The Cover Your Butt Cover Up: PolitiFact's Stealth Edits and Incoherent Defense of Hillary Clinton

PolitiFact's recent treatment of the Hillary Clinton email scandal has been busy and bizarre. PolitiFact issued a "Half True" rating on a Clinton claim, the FBI director poked holes in PolitiFact's story, PolitiFact stood by its "Half True" rating, then hours later reversed itself and issued a new fact check calling Clinton's claim false.

Timeline:

-July 3: A fact check by PolitiFact writer Lauren Carroll rates Clinton's claim that she "never received nor sent any material that was marked classified" on her private email server Half True (original version at the Internet Archive).

-July 5: FBI Director James Comey issues a statement effectively refuting Clinton's claims and exposing her outright falsehoods regarding the email scandal.

-July 5: After Comey's statement, PolitiFact publishes an update by Carroll laying out Comey's evidence and explaining how it undermines Clinton's claims. Despite this, Carroll says there will be no changes and affirms the original "Half True" rating.

-July 6: PolitiFact and Carroll publish an entirely new fact check on the same claim, this time rating Clinton False. PolitiFact archives a version of the "Half True" fact check.

Each iteration of Carroll's reporting has problems, so we'll address them in order:

Original July 3 Half True Fact Check:

Carroll is Clintonian in her defense of Clinton, weaving a web of wordsmithing to determine it's "Half True" Clinton did not send or receive any emails marked as classified. One of the several problems with Carroll's fact check troubles us the most:

Carroll's conclusion ignores Catherine Herridge's report last month that Clinton did in fact send an email marked classified. Carroll also fails to enlighten readers by explaining whether Clinton's emails were marked classified is moot to the overall implications of the scandal.

Carroll goes on to assert that "There is no evidence Clinton knowingly sent or received classified information" (emphasis mine). What Carroll fails to tell PolitiFact readers is that in a widely reported email exchange Clinton herself explicitly instructs an aide to intentionally remove classified markings from information before sending it to her via nonsecure methods. (1)

Apparently for PolitiFact, it's not misleading to intentionally remove classified markings and then say you didn't receive anything marked classified as a defense.


July 5 Update:

After FBI Director James Comey's "wowza" revelations, Carroll writes an update covering Comey's press conference. Like Comey, PolitiFact acknowledges Clinton's deceit. Also like Comey, PolitiFact declines to do anything about it. In light of all the evidence, PolitiFact insists Clinton's claim would remain rated "Half True."

The justification for keeping the "Half True" rating was indefensible if not incoherent (red box added for emphasis):

Again, the evidence available at the time indicated Clinton was lying. But even if we assume Comey released some new bombshell evidence, PolitiFact's excuse doesn't make sense. I pointed out on Twitter that PolitiFact's explanation seems to be that since PolitiFact didn't know Hillary Clinton was lying when she lied, she's telling the truth.

 

Clinton lied, and after Comey's statement even PolitiFact was forced to acknowledge that Clinton's claim was false, but since PolitiFact didn't have the evidence that Clinton was lying on July 3, it's a "fact" that Clinton's claim was half true. Or something.

There's circumstances where it may be legitimate to base a rating on information available at the time a claim was made, but in this case PolitiFact allows Clinton to benefit from her own deceit. Bryan pointed out in a post criticizing the update just how absurd Carroll's explanation was:

Clinton...had the very best position available to know whether she sent or received emails marked as classified. She had every reason to know the truth back in 2009-2013 as she served as secretary of state...Apparently the only reason PolitiFact gave Clinton credit for a half-truth is because Clinton lied.

Carroll's justification for keeping the rating "Half True" shows just how far PolitiFact will go to avoid giving Clinton an unfavorable rating. For PolitiFact, even acknowledging Clinton lied wasn't enough to give her a "False" rating.


July 6th False Fact Check:

The day after Comey's damaging press conference, PolitiFact scrubs its original "Half True" fact check from its website, and publishes an entirely new fact check on the exact same claim, this time rating it "False."

