PolitiFact: The true half of Cokie Roberts' half truth is President Trump's half truth

Pity PolitiFact.

The liberal bloggers at PolitiFact may well see themselves as neutral and objective. If they see themselves that way, they are deluded.

Latest example:

PolitiFact's Aug. 3, 2019 fact check of President Trump finds he correctly said the homicide rate in Baltimore is higher than in some countries with a significant recent history of violence. But it wasn't fair of Trump to compare a city to a country for a variety of reasons, experts said.

So "Half True," PolitiFact said.

The problem?

Here at PolitiFact Bias we apparently remember what PolitiFact has done in the past better than PolitiFact remembers it. We remembered PolitiFact giving (liberal) pundit Cokie Roberts a "Half True" for butchering a comparison of the chance of being murdered in New York City compared to Honduras.

Roberts was way off on her numbers (to the point of being flatly false about them, we would say), but because she was right that the chance of getting murdered is greater in Honduras than in New York City, PolitiFact gave Roberts a "Half True" rating.

We think if Roberts' numbers are wrong (false) and her comparison is "Half True" because it isn't fair to compare a city to a country then Roberts seems to deserve a "Mostly False" rating.

That follows if PolitiFact judges Roberts by the same standard it applies to Mr. Trump.

But who are we kidding?

PolitiFact often fails to apply its standards consistently. Republicans and conservatives tend to receive the unfair harm from that inconsistency. Mr. Trump, thanks in part to his earned reputation for hyperbole and inaccuracy, tends to receive perhaps more unfair harm than anybody else.

It is understandable that fact checkers allow confirmation bias to influence their ratings of Mr. Trump.

It's also fundamentally unfair.

We think fact checkers should do better.