasoning through your own thought processes. Here’s the thing, most Americans do not pay very close attention, certainly not as close as the folks on this blog. They would have seen and Republicans would have played up how intractable the president was. The message would have been that Obama is even more of a partisan than he has been painted. His decision to try and engage was more political than intellectual as Ivan said.
SFAW
The best thing about reading the comments here is the hatin’ on Hamsher et al. Because, FSM knows, you assholes certainly haven’t made it clear enough how much you hate her/them/it. (With the possible exception of TBogg, of course.) Every day. In threads too numerous for me to count. {Probably because I’m a dumb fuck, right?)
So, whenever I’m a-feelin’ the need for a Two Minute Hate, I do a “Firebagger” or “Hamsher” search here.
No doubt I will now be found to be a Firebagger, and thus should FOAD or DIAF or LSMFT.
Hey, Cole, how about including in your rotating header-comments, something like “We hates Firebaggers! We hates them forever!!!”, because otherwise it might not be clear.
Mnemosyne
@Triassic Sands:
Which would make most people stop and wonder if maybe — just maybe — that legislation was watered down to get conservative Democrats to vote for it. Bart Stupak is not a Republican.
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
@Triassic Sands: We can agree to disagree, but you’re still wrong.
Of course, if the goalposts are in sand it’s easier to move them. You referred to Obama’s “failure,” and I just don’t see failure here. I see a GOP being held to account finally for their racist asshattery; as the more the President’s been conciliatory even blockheaded over-privileged white people can see that they’re sandbagging him for no good reason whatsoever.
That, and he’s denied them the “angry black man” trope they’ve been wanting to hang on him (as they’re still trying to do to Michelle, but that’s for another discussion).
And now that we’re actually going into campaign season, their pandering to their neo-Confederate movement conservative base becomes a lovely cudgel with which to beat them soundly over the head.
You may think that was just dumb luck; but you’d be wrong.
Speaking of missing the point– yes, they were going to hate on him for being black, it’s what they do. But by being the “reasonable adult in the room,” the President has deflected every lying racist attack they’ve come up with. The smart politicians on the right do NOT want to be the Max Schmeling to his Joe Louis– thus your GOP clown-car full of lunatics, fooken eejits, racist assholes, and Jon Huntsman.
SFAW
Not really. Their racism is rarely, if ever, presented in a straightforward manner. It has usually been dog-whistle-style, and those who were going to believe them still do, I expect. Or has the “not American” (and so forth) type of backdoor attacks suddenly stopped, and I missed it?
burnspbesq
@SFAW:
I don’t think it’s “hatred;” “scorn” is a more accurate description.
I also think that the scorn is entirely justified. Jane et al lost the plot in 2007 and haven’t rediscovered it yet.
Waynski
@Triassic Sands: I was joking more about your verbosity. Lighten up, Francis.
Mnemosyne
@Waynski:
Can I just take a moment to say that Warren Oates was one of the greatest and most underrated character actors of all time? Watch Two-Lane Blacktop and tell me I’m wrong.
SFAW
I don’t really disagree. It’s just that it has become tiresome in extremis to keep reading the same scorn/hatred over and over and over and over usw. Life’s too fucking short.
And now I’ve just pissed away another two minutes (hey, I type slow). I’ll never learn.
Ben Cisco
@burnspbesq: Agree with the “scorn” characterization. I’ve avoided reading her since then (except for when she’s been mentioned here), but I’ve seen nothing from her since that even remotely indicates that a cluebat found its target. Dicking around with Norquist should have been the final nail for anyone above drooling-level intellect.
SFAW
By the way, 2007? I thought it was more like 2009, when The Great Disappointment Now Occupying the White House was disappointing enough that Hamsher formed her “alliance” with Norquist. (Or thereabouts)
Damn! Another minute I’ll never get back!
B W Smith
Good lord, another thread taken over by the ranting of BOB. He attaches one little blurb, knowing he will change the conversation from Politifact and the medicare non-lie to “how has Obama disappointed us.” And we fall for it every damn time.
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
@SFAW: It’s not that they’ve stopped– as the sandy one from the Triassic
AgeEra points out, it’s who they are.It’s much more that now even privileged white people can see it for what it is. That’s a net win for the President and for the Republic.
[edited because the Triassic wasn’t an age… for that you have to go to the Golden…]
SFAW
Perhaps. But I guess it’s not clear to me that Obama’s “reasonable man” gambit (or whatever you want to call it) had a hand in that.