So what happened between PolitiFact's update and the new "False" rating? (Red box added for emphasis)

PolitiFact's justification for the new rating is at odds with its July 5 update.

Note that "the evidence FBI director James Comey presented" was cited by PolitiFact when they refused to change the Half True rating the day before! Now PolitiFact says it is the sole reason for issuing a "False" rating. Which is it?

That same evidence "was available to Clinton through her own emails" when PolitiFact rated it "Half True" in the first place.

The evidence has been available to Clinton the entire time she's been telling the lie.

We asked Lauren Carroll to explain the discrepancy on Twitter but she ignored us, as usual.

(We asked from my personal Twitter account as Carroll (like PolitiFact editors Angie Holan and Bill Adair) has blocked our PolitiFactBias account.) 

How can PolitiFact reconcile the new False fact check with Carroll's update refusing to change the "Half True" rating from the day before? 

The Cover Up:

The link to Carroll's original July 3rd Half True rating goes here. If you click through, you'll see the story has been replaced by PolitiFact's default Sorry, this page is not found Etch-a-Sketch gag PolitiFact uses when it deletes a story.


Not only is this error page partisan snark directed at Mitt Romney, it also facetiously implies a technical problem as opposed to PolitiFact intentionally deleting an article from the web.

(PolitiFact's original "Half True" rating can be found here. To PolitiFact's credit, the new "False" version of the story does link to an archived (but edited) version of the "Half True" rating.)

But what about Carroll's update from July 5, the one posted after Comey's press conference? Here's the key passage (red box added for emphasis):

Check out how that passage reads now (red box added for emphasis):

It seems that the way to reconcile PolitiFact's "False" rating with Carroll's update affirming the "Half True" rating is to simply delete it from the Web and hope nobody notices.

The change is a complete 180. The first version contradicts the second. It's also incongruous (They're changing the rating to "False," but the investigation undercuts her defense if she makes the claim again?)

There is no editor's note acknowledging the change. There is no update, no notice, no explanation indicating a change has been made.

This is a stealth edit. It deceives their readers. It's unethical journalism.

And PolitiFact does it all the time.

Think Carroll and her editors accidentally forgot to add a note indicating a change? What about the time a disingenuous liberal talking point about the Hobby Lobby decision was scrubbed out of a fact check without notice?

Is it possible the above stealth edit was the result of a misguided intern? The story was written by PolitiFact Deputy Editor Louis Jacobson, and edited by Senior Editor Angie Holan. Those are the two senior most writers at PolitiFact. Holan and Jacobson are the most influential at PolitiFact and one would think should know better. We asked Jacobson about PolitiFact's policy on stealth edits, and also brought this edit to his attention without ever getting a response.

Even minor errors are too much for PolitiFact to admit screwing up:

Sometimes the errors can be inaccurate by orders of magnitude, but no editors note, or even a change in rating is made. Bryan caught an example of this just last month and wrote about it:

A key figure in the story changed from $7.5 billion to $1.7 billion. Koster's exaggeration, by percentage, went from 20 percent to 429 percent. The new version of the story carries no correction notice, and the rating remains "Mostly True."

The reality is that PolitiFact routinely uses deceptive and opaque editing techniques to alter their stories after they've been published. So much so that we created a search tag for it: Now you see it - Now you Don't.

Much of PolitiFact's inconsistency and faulty reasoning can be attributed to their political bias or incompetence. But PolitiFact's routine use of stealth edits is inexcusable and unethical. Any reputable journalist should be embarrassed by such shenanigans, but PolitiFact has a long history of using them while also refusing to own up when they're caught red-handed.

PolitiFact embodies the disingenuousness they make their living accusing others of having. PolitiFact engages in the same type of deceptions it claims to expose.

PolitiFact is a dishonest and untrustworthy actor in the world of journalism. Their work should be recognized as the partisan hackery it is and disavowed as a reputable source.



