PolitiFact creates smear of Dan Patrick by evaluating invented claim

PolitiFact took something Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick (R) said and completely transformed it into something PolitiFact could give a "False" rating.

It's another clear illustration of the fact-checking methodology PFB co-founder Jeff borrowed for use on the PolitiFact Bias Facebook page years ago.

It's from HopeNChangeCartoons.com.

PolitiFact cheats by giving Patrick's statement a wild interpretation and then declares him a liar.

Let's break it down, starting with PolitiFact's headline/graphic/deck presentation.

If we were to interpret Patrick hyper-literally, he starts right off with a falsehood. Democrats do not blame Republicans on low vaccination rates. Rather, they blame Republicans for low vaccinations rates (leading to growth of the covid-19 pandemic).

Hopefully, it's plain that using such an interpretation counts as pedantic. It's plain from the context what Patrick was trying to say.

Patrick follows with "Well, the biggest group in most states are African Americans who have not been vaccinated." The context does less to clarify Patrick's meaning, but the meaning has to fit with his point: He aims to undercut the Democratic Party's narrative that unvaccinated Republicans drive the covid-19 resurgence. Patrick's last line in the quotation supports that interpretation ("90% of them vote for Democrats").

Either of two meanings would fit the context of Patrick's point as we have described it. Patrick could be talking about the raw numbers of unvaccinated African Americans--plainly a stretch given that Blacks make up less than 14% of the population--or he could mean that in most states Blacks are the demographic with the lowest vaccination rate.

Either interpretation might serve Patrick's purpose, and PolitiFact reported he later clarified that he was talking about low vaccination rates, not sheer numbers of unvaccinated Blacks.

But that's not how PolitiFact plays media fact checkers.

Here's the big cheat (bold emphasis added):

Republican Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, asked last week to defend the Texas response to surging coronavirus cases, blamed Democrats for the present COVID-19 wave, specifically African Americans, who he said are reliable Democratic voters.

Where is PolitiFact's proof that Patrick blamed Democrats, particularly Black Democrats, for the recent COVID-19 wave?

Here's PolitiFact's second mention of Patrick's alleged point:

Regardless of whether or not he was referring to vaccination rates, he did not seek to change his main point, that Black populations are playing a major role in fueling the present COVID-19 surge. But there’s no evidence to support that. 

PolitiFact should have noted that "there's no evidence to support that" Patrick's main point was "that Black populations are playing a major role in fueling the present COVID-19 surge."

Alas.

Oddly, by the time PolitiFact reached its concluding section Patrick's point had changed to something else: Democrats are responsible for vaccine hesitancy!

Behold:

In an attempt to blame vaccine hesitancy on Democrats, Patrick said on Fox News that the biggest group of unvaccinated people in most states is African Americans.

There's likewise no evidence Patrick was blaming vaccine hesitancy on Democrats, though he did say Democrats were not doing enough to get Blacks vaccinated.

Second paragraph of PolitiFact's conclusion:

His on-air statement is wrong. Black people aren’t the largest group of unvaccinated people in any state. But his revised statement, that vaccination rates among the Black population lag behind that of other racial groups, is correct. 

With two plausible ways to interpret Patrick's statement, PolitiFact chose the one it could rate false and apparently gave no consideration to the one it said was true when levying its "False" rating.

We fully grant that the interpretation PolitiFact chose was the more literal of the two. But the same condition that holds when we interpret "on" as "for" when Patrick started speaking holds for Patrick's second sentence. The Fox News host asked Patrick for a quick response. Quick responses may understandably require charitable interpretation.

PolitiFact prefers not to do that for Patrick's second sentence. And that, plus the point PolitiFact chose for Patrick, resulted in the "False" rating.

PolitiFact cheated to make Patrick a liar.

PolitiFact's partisan correlation correlation

The co-founder and co-editor of PolitiFact Bias, Jeff D, noted this outstanding example of PolitiFact's inconsistency. Jeff's a bit too busy to write up the example and so granted me that honor.

The problem Jeff noted has to do with PolitiFact's treatment of factual correlations. A correlation occurs when two things happen near the same time. When the correlation occurs regularly, it is often taken as a sign of causation. We infer that one of the things causes the other in some way.

Correlation, however, is not a proof of causation. PolitiFact recognizes that fact, as we can see from the explanation offered in a fact check of Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick (R-Texas):

Lott’s study shows a 25 percent decrease in murder and violent crime across the country from 2007 to 2014, as well as a 178 percent rise in the number of concealed-carry permits. Those two trends may be correlated, but experts say there’s no evidence showing causation. Further, gun laws may have little to nothing to do with rates of falling crime.

PolitiFact ruled Patrick's statement "Mostly False," perhaps partly because Patrick emphasized open carry while Lott's research dealt with concealed-carry.

PolitiFact also noted that correlation does not equal causation while evaluating a claim from Democrat presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. Clinton said recessions happen much more often under Republican presidents:

The numbers back up Clinton’s claim since World War II: Of the 49 quarters in recession since 1947, eight occurred under Democrats, while 41 occurred under Republicans.

It’s important to note, however, that many factors contribute to general well-being of the economy, so one shouldn’t treat Clinton’s implication -- that Democratic presidencies are better for the economy -- with irrational exuberance.

Okay, maybe PolitiFact was a little stronger with its warning that correlation does not necessarily indicate causation while dealing with the Republican. But that doesn't necessarily mean that PolitiFact gave Clinton a better rating than Patrick.

Clinton's claim received a "Mostly True" rating, by the way.

Was Patrick's potentially faulty emphasis on open carry the reason he fared worse with his rating? We can't rule it out as a contributing factor, though PolitiFact wasn't quite crystal clear in communicating how it justified the rating. On the other hand, Clinton left out details from the research supporting her claim, such as the fact that the claim applied to the period since 1947. We see no evidence PolitiFact counted that against her.

Perhaps this comparison is best explained via biased coin tosses.


Post-publication note: We'll be looking at PolitiFact's stories on causation narratives to see if there's a partisan pattern in their ratings.