Will Obama's Machine Save Him?

Let's start out by acknowledging the obvious: History is not on President Obama's side this election year. No incumbent president in the postwar era has won reelection when the unemployment rate was above 7.2%; right now, it's 8.1% and unlikely to change very much between now and Election Day. Every president since Andrew Jackson who has won re-election has been re-elected with a greater percentage of the popular vote than he received four years earlier; no serious, intelligent person in either camp believes Obama will do better this year than the 53% he pulled in 2008. He is the first U.S. president since Herbert Hoover to preside over a net loss of jobs. A majority of voters do not like his signature legislative achievement and want it repealed. An even larger majority thinks the country is on the wrong track. This is not an atmosphere conducive to getting re-elected.

Yet, Obama appears to be flying high. In every swing state, there's at least one poll showing him ahead of Mitt Romney. His approval rating is now slightly higher than his disapproval, depending on which poll you look at. As of the writing of this post, he's ahead in all the national polls. The percentage of voters who view him favorably has inched upward, while his negatives are slightly down. With a month and a half to go before Election Day, Romney is behind, and the president looks like he's about to close the deal.

Part of the blame for this surely lies with the Romney campaign. I know it's easy to second-guess when you're not in the heat of battle, but the Romney-Ryan campaign is clearly not waging as good a fight as they could be. (I've done my part to offer better ideas, but to no avail.) There's also the mass stupidity/gullibility of broad swaths of the electorate; a recent poll by Reason Magazine revealed how disturbingly uninformed/ignorant most voters in this country are when it comes to fiscal issues and an even basic understanding of the economy. These problems, however, would only explain why Romney isn't beating Obama. To see why the president is actually ahead in this race, you have to look beyond the lay of the land and examine the depths of what may be the greatest political machine in U.S. history.

Obama and the Democrats' ground game helped generate a historic Democratic turnout in 2008. While it remains to be seen how effective their voter turnout efforts will be in this election, they certainly didn't do much for them in 2010. Even beyond that, however, the Obama campaign is being aided by a machine that exceeds in size and scope anything Republicans have or have ever enjoyed.

You're probably familiar with the historical components of the national Democratic machine. Aside from the party operatives, there are labor unions and the pillars of their fundraising apparatus: trial lawyers, Wall Street, the Entertainment Industry and, more recently, Internet tycoons (Silicon Valley and Puget Sound). Today, however, President Obama is benefitting not just from these traditional support structures but also a network of forces devoted to keeping him in power. Here now is a rundown of these forces and a brief description of how they are helping to buoy this terrible president's poll numbers:

The Media

With the exception of talk radio, every medium in this country is dominated by the Left, and few would disargee that the right-wing rhetoric that pervades talk radio is limited to the commentary side. When it comes to delivering "hard" news, conservatives have no advantage over liberals on the airwaves, the Internet or in the print media.

Overt, delibrate bias in the press--i.e., among reporters who are supposed to cover stories in an objective fashion and not inject their own personal analysis into their reporting--is hard to spot, but there have been several clear examples in this election cycle (such as when Andrea Mitchell got caught running a misleadingly edited clip of Mitt Romney speaking in Pennsylvania on MSNBC). The more dangerous biases manifest themselves in the way journalists present the news or in the choices they make about which stories to report on and how much attention to give each one. Conclusive proof of these biases, however, is difficult to produce, unless you can get an apples-to-apples comparison of two nearly identical news stories with different political implications. We got such an example last week, when two old recordings surfaced; one showed Mitt Romney speaking at a fundraiser back in May about, inter alia, the growing culture of entitlement in America, the ongoing conflict between the Israelis and Palistenians, and the Republican party's challenges with the Latino vote. (This footage had actually been public for months, but the cleaned-up images were only recently released.) The other footage featured Barack Obama speaking at Loyola University in 1998 about how he "believe[s] in redistribution" and how government policies can effect redistribution of resources. According to the Media Research Center, from Tuesday evening (September 18) through Thursday morning (September 20), the big three networks combined spent over an hour covering the Romney footage while devoting less than six and a half minutes to the Obama tape. Romney's comments were also the lead topic of discussion in the A-blocks of Meet the Press and This Week w/ George Stephanopolous on Sunday.

It gets worse. After initially claiming to have released the full tape of Romney speaking at the fundraiser, the saboteurs who put this video out there admitted that they hadn't actually released everything they had recorded. Then, David Corn of Mother Jones, who obtained the raw footage of Romney from James Carter IV (grandson of former Pres. Jimmy Carter), acknowledged that they didn't even have a complete recording of everything the candidate said at the fundraiser. In other words, we do not know and we may never know the full context of what Governor Romney said at that fundraiser. The only tenable argument of why this doesn't render everything Romney is on tape saying meaningless (or at least not newsworthy) is that no context could possibly mitigate what he said, but as President Obama himself has averred, the out-of-context defense is not amenable to such an exception.