Notes:
(1) It's possible there's a procedural argument to be made that, as the result of an executive order, Clinton had the authority to declassify information in very specific and narrow circumstances (including in the above mentioned case.) In any event, Clinton's defense that an email was not marked classified when she was the one directing it's declassification for the express purpose of sending it over nonsecure methods is grossly misleading.

Gingrich/O'Malley: The Fix is In

With our previous post we took note of PolitiFact taking the unusual though not unprecedented step of unpublishing a story while preparing a revised version.

PolitiFact didn't take long to publish its update.  The new version was published the same day.  And, if readers will pardon the pun, the fix is in.

PolitiFact rated a battle of stats between one of the hosts of CNN's new "Crossfire" show, Newt Gingrich, and Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley, focusing mostly on a statement from Gingrich.  In the original version of the fact check, PolitiFact rated Gingrich "False."  We find a relic of the original rating in the text of the new version:

One of the disputes focused on the two states’ population growth, with co-host Newt Gingrich suggesting that Texas was growing and Maryland shrinking because of their economic performance.

Originally, PolitiFact thought Gingrich was saying Texas' population had grown while Maryland's shrank.  Since both states grew, PolitiFact gave Gingrich the "False" rating.  Here's PolitiFact's telling of what Gingrich said:

Gingrich: "Let me ask you this. As an objective fact, in the five years you've been governor, Texas has gained 440,000 people. According to the U.S. Census, Maryland has lost 20,000. Now, if we're having all this upward trajectory, why is Texas doing 22 times better in population migration over the last five years than Maryland?"

In context, Gingrich makes clear he's talking about population migration, not population growth.  Granted, one might initially think he was talking about population growth since he doesn't specify population migration until the end.  That's a good excuse for O'Malley responding with stats that don't fit Gingrich's question, but it's a poor excuse for fact checkers having more time to consider context.

In the new version of its fact check PolitiFact upgraded Gingrich to "Half True."

Why "Half True"?  Supposedly because of this:

Essentially, they’re both right -- they just used different measurements. O’Malley is right if you use overall population figures, while Gingrich is right if you look at migration from other states. We’ll split the difference and call this one Half True.

They're both right, but Gingrich gets a "Half True" because O'Malley is right about a different figure.  PolitiFact apparently splits the difference between Gingrich's "True" and O'Malley's "True" and Gingrich gets a "Half True" as a result.

Does it make any sense at all to lower Gingrich's rating because O'Malley offered a competing statistic that was also true?  We're not seeing it.

This looks like nothing less than a post-hoc rationalization for not doing a full reversal and giving Gingrich a "True" rating.  To justify a lower rating PolitiFact should explain something about the missing context we need in order to understand what Gingrich was saying.

PolitiFact unpublishes its judgment of the Gingrich/O'Malley match on CNN

The title says it all.  PolitiFact's article, judging by PolitiFact's Twitter feed, lasted about an hour.  PolitiFact, so far as we can tell, only informed its Twitter audience about the status of the article:  

We got some new evidence on the O'Malley-Gingrich Crossfire exchange. We've taken down our report while we evaluate.
— PolitiFact (@PolitiFact) September 20, 2013

Those trying to link to the article via PolitiFact's Facebook page get a "Page not found" message.

This has happened before.  It's past time for PolitiFact to come up with a better method for handling these situations.

We'll look forward to comparing the old and new versions of the article, of course.

Flub & Scrub: Mitch McConnell edition, Part II

On May 28 PolitiFact published a new version of its May 24 fact check of Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).

It's mostly bad, but we'll start with the good.

The good

PolitiFact republished its first version of the story and archived it while publishing a new version.  PolitiFact improved its reporting in the new version by responding to criticism from healthcare expert Michael F. Cannon of the Cato Institute.  Cannon noted that HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius sent a potentially intimidating letter to America's Health Insurance Plans:

An HHS spokesman told PolitiFact that the letter was in response to insurance companies using Obamacare as an excuse to raise premiums, and that the law gave the agency the authority to scrutinize excessive premium increases and require justifications from insurance companies. But we find Cannon's interpretation more accurate. The letter chastised the insurers for anti-Obamacare messages and threatened them with regulatory action.

