Friday, September 6, 2013

PolitiFact and Obama's red line on Syria

PolitiFact published one of its hilariously non-committal "In Context" items in honor of President Obama's waffled messaging on the chemical weapons "red line" in Syria.

Hot Air's Ed Morrissey addresses the fact checking on Obama's "red line," mostly in terms of the fact checks from the Washington Post's Glenn Kessler and FactCheck.org.

We recommend Morrissey's article and agree with his take on PolitiFact.

I disagree with the decision not to assign Pinocchios, but the column is an interesting read, and he’s miles ahead of Politifact.

Read all about it at Hot Air.


Jeff adds (Sept. 10, 2013):

It's worth noting that Sean Davis of Media Trackers preemptively debunked PolitiFact's cowardly evasion when he posted a collection of "red line" references the day prior to PolitiFact's rating op-ed. Davis' piece included this nugget from an unnamed White House official:
“We go on to reaffirm that the President has set a clear red line as it relates to the United States that the use of chemical weapons or the transfer of chemical weapons to terrorist groups is a red line that is not acceptable to us,” the official said according to a White House transcript of the call. “[N]or should it be to the international community."
As Davis notes;  "The final phrase of that statement and its use of the word “should” suggests that the White House was well aware that its red line had not yet been accepted by the international community." This explicit acknowledgment of Obama's ownership of the "red line" somehow escaped PolitiFact's scholarly investigation.

Read Davis' short piece here

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