The more disgusting aspect of this egregious display of bias is that the network news devoted more time in the same time period to covering this Romney story than the deadly violence in the Middle East or the administration's constantly-changing narrative about the genesis of the attacks on our embassy in Cairo and the counsulate in Benghazi. To that point, on Thursday, September 13th, the New York Times ran with the headline "ENVOY DIES IN LIBYA ATTACK ON EMBASSY; A FLASH POINT FOR OBAMA AND ROMNEY". Nothing wrong with that, but in the story below, under the headline "A Challenger’s Criticism Is Furiously Returned," Times reporters Peter Baker and Ashley Parker offered the following account of the two candidates' reactions to the tragic news out of Libya:

While President Obama dealt with the killings of an ambassador and three other Americans and deflected questions about his handling of the Arab world, Mitt Romney, the Republican seeking his job, wasted little time going on the attack, accusing the president of apologizing for American values and appeasing Islamic extremists.

No mention of the president's decision to skip his intelligence briefing and head to Las Vegas for a fundraiser in the wake of what we now know was a terrorist attack. Query whether his predecessor would have gotten the same treatment had he done the same. (I can't remember; did the Times run that photo of President Bush aboard Air Force One flying over New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina hit?) In fairness, the article did mention President Obama's transparently political (and, in my opinion, disgracefully petty and unbecoming of the office of president) charge that Mitt Romney has "a tendency to shoot first and aim later," though Baker and Parker characterized the comment in a much more charitable fashion. (So, to recap, Mitt Romney criticizes the U.S. Embassy in Cairo for apologizing for a movie in their official statement to an attack, while the president of the United States takes a cheap shot at his challenger, using tougher language against him than he did against the terrorists who attacked us. Same thing, I guess.)

There is also the issue of media organizations using facially nonpartisan means to influence voters. Take polling, for example. In recent years, many networks and media have started commissioning thir own polls instead of relying on those done by professional pollsters, like they've historically done. This does not evince any sort of bias per se, but consider this question from a recent Bloomberg poll:

Gov. Mitt Romney has told donors that 47 percent of Americans think of themselves as "victims" who are dependent on government programs. Which best describes your reaction? (Read list. Rotate.)

41 He’s right and more people should be able to make it on their own

51 He’s wrong and most Americans work hard and sometimes need some help from the government

8 Not sure

This is what's known as a "push poll" question, one designed to "push" a political narrative, rather than collect data in an objective fashion. You might expect this from Democratic operatives masquerading as pollsters, but it has no place in a professional survey conducted for a news organization that plans to report it as news.

Special Interest Groups

Newspapers and TV Networks aren't the only once-independent entities that have long since sacrificed their objectivity for partisan endeavors. This election cycle, Obama and Democrats have benefitted from overtly partisan activities by organizations that are supposed to be apolitical. The fraternity between the American Left and, e.g., the AARP, NOW and the NAACP is no longer clandestine, but the serious problem Republicans have as yet been unable to solve is that a lot of voters--viz., the constituencies these groups purport to represent--still see these organizations as trustworthy, independent sources of information; even worse, they've fallen into the same trap that so many union members have--believing that the charlatans running these organizations have their best interests at heart.

Obama and his campaign have recognized this phenomenon and are already capitalizing on it. One Obama campaign ad--laughably entitled "Facts"--quotes the AARP as saying that Obamacare "cracks down on Medicare waste, fraud, and abuse" and "strengthens guaranteed benefits in Medicare." (For the record, AARP blessed Obamacare with its stamp of approval; this Obama ad might have some semblance of credibility if it cited to a source that had no motive to lie about the subject.) The ad also quotes the AARP as saying that Paul Ryan's Path to Prosperity "would undermine the market power of Medicare and could lead to higher costs for seniors." (There's that word "could" again!)

Some of these groups have their own political arms that cut out the middle man by simply disseminating their propaganda themselves. Planned Parenthood's PAC (Political Action Committee) has been on the airwaves in key swing states for months. This ad, which cuts a clip of Romney speaking out of context to deceive viewers into thinking the candidate aims to "get rid of" Planned Parenthood, is airing in Ohio and Virginia.

To his credit, Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan have tried to break through the force fields of deception these institutions have erected and maintained around their target audiences; Romney spoke at the NAACP convention last month, and Ryan addressed the AARP last week. Both got booed when they talked about repealing Obamacare, which polls continue to show is wildly unpopular with the electorate at large. These perhaps-futile efforts to appeal to the hopelessly indoctrinated exemplify the challenge faced by the Republican ticket in combatting these groups: Ignorance can be cured by knowledge, but when voters have been instilled with  misinformation that they adamantly believe is correct, confronting them with the truth just elicits a negative reaction.

The Late-Night Jesters

While Americans may be turned off by politicians and politics in general, we love our political satire, and even though most of the comics who grace our screens at night lean left politically, their humor has historically transcended partisan divides. About eight years ago, however, once the staggering popularity then-President Bush had enjoyed throughout much of his first term had subsided, the jokes made at his expense on The Late Show, Saturday Night Live, The Daily Show w/ Jon Stewart and the like took a nasty turn. Comedians--and their writers--forsook humor for haranguing. Clever satire gave way to odious vitriol. An increasingly obvious stream of hate had infected their once-witty material.