Basely largely on Cannon's argument and the AHIP letter, PolitiFact upgraded its ruling from "Mostly False" to "Mostly True."

The bad

In its "Editor's note" preceding the new version of its McConnell fact check, PolitiFact blamed its failure on McConnell's office (bold emphasis added):

Editor's note: This item was initially published May 24, 2013, as a Mostly False because of the limited supporting information we received Sen. Mitch McConnell's office. The office cited a letter sent to Humana, a government contractor for Medicare Advantage. We found that letter provided relatively little support for the senator's claim and rated it Mostly False.

PolitiFact's failure was not the fault of McConnell's office.  We pointed out in our previous post that PolitiFact omitted key information from its original fact check--information readily available from a Government Accountability Office report that PolitiFact itself cited in the original reporting.  We failed to credit PolitiFact with its fractional disclosure of the key information:

[T]he Humana mailing prompted CMS to send a memo to all other Medicare Advantage and Part D contractors, warning them "to suspend potentially misleading mailings to beneficiaries about health care and insurance reform."

That doesn't sound so much like a "gag order," does it?  But the GAO report related a different account (bold emphasis added):

Although CMS's actions generally conformed to its policies and procedures, the September 21, 2009, memorandum instructing all MA organizations to discontinue communications on pending legislation while CMS conducted its investigation was unusual.

Note the difference between suspending "potentially misleading mailings" with "communications on pending legislation."  GAO uses language like the latter twice in its report.

But what about the version PolitiFact quotes?  All the CMS did was ask MA insurers to stop potentially misleading mailings.  Right?

Most likely the GAO has it right.  PolitiFact quoted from a CMS press release announcing the Sept. 21, 2009 memo, not the memo itself.  The press release does not appear to use language directly from the memo.  PolitiFact presents the press release quotation as though it comes from the memo.  The CMS press release does not express the type of policy the GAO highlighted in its report.  PolitiFact blew the reporting.

The new version of the McConnell fact check doesn't even mention the CMS memo or the GAO report (the latter remains among the sources listed on the sidebar).  The CMS memo, based on the GAO report detailing its instructions, serves as the best evidence supporting McConnell's claim.


We applaud PolitiFact for keeping the original version of the article available to the public, even if the posting followed a disappointing delay.  It should be a simple matter to archive the post as soon as the decision was made to replace it.  The original page URL could link to the archived version, explain why it was archived and assure the reader a new version is in the works.

We condemn PolitiFact for blaming its poor reporting on McConnell's office and for publishing a new version that's almost as defective as the first version.  Certainly the new "Mostly True" rating appropriately gives McConnell more credit, but it's inexcusable for journalists to simply leave out easily accessed information that supports McConnell.  That's just poor journalism.


Correction May 29, 2013:  Fixed title to agree with original title (added "Mitch" and reversed "Scrub" with "Flub") aside from the "Part II."

The trouble with the disappearance of the original "Julia" fact check

Earlier this week, PolitiFact published a fact check of the Medicare portion of the Obama campaign's "Life of Julia" Web ad.

Hours later, PolitiFact scrubbed the fact check from its website.   A message appeared on PolitiFact's Facebook page saying that the article was "unpublished" so that PolitiFact could address reader criticisms.

PolitiFact took a big step backward this week with its transparency.  In past instances PolitiFact archived the flawed version of a story.  That was a good policy.

The new approach is puzzling.  It isn't hard at all to find guidelines for journalistic ethics strongly discouraging the removal of a whole online story.

What happened? 

Did PolitiFact institute a new policy?  Did a person handling Web content act without approval from up above?  The former appears more likely given the Facebook announcement.

PolitiFact's actions did mitigate some of the ethical black clouds.  The story was not permanently deleted.  The new version carries a "CORRECTION" notice in keeping with PolitiFact's statement of standards and it explains the differences between the old version of the story and the new version (just trust 'em!).

However, the new policy is not likely to assist PolitiFact in building an image of reliability.

As for the "Julia" fact check itself, a review will appear before long at Sublime Bloviations.

