President Obama gave a speech this week to assembled Associated Press editors (among other news professionals) and cited obnoxious Both Sides Do It(tm) false equivalence in political media narratives as a contributing factor to the problems in fixing our broken government. As Tim Murphy of MoJo points out, the inevitable AP fact check of President Obama’s speech is rife with…yeah, you see where this is going, right?
President Obama delivered a fiery (as we journalists like to call such things) speech to a gathering of newspapers editors in Washington on Tuesday, chiding Mitt Romney for using words like “marvelous” and knocking GOP Rep. Paul Ryan’s budget plan as “social darwinism.” It was, by most accounts, a sign of what’s to come from the campaign over the next seven months. Let’s hope this fact-check of the speech from the Associated Press isn’t also a harbinger of the future. (“It’s not even 10 A.M. and we already have a ‘worst of the day’ winner,” tweets Pema Levy.) The problem with the piece, by the normally solid Calvin Woodward, is that it doesn’t really check any facts (inflated jobs figures, spending increases, that kind of thing). Instead, it suffers from a massive glut of false equivalence.
It’s like the AP did this on purpose or something. I give it Five Pinocchios On Fire.
As a candidate, Obama campaigned on a public option. Progressives were devastated when it was nixed from the Affordable Care Act—to the extent that some refused to support the final bill. Instead, Obama went with the market-driven approach favored by the Republican governor of Massachusetts. Why? Well, in part because Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley suggested there would be “broad bi-partisan support” for such a solution. Can you really knock someone for moving to the left when they started off on the left and ended up where the center used to be?
The fact-check goes on to rebuke Obama for accusing Republicans of wanting to toss out lots of economic regulations (something Republicans want to do) by pointing out that Romney himself doesn’t want to literally eliminate every federal regulation—only a lot of them, including the Dodd–Frank Wall Street reform package, which was designed to prevent a repeat of the practices that led to the 2008 crash. But Obama didn’t actually say Romney wanted to eliminate all federal regulations—only a lot of them.
A sense of nuance is helpful when writing about Washington politics—and nuance, incidentally, is something campaign speeches generally lack. But fact-checks are for objective facts, not subjective arguments about what does and doesn’t constitute excessive deregulation. Pieces like this sort of defeat the point.
No, pieces like this have always been the point of “fact-checking”. PolitiFact and the Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler do it all the time. The entire point of stuff like this is to conflate objective fact checking and subjective refereeing and leveraging the credibility of the former to justify making calls on the latter. Hence, we get “Even PolitiFact says X is wrong about Y!” when X is a subjective judgement call and not an objective fact check. That is a cottage industry in DC, if not your raison d’être of being a Villager. PolitiFact and Kessler are far from alone in this respect.
It’s how we end up with “Lie of the Year!” and such. There’s danger in conflation like that, as anyone who might, say, want to ever see the tax dollars they paid into the Medicare system again would tell you.
Bob2
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2011/dec/08/polls-close-friday-lie-year/
Methinks this is what’s wrong with Politifact
Forum Transmitted Disease
Liberal, progressive, conservative, TeaTard, hippie, whatever – I know lots of different sorts of people. EVERY SINGLE ONE of them believes, religiously, that Both Sides Do It.
These aren’t stupid people. Far from it. Most of them well-informed about all sorts of stuff. But I’ve found that I can throw all the facts I can muster, and it doesn’t make one bit of difference – they still faithfully believe that Both Sides Do It.
I don’t know how you fight this. Facts don’t work.
danimal
I only wish I was a well-off Villager and politics were simply a parlor game. “Let’s see how much we can fudge the lines between objective and subjective facts so that we can pretend that Republicans are decent people and keep going to all the good parties…”
This stuff is so easily distinguished that I can’t help but believe they are being willfully obtuse. Reporters were better when they were actual blue-collar types.
Skwyer
Later, PolitiFact will rate the Republican War on Women as “You Kiss Your Mama With That Mouth?” on the basis that congress made no formal declaration of war.
Yutsano
No like about it. Controversy gets you eyeballs. Even if you have to make up said controversy out of whole cloth.
Culture of Truth
Who fact-checks the fact-checkers?
Schlemizel
A major quibble with one of the tags on this post!