Still, there's a role for humorists to play in humbling our most powerful leaders, but what happens when a man you yourself have placed on a pedestal ascends to the presidency? Can you find it in you to mock, ridicule and deride the man you hold in such high regard with the same vigor you've exhibited in lampooning his predecessors? We got our answer to that over the past three and a half years, as Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, David Letterman and the writers of SNL have handled President Obama with kid gloves; an objective, unbiased observer would easily conclude that they've actually been harder on his opposition. Consequently, when the president deigns to appear on their shows, he can expect a warm reception. (Actually, that's an understatement; what he can expect is the PG-13 equivalent of fellatio.)

After the president's aforementioned fundraiser in Las Vegas, he took time out from his busy schedule to honor The Late Show with his presence. (I'll not fault him for not rescheduling; it's not like the U.S. had just suffered another terrorist attack or anything.) Letterman predictably served up softball questions and even referenced Mitt Romney's comments from that edited fundraiser video, asking the president, "Is that what rich guys at country clubs are talking about?" (The president was allowed to give a three-minute, uninterrupted answer to this question.)

Similarly, when SNL kicked off its latest series of Weekend Update: Thursday Edition on September 20th, the first four jokes Seth Myers told were at Mitt Romney's expense; he even found a way to work in some baseless, racially-charged smear about Mitt Romney. So much of this is to be expected, but is it really so much to ask that Myers stick to making light of actual news items that have some basis in reality instead of repeating unsubstantiated rumors that are clearly designed only to malign a good man? Why couldn't he have made a joke about the scum who started or spread this slanderous lie instead of perpetuating it?

If any of this sounds like the complaints of a pessimistic Romney supporter, then I assure you that was not my purpose in writing this article. I'm simply trying to describe, by way of example, how this incomparable political machine Obama has working for him is aiding his efforts to win re-election. I think one more example of this late-night stumping for Obama is appropriate. Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert seemed all too eager to make hay of the edited Romney video once its existence became widely known, but like most of the media, they treated the doctored footage of Romney noticeably differently than the tape of Obama speaking at Loyola. Stewart actually devoted two-thirds of his program on Tuesday, September 18, to material on Romney's surrepitiously-recorded remarks, but it wasn't all humor. A merciless diatribe knocking Romney for "talking to donors in a manner you would imagine cartoon rich people talk about cartoon poorer people" (which included the tasteless use of Romney's late parents against him) turned into a vituperative rant against the nominee. I'll spare you a recitation of Stewart's invective, but suffice it to say that his tone would be more appropriate, for say, an impassioned critique of the president's inexcusable reaction to the terrorist attack on our consulate in Libya. No mention of that, nor of Obama's "redistribution" comments, and the following night, when The Daily Show finally got around to addressing the Obama tape, the target of their derision was not the president but rather, FOX News. That's right, instead of lampooning Obama's remarks with anything close to the level of fervor he displayed in lambasting Romney, Stewart and his writers found a way to make FOX News, which they dubbed "Bullshit Mountain," the story. Imagine how they would have reacted had President Bush been the one shirking the duties and responsibilities of his office while his foreign policy was going up in flames (literally).

It's critical for the future of this country that Mitt Romney defeat Barack Obama this election cycle. That's not to say electing Romney and Ryan will fix everything; Obama and the Democrats have done a lot of damage over the last 44 months, some of which can't be quickly undone. (Heck, we haven't even undone all the damage done by FDR's New Deal.) I'll not pass judgment on whether the preceding list of individuals and groups supporting him are trying to hasten Americans decline or genuinely unaware of the consequences of their actions, not without clear and convincing evidence for or against either possibility. What there can be no doubt of is that Romney, Ryan and those of us who support their cause are up against a machine of unrivaled (in this country) proportions. In less than 40 days, we'll know whether we can rival its power.

Are We Now the World's California?

I'm returning to Waco this week. Next Monday marks the beginning of the fall quarter at Baylor Law School, and needless to say, I won't be blogging nearly as much after then. Right now, I'm visiting my folks in Arlington, and later this week, I'll head back to my apartment.

On Sunday, I was watching 60 Minutes with my parents. Leslie Stahl was doing this segment on American corporations moving their headquarters overseas to avoid paying high U.S. taxes. While we were preparing supper, my Mom asked, rather disdainfully, "Why would anybody want to run a business in the United States?" My immediate answer was, "Good quality of life, I guess." That's when it hit me: the U.S. has become the California of the world.

It's no secret that California has one of the worst business climates in America. Its tax burden is also now on par with infamously high-taxing New York and New Jersey, and it has a lower bond rating than any other state. The Golden State has long believed that it can maintain this hostile atmosphere without discouraging people from living there because of what are known as "exploitable amentity asymmetries," which basically means that people will pay more to live in such a nice place. When you're in close proximity to some of the greatest natural splendor this country has to offer (not to mention the cultural meccas of San Francisco and Los Angeles), shouldn't there be some sort of premium on the cost of living?

For decades, the overwhelming answer was "yes." Ever since the Dust Bowl of the 1930s, California has been somewhat of an American "promised land," the last, best hope down-on-their-luck citizens have of finding the American dream. (You could go back even farther to the Comstock Lode and ensuing Gold Rush of the 19th Century.) Recently, though, it's become increasingly apparent that California's zenith may be behind her. I just mentioned its current financial woes, and population trends are reflecting it. For the first time since the 1920s, the Great Bear failed to gain a single congressional district following the U.S. Census, a result of slowing population growth.