PolitiFact unpublishes "Julia" fact check (Updated)

Whoa, Nelly.

PolitiFact today took the unusual step of taking down a fact check of the Obama campaign's "Julia" Web ad.

This is about the only Web evidence left from the story after it was scrubbed from the PolitiFact website:

The link goes to one of PolitiFact's clever bad link pages for now.

PolitiFact's Facebook page had this to say:

Some readers have raised questions about our latest item on Medicare and Julia. We've unpublished it while we look at them.

Jeff and I put forth a few digs on the issue of journalistic ethics on the Facebook page.  Other than that we're pretty much holding our fire until we see where this goes.


Update May 23, 2012:  PolitiFact's Twitter feed contains a bit more information:

Would @MittRomney replace Medicare with "nothing but a voucher"? That's not what his plan says. False: http://ow.ly/b5hah

 This looks like a rating that some felt was too harsh on President Obama.  The explanation for unpublishing (if we even get one) may prove more entertaining than the new version of the story.

PolitiFact Virginia takes mere months to correct obvious misjudgment

It's "CORRECTION" time at PolitiFact? No, not quite.

It's "UPDATE" time at PolitiFact? Er, not exactly.

It's "Editor's Note" time! We love these!

Editors Note: On Dec. 26, 2011, PolitiFact Virginia rated as Mostly True a statement by Democrat Tim Kaine that Republican George Allen, during his term in the U.S. Senate from 2001-2007, helped turn the largest budget surplus in U.S. history into the largest deficit.

Our ruling was largely based on raw federal budget numbers dating back to the 1930s. The Allen campaign recently told us that our rating did not give enough credence to what two economists said in the original story: The best way to compare deficits through history is to express them as a percentage of the Gross Domestic Product at the time.

We took a new look at the fact-check and concluded the Allen campaign is right. So we are changing our rating to Half True because there is still validity to Kaine’s claim, but his numbers need context. 

PolitiFact Virginia published the above on May 15, nearly six months after giving Kaine his inflated grade.

Note that this ruling change does not come as a result of new information.  Everything was there in the story, and the PolitiFact Virginia team just failed to put the pieces together.  Note also that PolitiFact avoids calling this a correction in the editor's note.  Let's review the "Principles of PolitiFact and the Truth-O-Meter":

When we find we've made a mistake, we correct the mistake.

• In the case of a factual error, an editor's note will be added and labeled "CORRECTION" explaining how the article has been changed.
• In the case of clarifications or updates, an editor's note will be added and labeled "UPDATE" explaining how the article has been changed.
• If the mistake is significant, we will reconvene the three-editor panel. If there is a new ruling, we will rewrite the item and put the correction at the top indicating how it's been changed.

If PolitiFact Virginia had committed a factual error, then it would publish an editor's note labeled "CORRECTION."  The note does not contain that word, therefore by PolitiFact's principles it committed no factual error by calling Kaine's claim "Mostly True."

Neat!

It gets even more confusing with the next bullet point.  If there's no factual error but just a clarification or update then we should see the label "UPDATE" along with the explanation of the change.  We don't see that label either.

Apparently PolitiFact Virginia just skipped the first two bullet points and went right for the third.  Reconvene if the mistake is significant and rewrite the item with the (non-correction) correction at the top.  So we have a mistake significant enough to require a rewrite with no admission of a mistake in accordance with PolitiFact's principles.  A mistake is implied by the new ruling with the rewrite, of course.

Seriously, if PolitiFact follows its principles on the matter of corrections in such a haphazard way, what makes anyone think it applies its other principles consistently?

Incidentally, it is clear that Republican George Allen endured the harm from the mistake, while Democrat Tim Kaine reaped the benefit.

PolitiFact's sham fact checking

Senator Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and  President Barack Obama had something in common last week, and Jeff Dyberg noticed.

Both made statements about majorities that were graded "Mostly True" by the fact checkers at PolitiFact.  The justifications PolitiFact used for the rulings was similar.  PolitiFact cited poll data showing that pluralities rather than majorities obtained, and ruled favorably based on the underlying points.