“Somewhere a Village is Missing its Idiot”
Well, no its not somewhere we know where and, quite sadly, the pastadamned idiots are not missing. If only they would go missing – if only for a short time.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Forum Transmitted Disease: It’s because the news media is about entertainment now and the MSM always knee jerks to judgement free to avoid alienating any of their potential audience with something as trivial as truth saying.
Shinobi
Ugh I read that AP article this morning and I was so angry. They don’t even do a particularly good job of fact checking, they just say “He said this blah blah blah.” There are no actual quotations except for the “Facts” they are supposed to be checking.
And this is journalism? I fucking hate journalists.
david mizner
The AP: the Republicans aren’t as crazy as they seem, no matter what your eyes and ears may be telling you. Really, they’re not. Don’t listen to what they say. That doesn’t mean anything. Listen to us.
What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us? (formerly MarkJ)
@danimal: You’re assuming republicans are capable of throwing good parties. I’m skeptical of that.
What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us? (formerly MarkJ)
What gets me is that they let Newt and the rest of the GOP blather on ad nauseum about the liberal elite media but never do these jobs on the republicans. Why does only one side of the isle get a free pass to bash the press?
Peregrinus
@Culture of Truth: Or, in the original Latin: Quis verificabit ipsos verificatores?
A Humble Lurker
:Pictures five flaming puppets running around hysterically flailing their fiery wooden limbs:
Original Lee
@What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us? (formerly MarkJ): The actual parties might not be very good, but they SOUND good when tweeted or discussed at the water cooler. “Norris made bacon-wrapped scallops for us en route to Mitt’s next campaign stop.”
japa21
@What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us? (formerly MarkJ): From what I hear, Boehner has a great liquor bar when he throws parties. He just never invites anyone.
60th Street
@Forum Transmitted Disease: Relentless cruel mockery.
scav
It should be more along the lines of “Somewhere a village is missing its idiot. and “Somewhere The Village is missing its sane person.”
OT calming example of facts delivered as text via a news source: the Guard: Obama campaign leaves Mitt Romney trailing as focus shifts to November
Legalize
@What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us? (formerly MarkJ):
Being the liberal elite media is literally the single worst thing one can be. Calling GOPers on their lying is proof of being part of the liberal elite media.
rlrr
@What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us? (formerly MarkJ):
Also the inevitable whining that occurs whenever a Democrat dares criticize Fox “News”…
Chris
@What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us? (formerly MarkJ):
Because the Republicans scare them, whereas us, they see as good natured “nice guy” saps that they don’t need to worry about offending.
Chris
@What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us? (formerly MarkJ):
Because the Republicans scare them, whereas us, they see as good natured “nice guy” saps that they don’t need to worry about offending.
Mark S.
I don’t think it’s always a bad idea for a state or local government to use incentives to lure business. If it will create a couple thousand good jobs, it is probably worth whatever tax incentives or other goodies. This is not one of those cases:
That’s $387,537 in tax credits per job, not deductions. You won’t come close to making that up that lost revenue with the new jobs.
Yutsano
@scav: At some point it’s going to dawn on someone in the Republican organization that Willard just isn’t very good at campaigning. And he’s getting virtually no small donors anywhere and the large donors are maxing out. If he wants to stay in he’ll have to start dipping into principal here soon. And a self-funded Presidential campaign will be fantastic optics. For Obama.
burnspbesq
@david mizner:
Like hell they haven’t. Actions speak louder than words.
60th Street
FWIW:
Obama opens his mouth about Trayvon Martin: the right-wing, largely silent before that, explodes in an uber-racist apoplectic defense of Zimmerman and complete smearing of a dead black teenager.
Obama admonishes right-wing pundits who have screamed “unelected activist judges!1!!” for years about “an unelected group of people” overturning PPACA: wingnuts gasp in horror and a wingut Federal judge loses it and actually calls the statute “Obamacare”.
Obama criticizes the AP for false equivalizing: The AP unleashes a torrent of false equivalences and lies calling the mandate a move to the left.
This is what institutional patriarchal racism looks like.
They’ll always think they’re smarter/tougher/better, than he is. It can never be otherwise because he’s A.) Black B.) A Democrat; in that order.
At this point, POTUS has all their numbers. He tears them down with just a few words; and, they do all the work.
Cris (without an H)
They don’t do it all the time, they do it only 98% of the time. Therefore I rate your statement “mostly false.”