Back to the analogy: I remember when Gov. Rick Perry appeared on The Daily Show last year. Eventually, the discussion came around to Texas's relatively pro-business climate and why businesses (and jobs) were migrating from the Midwest and Northeast to the Sun Belt. When Perry rattled off statistics indicating just how big the jobs boom has been in Texas over the past decade, Jon asked hmi, "Why do you think that is?" Perry mentioned our low taxes, "fair and predictable" regulatory climate, "a legal system that's fair and doesn't allow for over-suing," and "accountable" school system that produces skilled workers. This exchange followed:

STEWART: Couldn't you make the same argument, though, in terms of globalization, for companies going to India and China? If you are the pressure-valve release for companies in California, [then] who's t'say, would you criticize Texas companies --

[CROSSTALK]

PERRY: Seriously, you wanna live in India, or you wanna live in Texas?

STEWART: Are you -- For real?

[LAUGHTER/APPLAUSE]

It's an excellent point. The U.S. may not have the most favorable business climate, but we have a better quality of life than any other country. That has been our trump card against the growing number of business-friendly states on the global stage. Years ago, John Stossel did a 20/20 episode in which he visited India and Singapore and compared the ease/difficulty of opening a business in each country. In the latter, it took a few hours, much less than it would in the U.S. (and a lot less than in India). He was even able to set up a booth or something in a mall before the end of the day. Singapore also has no capital-gains tax, but on the other hand, you won't get caned for chewing gum in the United States (not by the government, anyway; I can't speak for all parents and boarding schools).

In this age of globalization, it's important for policymakers in D.C. to remain constantly aware that we are competing with countries all over the world, not just for investment, but for human capital as well. A tax code that, as Leslie Stahl put it, "all but forces companies to keep their money out of the country indefinitely" needs to be reformed. This Congress should act on pending free trade agreements that the past two Congresses have pushed aside. We'll lose out on a small amount of revenue that would have come from tariffs, but it will pale in comparison to the capital that will flow into this country when we expand the market for U.S. goods. It may be too late to save California, but the entire U.S. does not have to suffer the same fate.

Jon Stewart, PolitiFact & FOX News (Part II)

Last week, I blogged about Jon Stewart's misuse of PolitiFact to try and point out various "false statements" FOX News had made. If you haven't read that post, then you really should. Today, I hope to finish the job I started and never blog about this again.
One highly dubious analysis on PolitiFact's part fact-checked FOX News Alpha Male Bill O'Reilly's claim that "Attorney General Eric Holder is involved in the dismissal of the criminal charges" against the New Black Panther Party for voter intimidation. PolitiFact rated O'Reilly's statement "False." Trouble is, nowhere in the analysis did PolitiFact provide any evidence that Holder was not involved. Instead, its analysis focused on the distinction between the civil lawsuit filed by the Department of Justice in 2009 (before Eric Holder became AG) and the decision by the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division not to pursue criminal charges. Whoever wrote the PolitiFact piece stated that "O'Reilly and other Fox commentators have confused the issue by suggesting Holder and the Obama administration made the call not to pursue more serious charges against the New Black Panther Party members. [Assistant Attorney General Thomas] Perez stated that the Civil Rights Division decided pre-Obama not to pursue more serious, criminal charges. So when O'Reilly brings on legal analysts who paint it as an outrage that the Justice Department did not pursue a criminal case, and the only person condemned by O'Reilly is Holder for not 'representing the United States in a fair and balanced way,' that's misleading and misplaced. We think it's fair to hold Holder accountable for the decision to limit the civil case, but not the criminal one."
Frankly, I think PolitiFact is splitting hairs with this one. At any rate, it's hardly comparable to Stewart's blatantly false assertion that "FOX viewers" are "the most consistently misinformed media viewers," according to "every poll."
Sometimes PolitiFact's fact-checking hinges not on the interpretation of the statement being checked but on the speaker's interpretation of one or more sources. Here's an example: two years ago, PolitiFact analyzed this allegation by Glenn Beck:

John Holdren, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, "has proposed forcing abortions and putting sterilants in the drinking water to control population."

PolitiFact offerred a lengthy analysis of Beck's claim and ultimately rated it "Pants on Fire!" It acknowledged that "Beck's allegation has its roots in a book Holdren co-authored with Paul and Annie Ehrlich more than three decades ago called Ecoscience: Population, Resources, Environment." The analysis provided several excerpts from the book that explained Beck's damning accusation but concluded, "We think it's irresponsible to pluck a few lines from a 1,000-page, 30-year-old textbook, and then present them out of context to dismiss Holdren's long and distinguished career." Trouble is, as I read Holdren's writings, Beck's interpretation seems reasonable. Even if Holdren has since changed his views, what's at issue is whether he had ever proposed forcing abortions and putting sterilants in drinking water to control population, not whether he currently supports such measures.
As I pointed out in my last column, PolitiFact often runs the risk of making someone sound like a liar by ruling a statement false or "Pants on Fire!" even though the person(s) making the statement relied in good faith on a reliable source. Many of the "false statements" Jon Stewart said PolitiFact "checked" FOX News for were just such claims. I like to call these "WMD statements," where the speaker says something that he/she has every reason to believe is true but turns out to be false. Yesterday I offerred the examples of Kimberly Guilfoyle's remarks about the Cars.gov web site and the oft-repeated claim about White House Political Director Patrick Gaspard once being Bertha Lewis's "right-hand man" at ACORN. Here's another example:
In a Dec. 3, 2009, broadcast of his FOX News show, Glenn Beck said that Andy Stern, then head of the Service Employees International Union, was "the most frequent visitor of the White House." Said PolitiFact:

We found the source of Beck's claim. When the White House released its first batch of visitor logs on Oct. 30, 2009, as part of a pledge to bring more transparency to the White House, Stern's name did indeed appear 22 times, more than anyone else listed, including [Secretary of State Hillary] Clinton, who was listed three times.

Yet, PolitiFact again slapped Beck with a "False" ruling because, it said, "that's not the whole story."
It seems Beck's data was out-of-date. PolitiFact explained:

Stern led the pack for the first data release, which covered visits from Jan. 20, 2009 to July 31, 2009. But he was surpassed by several other individuals in the second release, which updates the data through Aug. 31, 2009 (and which was made public more than a week before Beck aired his comment).

Also, PolitiFact says, "the first batch of data -- covering the period from Jan. 20, 2009, to July 31, 2009, which found Stern in the lead -- is not a complete accounting of White House visits during that period. It only includes data for visitors whose names were first requested by the public. If no one requested a specific name, then that name wouldn't appear in the database. So there's no way of knowing whether Stern actually had the most visits for that period; he simply had the most of anyone whose name was requested by the public." So, in that particular instance, PolitiFact was right to rate Beck's claim false. But then Stewart took PolitiFact's work and again made it sound like somebody at FOX News had intentionally misled the public.
In a couple of instances, PolitiFact fact-checked statements that nobody at FOX News had even made. I gave one such example yesterday (PolitiFact twisted Laura Ingraham's words about Mitt Romney to make it sound like she said the health care plan he signed into law as governor is "wildly unpopular" among state residents.). Here's another: opinion After Dr. George Tiller, the well-known Kansas abortionist, was shot to death while attending church in Wichita on May 31, 2009, Bill O'Reilly became the target of more vicious attacks from left-wing hatemongers. In a widely published article, O'Reilly asserted that he "reported on the doctor honestly," but "the loons asserted that my analysis of him was 'hateful.'" He continued:

Chief of among the complaints was the doctor's nickname, "Tiller the baby killer." Some prolifers branded him with that, and I reported it. So did hundreds of other news sources.

PolitiFact seized on those statements, which its staff apparently interpreted as O'Reilly claiming "he didn't call Dr. George Tiller a baby killer, as liberal groups charge, but was merely reporting what 'some prolifers branded him.'"
Now, if you read O'Reilly's article - or just the excerpts (which, by the way, PolitiFact's Angie Drobnic Holan included in her piece) - then you'll notice that O'Reilly didn't claim that he never called Dr. Tiller a baby killer. Had he said that, PolitiFact could have justifiably rated his comments false.
The rest of the statements on Stewart's list that had received a false or "Pants on Fire!" rating were demonstrably false, and PolitiFact provided the relevant context. It's worth pointing out, though, that in several cases, the claims attributed to FOX News were not just made by FOX News personalities; Stewart declined to mention that as well.
Hopefully, that's the last we'll hear about the unpleasant three-way between Jon Stewart, FOX News and PolitiFact. Good night, all!

Jon Stewart, PolitiFact & FOX News (Part I)

Earlier in the week, I promised a critical analysis of PoltiFact's so called "fact-checking" of FOX News items, specifically the stuff that Jon Stewart mentioned on his show last week as part of a "21-Lie Salute" to FOX News. Before I get to that, I feel I should explain the mindset with which I approached this.

Any truly credible fact-checker should take care to distinguish between facts (statements that can be declared "true" or "false") and opinions (subjective expressions of how someone feels). The distinciton is key in defamation cases. Genuine statements of opinion are not actionable (meaning someone can't sue another for defamation based on the latter's expression of his/her opinions). However, one cannot escape liability simply by disguising a factual statement as an opinion. Perhaps then-Justice William H. Rehnquist put it best:

Thus, unlike the statement, “In my opinion Mayor Jones is a liar,” the statement, “In my opinion Mayor Jones shows his abysmal ignorance by accepting the teachings of Marx and Lenin,” would not be actionable. Hepps ensures that a statement of opinion relating to matters of public concern which does not contain a provably false factual connotation will receive full constitutional protection.

Milkovich v. Lorain Journal Co., 497 U.S. 1, 20 (1990). Now then, on to the matter at hand. As I mentioned in my earlier column, PolitiFact rates the accuracy of selected statements with its registered "Truth-O-Meter" rulings. Says PolitiFact, "The goal of the Truth-O-Meter is to reflect the relative accuracy of a statement."