Note the summary paragraph for the Rubio story:

Rubio said that the majority of Americans are conservative. A respected ongoing poll from Gallup shows that conservatives are the largest ideological group, but they don’t cross the 50 percent threshold. So we rate his statement Mostly True.

Compare the summary paragraph for the Obama item:

So overall, the poll numbers support Obama’s general point, but they don’t fully justify his claim that "the American people for the most part think it’s a bad idea." Actually, in most of the polls just a plurality says that. On balance, we rate his statement Mostly True.

Rubio and Obama no longer have the "Mostly True" ruling in common.

PolitiFact received numerous complaints about the Rubio ruling and changed it to "Half True."

Of course, in the case of Rubio, PolitiFact found more information that bolstered the downgraded "Half True" rating.

Just kidding.  Go through the updated story with a fine-toothed comb and Rubio's claim ends up looking even more similar to Obama's, except maybe better.  Note the concluding paragraph of the updated Rubio story:

So by the two polls, he was incorrect. By one, he was correct and we find support for his underlying point that there are more conservatives than liberals. On balance, we rate this claim Half True.

This case makes it appear that PolitiFact is sensitive to scolding from the left, perhaps particularly when it comes from media elites like Jay Rosen.  And maybe that's understandable in a way.  But if the left doesn't complain about the Obama rating until it's downgraded to "Half True" then both the left and PolitiFact (or is there a difference?) look pretty inconsistent.

Liberals late to the party on PolitiFact

As expected, PolitiFact's 2011 "Lie of the Year" selection did a good bit of damage to PolitiFact's reputation on the left.  President Obama's 2012 State of the Union speech produced a claim that again has some liberals crying foul.  The Daily Kos and the Huffington Post both published entries condemning PolitiFact's "Half True" ruling on Obama's claim that the private sector jobs increased by 3 million in 22 months.

Jared Bernstein:

I ask you, why do they go where they go? Because of this:

In his remarks, Obama described the damage to the economy, including losing millions of jobs "before our policies were in full effect." Then he describe [sic!] the subsequent job increases, essentially taking credit for the job growth. But labor economists tell us that no mayor or governor or president deserves all the claim or all the credit for changes in employment.

Really? That's it? That makes the fact not a fact? I've seen some very useful work by these folks, but between this and this, Politifact just can't be trusted. Full stop.

(what's with the exclamation point after the "sic," Bernstein?)

Was PolitiFact blatantly unfair to Obama?

Not necessarily. PolitiFact pledged in July of 2011 to take credit and blame more into account for statistical claims.  PolitiFact, in the segment Bernstein quoted, made a decent case that Obama was giving credit to his policies.

Fortunately for the crybabies of the left, PolitiFact promptly caved on this one, revising the ruling to "Mostly True."  The rationale for the change is weaker than the justification for the original ruling:

EDITOR’S NOTE: Our original Half True rating was based on an interpretation that Obama was crediting his policies for the jobs increase. But we've concluded that he was not making that linkage as strongly as we initially believed and have decided to change the ruling to Mostly True.

That editor's note doesn't give readers any concrete information at all justifying the new ruling.  It doesn't take Obama's phrasing into account in any new way, doesn't acknowledge any misinterpretation of Obama's words and doesn't reveal new information unavailable for the earlier ruling.  In short, it looks like a judgment call all the way, where PolitiFact arbitrarily (if we don't count the criticism from the left) decided to give Obama the benefit of the doubt.

The critics on the left, meanwhile, remain apparently oblivious to the another ruling from the State of the Union speech where Obama received an undeserved "True" rating. 

And where were they when Sarah Palin could have used their defense for her true claim about defense spending as a percentage of GDP?

We have a PFB research project planned to address this general issue of technically true claims.


Addendum:

PolitiFact editor Bill Adair has once again come forth to explain PolitiFact's ruling and change of mind:

Lou, deputy editor Martha Hamilton and I had several conversations about the rating. We wrestled with whether it deserved a Half True or a Mostly True and could not reach a conclusion. We decided that it would depend on how directly Obama linked the jobs numbers to his policies.

