Greg Marx of CJR has posted a lengthy defense of FactCheck.org and Glenn Kessler, but he gives it away (h/t commenter hilts):
Admittedly, that picture is murky.
It it’s murky, then why start people calling liars when their interpretation of said murk differs from yours? I don’t like this whole so-called fact-checking thing anyway, for the reasons that Jim Newell describes here. Maybe there is a place for a guy who writes “Sarah Palin says that ACA will cost the country $50 trillion dollars, which is false, since professional estimates are that it will save up to $1 trillion or cost up to $1 trillion” (or whatever the estimates are, I think that’s about right). Maybe there is even a place for someone who takes on more subjective stuff, when it’s patently absurd, and still calls himself a fact-checker.
But there’s not a place for “fact-checkers” who become surrogates for presidential campaigns on matters that are admittedly murky. The desire to tell people what you think about something complicated (that you probably don’t understand) and demand that they respect your authoritah as a FACT CHECKER, BITCH…it’s a sickness, maybe a personality disorder.
Henry Blodgett writes simply of Romney “If he was CEO, Chair, and Pres, he’s still responsible”. How is that not a reasonable claim? Sure, Kessler can say “well, I don’t think he was that involved in day-to-day”, but the truth is…Kessler doesn’t know. He’s making a judgement call.
When it comes to refereeing things, I’m a Burkean minimalist. Sometimes the right call is “no call”. Let me geek out on you about basketball for a minute. There were a ton of charges called during this year’s play-offs. Too many. The way the rule is written is tricky: “On a drive to the basket, the defender must get to his position before the shooter starts his upward shooting motion” (in order for the shooter to be called for a charging foul) and “If he (the defender) does not get into a legal defensive position and contact occurs, it is a blocking foul.”
What does it mean to start an “upward shooting motion”? It happens in that split second between when the shooter plants to take-off and when he actually takes off. In situations where it’s just not clear if the upward shooting motion began before the defender was set, it’s better, I think, if the refs call neither a block nor a charge. Let them play.
Likewise — even moreso — if you’re going to call yourself a fact-checker, stick to facts and stay away from adjudicating disputes where things are admittedly murky. You don’t have to weigh in on everything. Sometimes it’s better to just shut the fuck up.
shortstop
THANK you.
balconesfault
If you don’t weigh in when a Republican is being attacked over a murky grey area, after you’ve questioned the veracity of a patently fraudulent attack on a Dem – clearly you’re biased.
gnomedad
Why is Rmoney denying responsibility for the awesome things unregulated
corporationsjob creators do?Cerberus
I think it’s rather obvious that the new flood of WashPo “fact-checkers” on the scene is to poison the well on things like Snopes or Media Matters who have been rather good on noting when statements are false or true and providing the research to back it up.
Its essentially the same thing as Newsbusters, but for the “libertarian” “both sides do it, so I’m voting Republican” crowd. Something to reference that’s full of shit in order to make it seem like the person pointing to the real fact-checkers is just referring to “their team’s” “useless fact-checker”.
The end-goal of all of it is to eventually run elections entirely free of context to reality. Because in reality, conservatives will always be at a massive disadvantage.
Valdivia
Exactly. It is that he is calling Obama a liar, he (and FactCheck) are not even deciding on Romney anymore they are defending their calling Obama a liar is true based on…murkiness. Assholes.
Rex Everything
Seriously, that may be the smartest, most insightful thing I’ve read on the entire topic.
Ejoiner
Just unsubscribed to Fact Check for what it’s worth
Walker
Exactly. Compare the professionalism of snopes.com with the hackery of the fact checking sites and it looks very, very bad.
BGinCHI
Unfortunately too many people subscribe to the “when life gives you a megaphone, you must use it to show how smart you are instead of thinking of the consequences” rule.
It’s the WaPo that deserves the most blame here. They are hearing this criticism and reading Kessler and they aren’t doing shit.