I think it helps people feel like they are assessing the world coolly, intellectually, without partisan bias. They don’t want to be hypocritical, condemning liars on one side while forgiving liars on the other. They don’t want to be naive, suggesting that their side is flawless and will solve everything. So they turn to BSDI to stay above the fray.
In a way, it’s just a logical fallacy: some Democrats are scoundrels. Some Republicans are scoundrels. Therefore, all politicians are scoundrels. Obviously problematic, but it sure simplifies things.
Bubblegum Tate
OT, but it’s so perfect, it doesn’t even need a joke: Newt Gingrich’s think tank, The Gingrich Group, has filed for bankruptcy.
To quote Elaine Benes: And I laaaaauuuughed and I laaaaaauuuughed.
Marcellus Shale, Public Dick
facts are boring.
besides if the facts are correct, how are you going to make copy?
Cris (without an H)
Jesus, what the fuck? Republicans have not only abandoned the notion of environmental protection, they have openly embraced environmental degradation.
General Stuck
OT -sort of
The phenomenon of ‘conflation’ is every where and our national dialogue of Obama compared to Bush is rife with it, I suspect to drum up drama and conflict for attracting readers. We are going to get a good look at the realities of those claims of Obama bad as Bush with the announced upcoming terrorism military tribunals, and how the DOJ, that will participate, keeps the rules of evidence and other civilian court protections in place. Or whether the feared use of testimony of information gleaned from torture, as proposed by the Bushies, will come to pass. As well as hear say evidence, fruit of the poisoned tree info, and the like. And there will be closed circuit teevee of the proceedings, that have never occurred with these tribunals.
Decide for yourself, at this stage.
http://www.npr.org/2012/04/03/149866004/a-prosecutor-makes-the-case-for-military-trials
Zandar
@Cris (without an H):
Well played, old bean.
Punchy
This is great news for Tim Tebow.
danimal
On CNN this morning, RNC chief Reince Priebus (sp?) was on spewing his talking points and the CNN anchor was trying to redirect him back on topic when Prince Reince (sp?) sneered, “We know who you are voting for…” The look of disgust on the CNN anchor’s face was priceless and his smug condescencion was very unattractive.
My point? Years of Republican bullying are coming into sharp relief these days. The Villagers have been cowed, but I sense those days may be coming to an end. We need to keep pressing the point that “both sides” don’t do the same things, it’s breaking through. Unfortunately, the Villagers will probably be the last to notice.
kay
@scav:
This is true, from what I’ve observed here. It’s going to be really interesting to see how it plays out. Romney’s approach thus far has been to throw tons of money into primaries, and just bury his opponents in negative ads. Mike DeWine (a Santorum supporter) said the GOP base were absolutely hammered with robocalls from Romney in the OH primary. They said Romney had “more money than he knew what to do with”.
I feel as if this approach fits with Mitt Romney, few actual employees and little infrastructure, and a reliance on a few managers at the top allocating money. It’s ALL top-down. If he sticks with that in the general, we’ll be looking at two radically different ways to run a campaign.
Commenting at Balloon Juice since 1937
Didn’t politicians use to at least say things that could be technically true? Now, Republicans don’t even attempt to distort the truth, they just make shit up. A lot of the crap Romney says are not opinions, they are lies that could be checked. Faux News is the worst. They used to be slanted now they’re complete fiction. Juan Williams stating that there are not marches for black on black violence illustrates that they’re maliciously making up shit.
Face
Can we haz a opening day baseball thread plz?
Amir Khalid
@danimal:
You should always go with his full first name, Reinhold, to extract its full Teutonic goodness. Thus: Republican National Committee chairman Reinhold Priebus.
redshirt
@Commenting at Balloon Juice since 1937: Seems apparent Republicans can lie – and worse – with impunity now. Why not? They get away with it, so why not play that card?
Speaking of which: Remember when Karl Rove was subpoenaed to appear before Congress in 2006/2007, and never showed up? What happened with that? Last I knew that’s a federal crime.
Gex
@Cris (without an H): And of course if we are just tallying without actually measuring the scale of the douchebaggery on each side, it might seem on glance that things are about even.
It’s nowhere near that, but random blog comment on left has the same weight of Rushbo waging a war on a college student for a week in this universe.