What criteria were used to determine how directly Obama linked the jobs numbers to his policies?

Adair:

Lou, Martha and I had another conversation about the rating and whether it should be Half or Mostly True. At various points, each of us switched between Half and Mostly True. Each of us felt it was right on the line between the two ratings (unfortunately, we do not have a rating for 5/8ths True!).

We brought another editor, deputy government & politics editor Aaron Sharockman, into the conversation and he too was on the fence. Finally, we decided on Half True because we thought Obama was implicitly crediting his own policies for the gains.

How was Obama's statement "right on the line"?  What criteria placed it there?  What criteria might have moved it one way or the other?

An item like this from Adair is precisely where we should expect a detailed explanation if there is any detailed explanation.

There's essentially nothing.

We get the report of disagreement and vacillation and none of the specific reasons in favor of one rating over the other, except for the implied admission that at least one person making the determination had a change of heart leading to a reversal of the rating.

If that sounds subjective on PolitiFact's part, it probably is.

Grading PolitiFact: Joe Biden and the Flint crime rate

(crossposted from Sublime Bloviations with minor reformatting)


To assess the truth for a numbers claim, the biggest factor is the underlying message.
--PolitiFact editor Bill Adair

The issue:

(clipped from PolitiFact.com)

The fact checkers:

Angie Drobnic Holan:  writer, researcher
Sue Owen:  researcher
Martha Hamilton:  editor

Analysis:

This PolitiFact item very quickly blew up in their faces.  The story was published at about 6 p.m. on Oct. 20.  The CYA was published at about 2:30 p.m. on Oct. 21, after FactCheck.org and the Washington Post published parallel items very critical of Biden.  PolitiFact rated Biden "Mostly True."

First, the context:



(my portion of transcript in italics, portion of transcript used by PolitiFact highlighted in yellow):

BIDEN:

If anyone listening doubts whether there is a direct correlation between the reduction of cops and firefighters and the rise in concerns of public safety, they need look no further than your city, Mr. Mayor.  

In 2008--you know, Pat Moynihan said everyone's entitled to their own opinion, they're not entitled to their own facts.  Let's look at the facts.  In 2008 when Flint had 265 sworn officers on their police force, there were 35 murders and 91 rapes in this city.  In 2010, when Flint had only 144 police officers the murder rate climbed to 65 and rapes, just to pick two categories, climbed to 229.  In 2011 you now only have 125 shields.  

God only knows what the numbers will be this year for Flint if we don't rectify it.  And God only knows what the number would have been if we had not been able to get a little bit of help to you.

As we note from the standard Bill Adair epigraph, the most important thing about a numbers claim is the underlying message.  Writer Angie Drobnic Holan apparently has no trouble identifying Biden's underlying message (bold emphasis added):

If Congress doesn’t pass President Barack Obama’s jobs plan, crimes like rape and murder will go up as cops are laid off, says Vice President Joe Biden.

It’s a stark talking point. But Biden hasn’t backed down in the face of challenges during the past week, citing crime statistics and saying, "Look at the facts." In a confrontation with a conservative blogger on Oct. 19, Biden snapped, "Don’t screw around with me."

No doubt the Joe Biden of the good "Truth-O-Meter" rating is very admirable in refusing to back down.  The "conservative blogger" is Jason Mattera, editor of the long-running conservative periodical "Human Events."  You're a blogger, Mattera.  PolitiFact says so.

But back to shooting the bigger fish in this barrel.

PolitiFact:

We looked at Biden’s crime numbers and turned to the Federal Bureau of Investigation's uniform crime statistics to confirm them. But the federal numbers aren’t the same as the numbers Biden cited. (Several of our readers did the same thing; we received several requests to check Biden’s numbers.)

When we looked at the FBI’s crime statistics, we found that Flint reported 32 murders in 2008 and 53 murders in 2010. Biden said 35 and 65 -- not exactly the same but in the same ballpark.