On the other hand: the electorate, in general, has shown itself to be dumb as a post, so it’s also not clear to me that anyone outside of the inside-game observers (e.g. commenters here) actually notices. Not saying they don’t, just not as convinced as you are that they do.
SFAW
Ivan –
BTW, I think we’re getting into angels-on-the-head-of-a-pin area.
Waynski
@Mnemosyne: I couldn’t possibly tell you’re wrong about that.
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
@SFAW:
You’re not black. Black men in corporate America have been face to face with the “angry black man” stereotype since long before I joined the professional workforce in 1981.
If you had that experience, it would be perfectly clear.
Just sayin’.
SFAW
I’m not? OK, thanks, for en”light”ening me.
And you are? I guess I assumed otherwise, given your handle. (No, I wouldn’t expect it to be “Rastus Rastusson Fetchit”, but a Russian/Ukrainian/Slav handle would seem counterintuitive.)
But all that aside: your judgment as to the reason is, sorry to say, not the final arbiter. But thanks for registering your opinion.
Thanks also for letting us all know you’re the go-to guy for information re: what black men and women know, feel, etc. I guess that mitigates ABL’s leaving a bit. Although I’ll continue to miss Gilliard a shitload.
flounder
Mistermix, I would say they “flushed” a third time. Check out this article about something stupid Santorum ozzed out about Medicare:
Hmmmm, Politifact appears to be saying that Ryan’s plan would get rid of traditional Medicare.
And get a load of this passage from Politifact:
So Politifact admits Ryan’s plan is “fundamentally different” than the type of insurance members of Congress have, and above they note that it is fundamentally different than what seniors today get, but don’t you dare say that fundamentally changing Medicare into something unrecognizable is “killing” the program.
Chuck Butcher
Even if you were able to take race out of the question, one of the major things the President ran on and won on was the proposition of working with the OTHER party. From that run and wins in both branches we went to the ’10 elections. I think ’10 was the result of the cowardice and half-stepping of the Admin and the Congress during and following ACA and the Stimulus.
They went with tip-toeing on what were going to be politically divisive issues, got mediorcre results both economically and politically and perceptually and then tried to pretend that none of it happened in the run up to the election and the election. Middle support collapsed.
Neither base can carry their Party, can’t be done the middle having to be convinced that what is at issue counts and that they’re considered in outcomes. When the economy is flat-lining a perentage point in UE counts for a lot with those voters. When something like health care is addressed, there is going to be anxiety and back loading results and running from over-heated partisan rhetoric will kill you. Not As Bad As won’t work if you’ve cut the ground out from under yourself.
Neither of those passed with any meaningful GOP support and yet were laded with GOP failure policies and you got failure within public perception without meaningful push back or demonstrable results. With the stimulus being over-promised considering its components telling people it could be worse while it sucks absolute eggs won’t work.
Don’t bother telling me about the Blue Dongs, they were pre-excused and the public only saw the (D). I’m not talking about blame, I’m talking about why things happened. Yes, the public wanted to see the President trying to get along with the GOP and he promised to do it; once it was clear they weren’t going to be gotten along with it was up to the President to make that case and stick them and do what had a chance of having the impact he wanted. HE WANTED.
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
@SFAW: I will completely agree with you on one thing– I too miss and WILL miss Gilliard(pbuh).
But once again– you’re not black, you’ve never been black in america’s corporate world, and so you would never understand how black men are marginalized in that world. (and yes, I am black, African American, born in the American South, a child of the Civil Rights Movement, and an engineer who’s spent over thirty years of his life in corporate America. You don’t see it because you are white. IF– and big time IF– you had any black friends with whom you’d be willing to broach the subject, they would tell you the same thing.
SFAW
Just curious – you’ve come to this conclusion how?
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
@SFAW: By the fact that you’re completely unaware of what it’s like to be black in corporate America.
I know a number of black professionals (including several engineers and one honest-to-god rocket scientist); and to a man/woman they agree with me. We’ve all been there done that, you see.
SFAW
Ivan –
By the way: why was becoming an engineer “a bad idea”? [Being one myself, or at least pretending to play one on TV.]
SFAW
You’re making that assumption, because I chose not to conflate corporate America with political gamesmanship (yes, I realize that corporate gamesmanship can be just as vicious, if not more so) in response to your “adult/most reasonable man” thesis.
