You may not be aware that there are people who listen to speakers, radio and TV shows only for the purpose of playing gotcha. Gotcha is a tactic using a statement out of context and dressing it up as menacingly as possible. Secretary of State Clinton calls it politics of personal destruction.I had considered highlighting the same PolitiFact Wisconsin story at Sublime Bloviations, but Bukosky's simple judo takedown of the PolitiFact piece saves me the trouble.
Ok, so let us do some nit picking here. No, we are not broke. We have a cash flow deficiency. But to label the Governor's statement as false is to mislead the readers. Too many people are of the mentality that if we have checks left in the checkbook, we still have money. Obviously, there are people who really believe that the state can make ends meet. It is a mentality that was displayed during the OJ Simpson murder trial. Never mind the evidence, the facts, we are going to stick it to the man, the taxpayers in this case.
June 17, 2011: Fixed misspelling of "Bukosky" in the second sentence. Sorry for that extra "w," Steve.
Describing PolitiFact analysis by using a slanderous association (OJ Simpson justice) distracts the readers from an obvious lack of actual facts supporting your case--that PolitiFact is left-leaning. It is a prejudicial perception much akin to this critic equating these tactics to all Republican, low-information voters--which I would, of course, not do...
ReplyDeleteThanks for stopping by, Kurt.
ReplyDeleteFirst, the criticism is from Steve Bukosky, who is not associated with the site other than through our editorial decision to highlight his work.
Second, we make no statement about this item in particular demonstrating PolitiFact's ideological bias. The evidence for PolitiFact's bias occurs on the basis of many items such as Bukosky's and the relative lack of similar items either damaging liberals or going soft on conservatives.
The Simpson trial might distract from the lack of facts proving PolitiFact's bias (straw man that it is), but it can't distract from Bukosky's case for the error in the Walker item except where the reader is willfully distracted in the first place.