Of the 21 claims Stewart referenced in his comedy bit, fourteen were rated False, which according to PolitiFact means "The statement is not accurate." Five received a "Pants on Fire" rating, which PolitiFact says means "The statement is not accurate and makes a ridiculous claim." The other two were each dubbed "Lie of the Year" by PolitiFact.

The first flaw I want to point out in Stewart's use of PolitiFact to assail FOX News's credibility (or whatever he was trying to do) has less to do with PolitiFact's credibility and more to do with Stewart's deceptive use of their analyses. Many of the "lies" Stewart attributed to FOX News were actually not made by FOX, or at least not just by FOX, according to PolitiFact. Let's start with one of those two "Lie of the Year" awardees.

In a December 16th, 2010, announcement, PolitiFact Editor Bill Adair and reporter/researcher Angie Drobnic Holan published the following:

PolitiFact editors and reporters have chosen "government takeover of health
care" as the 2010 Lie of the Year. Uttered by dozens of politicians and pundits,
it played an important role in shaping public opinion about the health care plan
and was a significant factor in the Democrats' shellacking in the November
elections.

Jon Stewart not only listed as one of the "false statements" made by FOX, he said, "That one was all over FOX. They were runnin' wild on that one!"

Sure they were, Jon, sure they were. However, nowhere in the extensive "Lie of the Year" analysis (which you can read in full here) did PolitiFact mention FOX News or even the FOX Network. Adair and Holan did, however, take care to point out specific instances in which the "lie" was uttered elsewhere in the press:

The phrase proliferated in the media even after Democrats dropped the public option. In 2010 alone, "government takeover” was mentioned 28 times in the Washington Post, 77 times in Politico and 79 times on CNN. A review of TV transcripts showed "government takeover" was primarily used as a catchy sound
bite, not for discussions of policy details.

In most transcripts we examined, Republican leaders used the phrase without being challenged by interviewers. For example, during Boehner's Jan. 31 appearance on Meet the Press, Boehner said it five times. But not once was he challenged about it.

PolitiFact also published items attributing the "government takeover” claim to Rep. Robert Hurt (R-Va.), Wisconsin Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch (R), the Republican Party of Florida and Rep. C.W. "Bill" Young (R-Fla.), but I couldn't find a single thing on the web site attributing such a statement to FOX News.

That's just one example. Others require an even more complicated explanation. Consider FOX News contributor and occassioal O'Reilly Factor guest host Laura Ingraham’s remarks on the May 12, 2011, edition of the Factor. Discussing a speech given earlier that day by former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, in which he discussed the historic reform of his state's health care system that has caused him so much grief on the campaign trail, Ingraham said, "Look, I like Mitt Romney. I think he's a really smart guy, and I think he would be a good president. ... On this, I don't get it, though, Bill. I mean, costs have gone up. It's wildly unpopular."

PolitiFact rated Ingraham’s statement False. Actually, the statement it rated "false" was actually not uttered by Laura Ingraham. It was what the site's editors/writers interpreted Ingraham as saying. The item Jon referenced on his program is published on the site under the heading, "Laura Ingraham says Massachusetts health plan is 'wildly unpopular'". On that page, you'll also find that the "claim" PolitiFact actually fact-checked was "The Massachusetts health care plan is 'wildly unpopular' among state residents."

So, before doing its analysis, PolitiFact made two assumptions about Ingraham's statement: (1) that she was referring specifically to the "Massachusetts health care plan," and (2) that she was saying it is (not was) is "wildly unpopular" among state residents. (So, I guess that's actually three assumptions.) The first may be fairly inferred, given context and the subject matter of their conversation, but I personally think it's a bridge too far to declare that Ingraham was only referring to Romneycare's popularity among Bay Staters. Even if that is what she meant, though, PolitiFact had no way of knowing what she was thinking. The entire analysis should have been disregarded.

That brings me to PolitiFact's 2009 Lie of the Year: "Death panels."

Some of you gramatically astute folks probably seized on the obvious: "Death panels" is not a statement. Actually, the original "statement" that PolitiFact rated was, like the thing about Romneycare being "wildly unpopular" among state residents, a mutation of what someone actually said. Back in August of 2009, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin posted the following on her Facebook page:

The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama's ‘death panel' so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their ‘level of productivity in society,' whether they are worthy of health care.

The statement that PolitiFact rated "Pants on Fire!" read as follows:

Seniors and the disabled "will have to stand in front of Obama's 'death panel' so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their 'level of productivity in society,' whether they are worthy of health care."

Now, it's plainly obvious that Palin was not making a definitive accusation about any part of the Democrats' health care reform bill, but the use of the phrase "death panel" - something ostinsibly absent from the American lexicon prior to Palin's notorious post - became commonplace in the health care debate that continued through the end of the year. HOWEVER, attributing the origin of the phrase to FOX News was way out of line. Palin was not hired by FOX News until January of 2010, according to the network, so even if she did unequivocally assert that "death panels" were part of the Democrats' "nationalized health care plan," the claim still would not have originated with FOX. Again, this is not an error on PolitiFact's part; it's Stewart's misuse of PolitiFact's analysis.