I guess when you have a shit business, there’s no bad publicity.
Valdivia
Also–why are factcheckers in any way more reliable than the team of journalists who have been working their asses off in reporting these stories? All Kessler does is stroke his chin and dismiss every bit of evidence because he decided weeks ago it had to be so.
pragmatism
If any alternative explanation exists, no matter how implausible, a fact is no longer a fact. QED bitches.
geg6
@Valdivia:
THIS.
I want to take a baseball bat to Kessler’s thick skull. I am soooo over self-important assholes like him.
Enceladus
Krugman put it well when he noted that the Politifact people went wrong with their “Lie of the Year” because, rather than stressing the bare truth or falsehood of a claim, they were presuming to become judges of political fair play.
Enceladus
Here’s the Krugman link:
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/25/finding-the-truth/
Valdivia
@geg6:
I love that image. I will borrow a rusty pitchfork and join you.
Even more shameful: the fact that it was one of the journalists in his own newsroom who had the scoop the day after he declared Obama a liar and now he is just busily trying to cover his ass.
Related: I really wish someone would make an ad in the mold of Colbert’s The Word, with little snarky comments on the side over a Romney’s interview. I think it would be hilarious way of rebutting Kessler, and these idiots.
khead
You know, I was never that quick to begin with, but it bugs me how “that split second” keeps getting longer with age.
DougJ
@khead:
I was never really able to “take-off” so age hasn’t affected me so much.
BGinCHI
@DougJ: DougJ, master of the set shot.
Jewish Steel
Quien es mas bipartisano?
@BGinCHI: A friend tells me you could no longer slip a piece of paper under his jumpshot.
amk
@Valdivia: Bingo. Globes busts its balls (as it were) to get at the facts and this judgmental fuckstick ignoramus, who is prolly stuck in the broom closet of the wapo office building, spews his bs and gets a snitfit if anyone factchecks his factchecking. Fuck’im.
Haydnseek
@pragmatism: Ideology trumps reality every time. The word “fact” is used to give cover to a lie. Repeat the lie as often as the Citizens United money holds out. The “fact checkers” will put lipstick on all the pigs you can put in front of them. Newspeak at apogee. (Hey!, not a bad title for an album!) But I digress. Rmoney is in the shit, and every day he’s stuck there is one more day he has to play defense.
slag
I’m going to disagree with some of this argument–or at least try to separate out some of the issues. To get specific, I do think there’s a huge role for fact-checking in this country. I think fact-checking is the job of everyone, including (maybe even especially) those in the media. But many in the media have abdicated that role in favor of “he said-she said” nothingness.
The problem with the so-called fact-checking sites that we’re dealing with now is that they’re fakes. They’re doing very much the same job as the rest of the media but then they’re slapping pinocchios and flaming pants on their work as if they’ve done something special. The whole argument about the SEC official’s partisan leanings taking precedence over the signed documents in the case is really the essence of the problem. You don’t get to do that and then pretend to be a fact-checker. Just admit it…you’re a reporter. And that’s the best we can expect out of you.
dww44
@Ejoiner: Thanks for the suggestion. I’m gonna do it too.
tomvox1
Also, too: When a story is rapidly developing, maybe just best to keep your pie hole shut. I think Kessler is repeatedly jumping the gun and splitting hairs in defense of Romney to try to preempt the fact that he made a big fucking mistake in the first place. The guy has tied himself into a pretzel over this rather than just admitting he may have been too quick to award any Pinocchios (oy) based on the incomplete information available at that time.
Same thing happens at the 3rd update of the Marx article: Oops new info discovered, never mind the last 3 pages…
smintheus
The part about taking sides in murky disputes is all too true.
