PolitiFact and the 'Green New Deal' Fiction Depiction

What if the GOP released a FAQ that gave false or misleading information about the Democrats' "Green New Deal" resolution? Would that be fair game for fact checkers?

We don't see why not.

But what if one of the bill's proponents released a FAQ that gave false or misleading information about the Democrats' "Green New Deal" resolution? Would that be fair game for fact checkers?

For PolitiFact, apparently the answer is "no."

A week after Green New Deal proponent Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez released a FAQ about the proposal on her website, including its supposed proposal to provide "economic security for all who are unable or unwilling to work," PolitiFact published a Feb. 12, 2019 article on the Green New Deal that apparently shows that publishers of the false information will not face PolitiFact's "Truth-O-Meter."

PolitiFact toed the line on the media narrative that somehow, some way, incorrect information was published by someone. Okay, it was Ocasio-Cortez's staff, but so what?

We should distinguish the official resolution with some additional documents that were posted and shared by Ocasio-Cortez’s staff around the time the resolution was introduced. Once they became public, portions of these additional documents became grist for ridicule among her critics.

Some critics took aim at a line in one of the FAQs that said "we aren’t sure that we’ll be able to fully get rid of farting cows and airplanes." The same document promised "economic security for all who are unable or unwilling to work."

Under normal circumstances, PolitiFact makes politicians accountable for what appears on their official websites.

Are these special circumstances? Why doesn't PolitiFact attribute the false information to Ocasio-Cortez in this case? Are the objective and neutral fact checkers trying to avoid creating a false equivalency by not fact-checking morally-right-but-factually-wrong information on Ocasio-Cortez's website?

A round of Mulligans for everyone!

Many will benefit from PolitiFact's apparent plan to give out "Truth-O-Meter" mulligans over claimed aspects of the Green New Deal resolution not actually in the resolution. Critics of those parts of the plan will not have their attacks rated on the Truth-O-Meter. And those responsible for generating the controversy in the first place by publishing FAQs based on something other than the actual resolution also find themselves off the hook.

Good call by the fact checkers?

We think it shows PolitiFact's failure to equally apply its standards.

A Morally Right Contradiction?

If Ocasio-Cortez's website says the Green New Deal provides economic security for persons unwilling to work but the Green New Deal resolution does not provide economic security for persons unwilling to work, then the resolution contradicts Ocasio-Cortez's claim. That's assuming PolitiFact follows past practice in making politicians accountable for what appears on their websites.

So PolitiFact could have caught Ocasio-Cortez in a contradiction, and could have represented that finding somehow with its rating system.

In January we pointed out how PolitiFact falsely concluded that President Trump had contradicted himself in a tweet. The false finding of a contradiction resulted in a (bogus) "False" rating for Mr. Trump.

What excuse could possibly dress this methodology up as objective and unbiased? What makes a contradictory major policy FAQ unworthy of a rating compared to a non-contradictory presidential tweet?

Guess what? PolitiFact is biased. And we're not going to get coherent and satisfactory answers to our questions so long as PolitiFact insists on presenting itself as objective and unbiased.