I think we might be in the evil parallel universe. Bummer.
MikeJ
@Face: Opening day was last week when the M’s won in Tokyo.
Gex
@Commenting at Balloon Juice since 1937: Once they conditioned their base to hate science and facts, they didn’t need the pretense anymore. They’ve also mastered the art of getting the big lie out there first and counting on few, if any, of the base following an issue beyond the window where it is what Rush is screaming about.
mai naem
@Mark S.: Yeah but I heard on Morning Ho that Chris Christie is the bestest guvnor in this whole wide Uuu-Nited States of America and Mika B says, that, it’s,like, so kool that Chris Christie tells his constituents how they need to tighten their belts and Ho chimes in about how Chris Christie is all about getting those teachers unions in line because they really shouldbe spending their whole paycheck for supplies for their students, because lower taxes increase revenue. Also. Too.
Villago Delenda Est
It is shit like this that makes the vermin of the Village first in line for the tumbrels, with the possible exception of the surviving members of the Felonious Five (now that Rehnquist is roasting next to the Ayatollah Khomeini on Satan’s barbecue.
Amir Khalid
@kay:
So does that mean Romney’s campaign org has
(a) simply not thought to recruit a grassroots network, because its focus is on outreach via a top-down campaign of robo-calling, media advertising and staged events; or
(b) not been able to recruit a grassroots network in numbers comparable to Obama’s, despite seeing the value of a grassroots-led campaign?
The Obama re-election campaign is too smart to have chosen only one of these approaches. The Republican party must do both as well. If it’s waiting until after the convention to get everyone’s volunteers together and unleash a big grassroots strategy, it will have given Obama an absurdly big a head start.
At this stage the individual candidates need all their resources to win the nomination. Why aren’t the party’s billionaire sugar daddies — the Kochs, Sheldon Adelson, The Donald — putting their money toward this?
Calouste
@Amir Khalid:
Also pronounce his surname the German way: Preebooss. Reinhold Preebooss.
Tony J
@Amir Khalid:
Reinhold Priebus, The Anagram Man! h/t to the ever entertaining Charlie Pierce.
Reinhold Priebus = Bold rub in ripe sin?
scav
@kay: yeah, the top-down low-employee high-media approach does sound his style but I personally was rather appreciating the detail of a single unified computer database against at least three uncoordinated ones (Karl’s, Kochs’ and Romney’s). If they indeed have been built with no communication between the lists that is a nice technical hairball. I don’t see a way for them to slam those puppies together effectively in time for the election. To do it correctly would take too much time and a slam-bam would likely lose valuable data, have dupe records (now there’s a way to waste resources in mailings and/or annoy your supporters) and still take more than than they probably expect. Or they go with one database (perhaps different ones depending on purpose or location), cut the future cost but essentially waste 2 database collection efforts. Forget campaigning, this isn’t even evidence of smart management, and that side is supposedly good at it. (I recognize the hairball having lived it repeatedly under similar managing geniuses, so take with an anticipation of wary bitterness and amusement.)
Calouste
GOS reports that Harvard-educated Mitt Romney, who send 3 of his 5 kids to Harvard, and is the brother of Harvard-educated G. Scott Romney, thinks that President Obama spend too much time at Harvard.
artem1s
@Bubblegum Tate:
yes, but surely this is because President Obama’s stimulus package didn’t include massive tax cuts for the 1% and is such a failure! :P
I know, don’t call you Shirley…..
What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us? (formerly MarkJ)
@Original Lee: @japa21: I have no doubt that republicans can throw lavish parties. I just doubt anyone worth talking to goes to them. If there aren’t any interesting people there, it isn’t a good party.
Gex
@Amir Khalid: Um, did you not see the robo call thing? It’s a grassroots army of robots that really identify with the Mittbot. He’s got support!
Cris (without an H)
yep yep yep. And there’s something even more fundamental, from my biased perspective: take any thing that “both sides do” — like your example, inflammatory comments. One side considers it a vice, and is kind of embarrassed by it. The other considers it a virtue, and is proud of it.
Incivility, lying, corruption, hypocrisy — those aren’t even things to be avoided for Republicans. They’re embedded in the party’s core principles.
Amir Khalid
@Calouste:
Well, if Malia and Sasha have the grades, and I see no reason to fear they won’t, they’re a certainty for legacy admission, right? See, that does prove Obama is an elitist!