But the problem with fact checkers goes well beyond that. Take the analogy of hockey referees (a job I once had fwiw). In the NHL too many referees act as if it’s their job to keep the game balanced. One team will get a series of well deserved penalties, and the ref will start to worry that he’s throwing the game out of whack. The team’s players and their fans will work him hard. And then the first time the other team does anything than can be construed or misconstrued as a penalty, the ref will come down hard on them. Even if it’s a standard check with no intent to injure, or an innocent case of players getting in each other’s way rather than deliberate interference, the ref may assess a penalty just for ‘balance’.
That’s what the fact checkers are doing. And with a candidate like Romney and a party like the GOP, where lies are the very stuff of their campaigns, the fact checkers think it’s imperative to ding Obama and the Democrats any time they possibly can.
In trying to *appear* non-partisan, they ignore their supposed job (vetting facts) and view everything they do through the lens of partisanship. Instead of being even handed, they keep putting their thumbs on the scales. They’re like a badly rattled hockey ref.
Walker
@smintheus:
This is an excellent analogy.
geg6
@smintheus:
A good analogy, but I think it’s even more simple than that. It’s that they are Villagers (no matter how crazy she makes me sometimes, digby deserves kudos forever for that concept), a people whose shining god is David Broder. This is who they are.
slag
@slag:
I’m going to amend this comment because I think it undeservedly slanders real reporters who do the work to go out and get the facts that so-called fact-checkers are ignoring in favor of partisanship. Our current set of fact-checkers aren’t reporters. They’re political pundits. As are many people who still call themselves reporters.
Sorry, reporters everywhere! I was wrong, and I apologize for my mistake.
danimal
Honestly, the most prescient thing I’ll read today was this:
Amen.
The real problem with the fact-checkers is that they seem incapable of adjusting as the facts change. Kessler could have saved his reputation with a simple “Damn, maybe this isn’t cut-and-dry, there are signed documents and stuff that make the issue murkier than it first appeared.” Instead, he doubled down and richly deserves all the 2x4s coming at his head.
FlipYrWhig
The fact-checkers seem dug in pretty deep on the particular idea that it’s unfair, or even a lie, to hold Romney responsible for the activities of a company he officially headed, because while the company did those things, he didn’t personally arrange them. Does that mean it would also be a lie for Republicans to run an ad against Obama that mentioned EPA regulations, because that wasn’t Obama himself, it was a different agency in the executive branch? Are ads against Obama on Solyndra or Fast and Furious also lies because his administration may have been responsible, but not him personally? I don’t think this has ever been the standard before, and yet these important people are clinging to it rather fiercely.
Alex Milstein
If Kessler wants to ‘unmurk’ the situation, why not just ask Mitt to reveal just who was in charge of Bain while he was off ‘running the Olympics.’ If that person just stepped forward with proof, then Mitt might be more believable.
katie5
Somewhat misses the point. If reporters did, or were allowed to do, their jobs then there wouldn’t be a need for fact checkers.
Whatsleft
Dear Factcheck.org:
I find I must unsubscribe to your emails as Mr. Kessler has apparently decided that government documents, such as SEC filings, have a “liberal” bias and can now only be acceptable if they have first been “vetted” by a “conservative”. I think even Mr. Swift would draw the line here. I certainly do.
Sincerely,
Former Subscriber
Maude
Is fact checking like you don’t like a fact so you make something up?
WereBear
It is part of their pattern of “shadow authority” they have been running since the 1960’s.
People respect eggheady scientists? We’ll have “universities” and “think tanks” and eggheads of our own.
People listen to ministers; so we’ll invent the Prosperity Gospel and support churches who preach right wing causes and take over denominations, like the Southern Baptists.
People trust the news, so we’ll have our own propaganda channel and call it Fox “News”!
And now, enough people have tried to Snopes crazy relatives away from their obsessions, and we have right wing “fact checking.”
Mike E
He’s like a Magic 8 Ball personified.
Joe
A real reporter would fact-check this by asking Romney a question: is it OK to use the title of “President” when you’re not actually doing anything for the organization?