I'll do one more for now, just because I'm getting tired. PolitiFact rated this statement, which it attributed to FOX News legal vixen Kimberly Guilfoyle, false:

If you log into the government's Cash for Clunkers web site (cars.gov) from your home computer, [then] the government can "seize all of your personal and private" information, and track your computer activity.

As PolitiFact acknowledges, what Guilfoyle actually said was: "They are jumping right inside you, seizing all of your personal and private information, (crosstalk) and it's absolutely legal. . . ." Guilfoyle was talking to Glenn Beck on his FOX News show. When Beck pulled up the Cars.gov web site on his computer, he told his viewers, "I go in and I say, 'I want to turn in my clunker.' The dealer goes to Cars.gov, and then they hit 'submit transaction.' Here it says 'Privacy Act and Security Statement,' and it's like, oh, it's the Privacy Act of 1974. Whatever. I agree." Beck then read the warning statement that appeared out loud. PolitiFact verified the language that appeared and included it in the post dubbing Guilfoyle's statement a falsehood:

"This application provides access to the DOT CARS system. When logged on to the
CARS system, your computer is considered a federal computer system and it is
property of the United States Government. Any or all uses of this system and all
files on this system may be intercepted, monitored, recorded, copied, audited,
inspected, and disclosed to authorized CARS, DOT, and law enforcement personnel, as well as authorized officials of other agencies, both domestic and foreign."

Despite acknowledging the context of Guilfoyle's words and her clear reliance on the language that appeared on the Cash for Clunkers web site, PolitiFact rated her "claim" false because, they say, "we think anyone who saw the July 31 program — in which she claimed 'seriously, they can get all your information' — would be left with the clear impression that anyone who logged into the cars.gov site was opening their computer to Big Brother. And that's False." (BTW, Jon Stewart got the mangled version of Guilfoyle's claim that PolitiFact fact-checked wrong. On his program, he listed the statement as "Cash for Clunkers will give government complete access to your home computer." Now that claim would be false, but Jon Stewart's allegation that such a statement was ever made by anyone at FOX News deserves a "Pants on Fire" rating.)

So, it seems Jon Stewart owes FOX News another apology. He may also want to apologize to PolitiFact for trying to use their work in an attempt to ridicule/discredit one of the few reputable news organizations left in this world.

I'll have more to say on this later, but tomorrow is July 4th, and I've got some big plans. Also, some idiot just set off a bunch of fireworks somewhere near my house, and now my dogs won't leave me alone, which makes it hard for me to get any work done.