Cris (without an H)
Don’t Republican parties have lots of kinky sex?
scav
@What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us? (formerly MarkJ): “If there aren’t any interesting people there, it isn’t a good party.”
Oh, it’s so rare to walk straight into a Persuasion quote.
Enough alcohol and a tire swing seems to be enough to amuse many.
Kay
@scav:
I think there’s an assumption in the reporting that Mitt Romney will at some point start his grass roots campaign for President, so therefore Obama is “ahead” with HIS on the ground campaign.
Absolutely nothing in Mitt Romney’s approach to anything indicates that he will do that. I just don’t see any indication from the Mitt Romney persona that lower-level employees are something he spends a whole lot of time valuing, or even thinking about :)
Organizations really do reflect the people at the top. Look at Mitt Romney’s whole approach and tell me that this person believes in on the ground organizing.
Clinton and Obama both had intensive ground-level primary campaigns here, in ’08. We SAW real live employees and volunteers.
Peregrinus
@Calouste:
This shit is exactly why I avoided Ivies when applying. I could’ve gotten into any one of them, but every alumnus/alumna who came back to my high school off four years of Harvard had clearly drunk some combination of LSD, memory-loss anaesthesia, and Kool-Aid.
Bob2
Just about everyone I know in NJ hates Christie. He’s done a ton of awful shit that’s going to backfire badly after his term is over and only people who pay attention to state politics really notice.
scav
@Kay: I trust entirely your judgement about his not going for a grassroots approach, but the databases could also be support for an intelligent and targeted media / advertising approach. Either way one goes, they’re infrastructure.
xyzxyzxyz
From the AP article:
“But in recent years, cap and trade failed when Democrats controlled the Senate and the House. Moreover, Republicans argued the legislation was not a truly market-driven mechanism. It would have auctioned off pollution allowances to companies, raising money for the government to help offset higher energy bills and invest in cleaner energy technologies.
Republicans wanted a system that would distribute the allowances for free, letting the private market determine their value. That’s how it worked with acid rain.
Republicans have not abandoned the notion of environmental protection, although the presidential primary rhetoric – all geared to more drilling and energy production – could lead one to think so.”
Where to begin. First, I seem to recall a 60-vote threshold in the Senate even when “Democrats controlled the Senate”. To imply that if cap and trade was such a great idea it would have easily passed the Senate is disingenuous as best. Christ, the AP could have at least identified the handful of democratic senators who wouldn’t support it (Rockefeller, Nelson, Lincoln and Bayh to name a few). But no, failure of cap and trade was clearly Obama’s fault. Simplistic to the point of stupidity. Second, the idea that any “solution” to acid rain (and we can debate just how effective this solution was) is clearly transportable to carbon emissions is just silly. Do these reporters even understand the global carbon cycle (here’s a hit AP, the word “global” is really important in that sentence). Also, part of the carbon tax was to go for the development of green technologies. I suppose our free-market overlords are going to spend the research and development money to make green energy technologies a reality? No worries, we’ll just buy the technology from the Chinese since at the rate we’re going they’ll have these technologies first. Finally, could the great minds at the AP point us to a piece of Republican legislation since 2008 that supported and/or increased environmental regulations? You know, maybe do some work to back up your assertions.
Calouste
@Kay:
Well, Mitt Romney is of course not a businessman, he is a corporate raider. Corporate raiders don’t care about and don’t have to del with what goes on outside the boardroom, most businessmen actually do.
Calouste
@Peregrinus:
Well, if you have been through 4 years of being told that you are the best in the world because you are at the best university in the world and of course the best university in the world isn’t going to admit anybody but the best students in the world, then you’re pretty much brainwashed into thinking you are the best in the world and entitled to the best jobs in the world because you are one of the best graduates in the world from the best university in the world.
catclub
@redshirt: “Last I knew that’s a federal crime.”
Only if you have the executive branch police power to enforce it. The House Sergeant at Arms does not get out much.
bemused
@danimal:
Reince is an older James O’keefe. Both punks.
lichnor
The equilvance is completly valid!
It’s just like, we will never really be able to say definitevly that Joe Montana is/was a better QB than Tim Tebow, they both threw touchdown passes and have won a playoff game.
Therefore, they are both equally as good!