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
I, and those African American professionals with whom I have discussed the situation, see ourselves in Mr. Obama’s shoes. You may not accept it, but black men are perceived and treated differently in corporate America– that is, in the workforce generally. You may not accept that this is the case; but the fact that you do not is a fairly certain marker that you are white.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that, of course. Just that your life experience will inform your perceptions, and your life experience clearly doesn’t include being the only black in the group/department/organization/company. Ergo, you will not perceive the treatment that the President has received from white people on the left and the right as being anything other than what he deserves– after all, you’ve decided that he’s a failure, n’cest pas?
That’s what we expect from white men– you are, after all, the arbiters of competence and professionalism. Since all executives, managers, Presidents, &c., &c., were white men for the first few hundred years of this country’s existence, it’s only natural that white men will see each other as more capable, more competent… Black men are received differently and are treated differently in corporate/professional/working America. And although I personally know one summa cum laude EE and one cum laude chemical engineer, neither believes that he has had the career arc that he likely would have had if he were white.
There’s no other rational explanation of why black unemployment in America is always double that of white unemployment, even after correcting for education/experience/&c.
At least, there’s no other rational explanation that does not presuppose the inferiority of black people.
SFAW
True, I may not. But, in fact, I do. I am mystified as to how you reached the conclusion that I do not.
So: I was about to respond to your diatribe, point-by-point, but realized it would be unproductive – for both of us. You seem (although I am willing to be corrected) convinced that I am:
1) White
2) Racist (although not of the KKK variety, I guess)
3) Unaware of the continuing inequities faced by black men and women in corporate America
All because I disagree that the “most reasonable man in the room” gambit – if it truly was a gambit, as opposed to being an intrinsic part of his personality – is what led the Rethugs “to practically advertise their neo-Confederate psychosis”; and that denying them “the ‘angry black man’ trope they’ve been wanting to hang on him” has mattered to anyone other than those deeply invested in that concept – which is only the 27-percenters (on the other side, of course).
You don’t really know anything about me, other than what you’re quasi-projecting on me (although in this case, projecting the faults of others, not yourself [I hope] onto me) – and you’ve constructed an entire personality and ethos for me.
Oh yeah, you also know that I pretend to play an engineer on TV.
But seriously, I think you’re taking a simple difference of opinion way too seriously, and I mean that in the kindest possible way. I’m really not trying to start/continue a mini-war here.
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
@SFAW: OH, no, no, please– I did NOT mean to imply that you were ‘racist.’
You’re an American, and white supremacy is part of the very air we breathe here. The vast majority of white Americans can’t see it any more than a fish perceives water– it just is. This is not in any way meant to imply there’s any conscious animus on your part– you’re just a white American man. It takes a lot for a white American man to realize how thoroughly privileged he is.
Which is kind of my point. You don’t see the danger in the “angry black man” trope because you’ve never been ‘victimized’ by it (and I use quotes because I just don’t know the right word to indicate that you’ve had it used against you). I have. My friends have.
Other than that you’re a straight white man, I am constructing no projections of who you are and what you think. My notes here are not meant to imply that you have any kind of hateful or bigoted intent, and I apologize if I’ve given that impression.
You’re just an American white man, and there’s absolutely nothing inherently wrong with that. (as a total aside, I often tell people that “just because a man is a ‘redneck’ does not mean he’s a white supremacist asshole.”) But as an American white man, you have privileges and have had opportunities that have been denied to black men; and your life experience gives you no frame of reference for seeing those privileges.
The “don’t be an ‘angry black man'” thing isn’t a gambit. It’s a survival strategy.
SFAW
Re: racism: it was a possible interpretation of how you presented your arguments, glad I was wrong.
To address the main part:
You still have made a number of questionable (I’m being a tad charitable here) assumptions about who I am, and what I know, and what I’ve experienced, but I understand why. (Actually, I’ve understood why from the start of our back-and-forth.) [Well, actually since before even that, but it was not germane at that point.] It’s what you’ve seen/experienced, and you (apparently) assume that if Person X says (or doesn’t say) “ABCDEF” (placeholder for your statement of choice), that means that Person X is (or isn’t) white. You weren’t the first to respond that way, you won’t be the last, it certainly doesn’t make you a bad person.
As an engineer, I assume (sorry) that you know that doing the calcs is easy; it getting the assumptions right that’s more important, and more of a challenge. And sometimes you need to re-validate your assumptions before you proceed, if you get my drift.