The Jon Stewart/FOX News Tit-for-Tat That Just Won't End

It's been nine days since diminuitive Jewish comedian Jon Stewart appeared on FOX News Sunday w/ Chris Wallace. If you haven't seen the whole interview, then I highly recommend you watch it here.
As much as FOX News hyped this interview, the pre-interview hype was nothing compared to the flurry of analysis that permeated the blogoshpere and TV airwaves, especially on cable, in the immediate aftermath. I would very much like to do a play-by-play breakdown of every pertinent segment on FOX News and The Daily Show since the interview, but that would be far too time-consuming to hold most people's attention. Instead, suffice it to say that, on the day after the interview aired, Stewart led his program with it. Apparently, he felt that the lead take-away from the interview was Chris Wallace's "admission" of FOX News's "bias." Stewart played a clip from the interview in which he asked Wallace if he thought "that FOX News is exactly the ideological equivalent of NBC News," and Chris responded that he thought FOX News was "the counterweight," saying, "I think that they have a liberal agenda, and I think we tell the other side of the story, but, since this is my show, I'm asking the questions."
In a hypertechnical and not-at-all funny critique of Wallace, Stewart tried to argue that by saying that FOX News tells "the other side of the story," C.W. had implicitly confessed that FOX News tells only one side of the story. According to Jon, "FOX News isn't fair and balanced. It's balancing the system, man!"
I should pause for a moment here and reveal a little bit about where I'm coming from. I started watching The Daily Show and The Colbert Report at almost exactly the same time that I started watching FOX News regularly (late 2006). When I want to get the left-wing viewpoint, I prefer Stewart and Colbert to MSNBC (because they're not as visceral and vitriolic) and CNN (because they're more interesting). Frankly, I think Stewart is really funny when he wants to be, but like a lot of comedians, he falls flat when he lets his ideology infect his humor. He has a very creative staff of writers; the only cheap shot I'll take at him is that I think he's more dependent on his writers than Colbert, but I could be wrong. (He did all right during the writers' strike of '07-'08.)
As for FOX, I personally do not believe that FOX News has a right-wing bias, and no sane person can believe that it's a propaganda outfit (like MSNBC). However, I do think it would be good if FOX News had one hour-long opinion/news analysis program hosted by a left-winger. (Juan Williams occasionally hosting The O'Reilly Factor doesn't count.) I must also admit that I don't mind MSNBC operating as a propaganda network; I don't even mind its anchors' stubborn and at times laughable insistence that they work for a serious news organization. I watch MSNBC periodically for much the same reason(s) that people like to go to the zoo and watch lesser-evolved primates hurl their feces at one another.
Now, then, back to Stewart's latest pique with FNC. After the interview and Stewart's subsequent send-up, PolitiFact got involved. For those of you who aren't familiar with this organization, it's a non-partisan web site known for its "Truth-O-Meter"®, which it uses to rate the accuracy of political claims. PolitiFact National is run by editors and reporters from the St. Petersburg Times, a newspaper I read whenever I'm in St. Petersburg. The PolitiFact state sites are run by news organizations that have partnered with the Times. Their purported mission is "sorting out the truth in politics." I'm not prepared to assert that the site has a political bias, but several of its ratings have given me reason to doubt its credibility. (For example, on the June 26, 2011, edition of ABC’s This Week with Christiane Amanpour, Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC) said that Democrats "do not want to raise anybody's tax rates. That's never been on the table." PolitiFact rated Clyburn's blatantly false claim "Barely True," which, according to the Principles of PolitiFact and the Truth-O-Meter, means "an element of truth mixed with a lot of misinformation." Yet, this is the same rating it gave Congresswoman Michele Bachmann's demonstrably true claim that, "under Barack Obama, the last two years, the number of federal limousines for bureaucrats has increased 73 percent.") See, in his interview on FOX News Sunday, Jon stated emphatically that "FOX viewers" are "the most consistently misinformed media viewers," according to "every poll." PolitiFact rated Stewart's claim "False." Then, on last Tuesday's Daily Show, Jon Stewart accepted PolitiFact's "False" verdict and said, "I defer to their judgment, and I apologize for my mistake. To not do so would be irresponsible, and if I were to continue to [bla bla bla]." But alas, he just couldn't let it go. Stewart needed some sour grapes to wash the taste of crow out of his mouth, so he proceeded to fire off what he dubbed a "21-Lie Salute" to FOX News, rattling off a long list of claims seen/made on/by FOX News that received a "False" rating or worse. I spotted several issues with the items Stewart featured on his show, so I went to the PolitiFact web site to see how they explained their various classifications of what seemed to me to be either at least partially true statements or opinions that can't technically be assigned a truth value. There's a lot of material to go over, so I'll publish my criticism in a separate piece.
Anywho, Chris Wallace closed out his show this past Sunday by calling attention to Stewart's specious spin on his remark about telling "the other side of the story." Predictably, he told his viewers that "I wish I had said, 'the full story.'" (Stewart interpreted this as Wallace saying, "I accidentally told the truth and wish I could take it back.") He then proceeded to give a specific example of how FOX News tells both sides of the story when other networks don't, citing FOX News's coverage of the astonishingly poor response of the federal, state and local governments to the devastated Mississippi River Delta region in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. While the mainstream media was busy highlighting how FEMA dropped the ball (in what I'm sure was a bona fide attempt at hard-hitting journalism and not at all a cynical hit job on the Bush Administration), FOX News made sure its viewers were informed about who all bore responsibility for the abysmal response, including the bumbling mayor of New Orleans, Ray Nagin (D), and the administration of Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco (D). Stewart did not seem to care for that. The following night on The Daily Show, he played a few short clips of Wallace's comments and supplemented them with his own brand of derisive mockery. He tried to somehow bolster his by now thoroughly discredited claims that FOX News is not "fair & balanced" by playing a clip of William LaJeunesse reporting on the "Operation Fast and Furious" fiasco. Apparently, Jon took issue with LaJeunesse's remark that some say the operation was an innocent mistake. "Others believe it was allowed to happen to justify tougher gun laws in the U.S." Jon cut the clip off right after that last syllable. He was very excited. "Did you see that?" he exclaimed with childish delight. "He just threw it right in there. President Obama is either incompetent, making an innocent mistake, or the architect of an evil conspiracy to wreak violent carnage in Mexico as a way to take away Americans' guns." Flashing a cheesy grin, he added, "You know, both sides of the story." Then, feigning exasperation, he said, "Who said that America was involved in the type of conspiracy that, if true, could ultimately lead to the impeachment of a president? Who said it? [dumb voice] Others."
Yes, Jon, “others,” like NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre. (Seriously, who told you to use that as an example? Do you know how easy it was for me to find someone who suggested that this could be part of an sinister plot by the Obama Administration to push a political agenda? I just typed "ATF agent fired" into a search engine. I wasn't even looking for someone who made that claim; I was just trying to get the name of the operation right. This was one of the first videos that popped up!)
Stewart took some more shots at Wallace and FOX News in general, but at this point, I'm actually feeling sorry for the little guy (despite him having nearly everything I want out of life but haven't attained yet, viz. a great job, his own TV show, an adoring fan base, a wife & kids). So, I'll close this out with his parting shot at the man he actually called "a friend of mine" as he insulted the man's employer. Said Stewart, "you know what this whole victim thing makes FOX? Well, perhaps this term a friend of mine used once to describe our current presidential administration is most apt."
Cut to: clip of Wallace telling Bill O'Reilly, "They are the biggest bunch of crybabies I have dealt with in my 30 years in Washington."
Tomorrow: the back-and-forth continues as Bernie Goldberg calls Jon Stewart a racist, and Stewart ... well, he does something to himself "with his own mouth." That's all I'll tell you for now. I'll also have some boring commentary on economics or some crap.