Drobnic Holan initially emphasizes a fact check of the numbers.  Compared to the FBI numbers, Biden inflated the murder rate for both 2008 and 2010, and his inflated set of numbers in turn inflates the percentage increase by 45 percent (or 27 percentage points, going from 60 percent to 87 percent).  So it's a decent-sized ballpark.

PolitiFact:

For rapes, though, the numbers seemed seriously off. The FBI showed 103 rapes in 2008 and 92 rapes in 2010 -- a small decline. The numbers Biden cited were 91 rapes in 2008 and 229 in 2010 -- a dramatic increase.

If inflating the percentage increase in murders by 27 percentage points is not a problem for Biden then this at least sounds like a problem.

After going over some other reports on the numbers and a surprising discussion of how not much evidence suggests that Obama's jobs bill would address the number of police officers in Flint, PolitiFact returns to the discrepancy between the numbers:

(W)e found that discrepancies between the FBI and local agencies are not uncommon, and they happen for a number of reasons. Local numbers are usually more current and complete, and local police departments may have crime definitions that are more expansive than those of the FBI.

All this is very nice, but we're talking about the city of Flint, here.  We don't really need current stats for 2008 and 2010 because they're well past.  Perhaps that affects the completeness aspect of crime statistics also; PolitiFact's description is too thin to permit a judgment.  As for "expansive" definitions, well, there's a problem with that.  Biden's number of rapes in 2008 is lower than the number reported in the UCR (FBI) data.  That is a counterintuitive result for a more expansive definition of rape and ought to attract a journalist's attention.

In short, even with these proposed explanations it seems as though something isn't right.

PolitiFact:

Flint provided us with a statement from Police Chief Alvern Lock when we asked about the differences in the crime statistics, particularly the rape statistics.

"The City of Flint stands behind the crime statistics provided to the Office of The Vice President.  These numbers are an actual portrayal of the level of violent crime in our city and are the same numbers we have provided to our own community. This information is the most accurate data and demonstrates the rise in crime associated with the economic crisis and the reduced staffing levels.

"The discrepancies with the FBI and other sources reveal the differences in how crimes can be counted and categorized, based on different criteria." (Read the entire statement)

This is a city that's submitting clerical errors to the FBI, and we still have the odd problem with the rape statistics.  If the city can provide numbers to Joe Biden then why can't PolitiFact have the same set of numbers?   And maybe the city can include stats for crimes other than the ones Biden may have cherry-picked?  Not that PolitiFact cares about cherry-picked stats, of course.

Bottom line, why are we trusting the local Flint data sight unseen?

PolitiFact caps Biden's reward with a statement from criminologist and Obama campaign donor James Alan Fox of Northeastern University to the effect that Biden makes a legitimate point that "few police can translate to more violent crime" (PolitiFact's phrasing).  Fox affirms that point, by PolitiFact's account, though it's worth noting that on the record Biden asserted a "direct correlation" between crime and the size of a police force.  The change in wording seems strange for a fact check outfit that maintains that "words matter."

The conclusion gives us nothing new other than the "Mostly True" rating.  Biden was supposedly "largely in line" with the UCR murder data for Flint.  His claim about rape apparently did not drag down his rating much even though PolitiFact admittedly could not "fully" explain the discrepancies.  PolitiFact apparently gave Biden credit for the underlying argument that reductions in a police force "could result in increases in violent crime" despite Biden's rhetoric about a "direct correlation."

The grades:

Angie Drobnic Holan:  F
Sue Owen: N/A
Martha Hamilton:  F

This fact check was notable for its reliance on sources apparently predisposed toward the Obama administration and its relatively unquestioning acceptance of information from those sources.  The Washington Post version of this fact check, for comparison, contacted three experts to PolitiFact's one and none of the three had an FEC filing indicating a campaign contribution to Obama.

And no investigation of whether Biden cherry-picked Flint?  Seriously?  See the "Afters" section for more on that as well as commentary on PolitiFact's CYA attempt.