Why does PolitiFact claim it allows license for hyperbole?

It makes sense for a fact checker to account for figures of speech such as hyperbole. And PolitiFact plainly states in its description of its principles that it allows license for hyperbole (bold emphasis added):

In deciding which statements to check, we consider these questions:

• Is the statement rooted in a fact that is verifiable? We don’t check opinions, and we recognize that in the world of speechmaking and political rhetoric, there is license for hyperbole.

For us, the mystery is why PolitiFact makes this claim and then blatantly fails to honor it.

Today we add another example to the collection.

The $38 Burrito?

Turning Point USA commentator Jordan Rachel tweeted about the $15 minimum wage:

Rachel's tweet fits perfectly the form of hyperbole. She chose an extremely high price for the future burrito and took care to offer no clear sign the statement was intended to be taken literally. One would encourage literal interpretation by plainly stating something like "Increasing the minimum wage to $15 will result in $38 burritos."

PolitiFact's graphic presentation of its fact check misleadingly frames Rachel's statement as exactly the latter type of claim:

PolitiFact unfairly manipulates Rachel's claim. Her claim is an if/then statement emphasizing the truth that the $15 minimum wage increase counts as an inflationary policy.

Rachel gets no credit for that point from PolitiFact. We don't know precisely why she gets no credit for that point, but we can at least say with certainty that PolitiFact claim that it allows license for hyperbole rings false.

Hyperbole is not mere exaggeration

As a figure of speech, hyperbole is not the same thing as mere exaggeration. If it was, then fact checkers shouldn't need to take it into account. They could simply show in factual terms how far off the exaggeration fell from the truth and leave it at that.

Hyperbole counts as common figure of speech. Perhaps the modern journalist simply understands it poorly. In the interest of public education, we recommend to our readers the account of hyperbole at YourDictionary.com:

Hyperbole, from a Greek word meaning “excess,” is a figure of speech that uses extreme exaggeration to make a point or show emphasis. It is the opposite of understatement.

You can find examples of hyperbole in literature and everyday speech. You wouldn’t want to use it in nonfiction works, like reports or research papers, but it’s perfect for creative writing and communication, especially when you want to add color to a character or humor to a story.

We encourage readers to click the link and read through it all.

No Sign PolitiFact Considered the Possibility of Hyperbole

As for the fact checkers at PolitiFact, we see no sign at all they considered interpreting Rachel's statement as hyperbole.

The summary section of the fact check fairly displays the rush to judgment:

Our ruling

Rachel said a $15-an-hour minimum wage would raise the price of a Taco Bell burrito to $38.

This claim is countered by available evidence, including the current burrito prices at Taco Bell locations in cities and counties where a $15 minimum wage is in effect. Four economists characterized the claim as a far-off estimate at odds with economic theory.

We rate Rachel’s statement False.

 Misleading and disgraceful.

We expect a conscientious fact-checking organization to make a plausible attempt to achieve consistency between policy and practice. If the policy is A and the practice is B, change one of them to match the other.

In claiming to allow license for hyperbole and failing to allow license for hyperbole, PolitiFact deceives its readers.

Trump again tries using hyperbole without a license

President Donald Trump said nobody had heard of "Juneteenth," the name given to a day many use to commemorate the end of U.S. slavery, until he popularized it. So PolitiFact fact-checked whether it was true that nobody had heard of it.

The result was a "Pants on Fire" rating. PolitiFact said millions of people knew about Juneteenth before Trump scheduled a campaign rally for that day.

PolitiFact cited the Wall Street Journal for its quotation of Trump. Here's how PolitiFact presented it to readers:

President Donald Trump took credit for boosting awareness of Juneteenth, a day that marks the end of slavery in America.

"I did something good: I made Juneteenth very famous," Mr. Trump said, in a Wall Street Journal interview. "It’s actually an important event, an important time. But nobody had ever heard of it."

PolitiFact claims in its statement of principles it recognizes the literary technique of hyperbole (bold emphasis added):

In deciding which statements to check, we consider these questions:

• Is the statement rooted in a fact that is verifiable? We don’t check opinions, and we recognize that in the world of speechmaking and political rhetoric, there is license for hyperbole.

Hyperbole involves the use of exaggeration to make a particular point. Hyperbole works as hyperbole when the audience understands that the exaggeration was not meant literally.

It's as though PolitiFact has caught Mr. Trump red-handed, trying to use hyperbole without a license.

We think Trump's statement certainly bears the obvious signs of hyperbole. If literally nobody had heard of Juneteenth before Trump scheduled his campaign rally, then Trump did not merely make Juneteenth very famous. He helped create it by inspiring others. But Trump's words, in fact, suggest that Juneteenth existed as "an important event, an important time" before that. Those words from Trump cue the average reader that "nobody had ever heard of it" was not meant literally but instead meant that Juneteenth was not well known.

Vice President Joe Biden illustrated what Trump likely meant. A (user-created) video clip from C-SPAN shows Biden on June 11, 2020 apparently expressing the belief that "Juneteenth" was the anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre. The massacre happened on June 1, 1921. Trump's rally was originally scheduled on "Juneteenth,"--June 19, 2020--but was moved back one day to June 20, 2020. The rally took place in Tulsa, which of course was the location of the Tulsa Race Massacre.

If Biden did not know about it then perhaps others did not know about it as well.

Maybe the problem is that PolitiFact does not set partisanship aside when it issues hyperbole licenses.

(Note: we'll add the full complement of tags after publishing, thanks to Blogger's new interface that only remembers one assigned tag when first publishing)

Busted: PolitiFact catches Nikki Haley using hyperbole without a license

Some things never change.

Among those things, apparently, is PolitiFact's tradition of taking Republican hyperbole literally.

Case in point:

The hyperbole should have been easy to spot based on the context.

Former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley appeared on Fox News' "Hannity" show with host Sean Hannity.




Transcript ours (starting at about 2:12):

Do you agree with, uh, listen I've always liked General Petraeus. He's a great, great general, hero, patriot in this country. He said it's impossible to overstate the importance of this particular action. It's more significant than the killing of bin Laden, even the death of al Baghdadi. And he said Soleimani was the architect, operational commander of the Iranian effort to solidify control of the so-called Shia Crescent stretching from Iran to Iraq through Syria and southern Lebanon. I think that's the reason why Jordanians, Egyptians and Saudis are now working with the Israelis, which I don't think anybody saw coming.

NH
Well, and I'll tell you this: You don't see anyone standing up for Iran. You're not hearing any of the Gulf members, you're not hearing China, you're not hearing Russia. The only ones mourning the loss of Soleimani are our Democrat leadership. And our Democrat presidential candidates. No one else in the world, because they knew that this man had evil veins. They knew what he was capable of and they saw the destruction and, and the lives lost (based?) from his hand. And so--

SH
What a dumb (?). We've been hearing "Oh, he's evil, he's a murderer he killed Americans and he, this is the No. 1 state sponsor of terror and they're fighting all these proxy wars but we don't want to make 'em mad." That's what it sounds like to me.

NH
You know, and you go tell that to the 608 American families who lost a loved one. Go tell that to the military members who lost a limb. This was something that needed to be done and should be celebrated. And I'll tell you right now, partisan politics should stop when it comes to foreign policy. This is about America united. We need to be completely behind the president, what he did, because every one of those countries are watching our news media right now seeing what everyone's saying. And this is a moment of strength for the United States. It's a moment of strength from President Trump.

Haley's "mourning" comment comes after her emphasis Iran received no support ("You don't see anyone standing up for Iran") regarding the killing of Soleimani. So it makes very good sense to take "mourning" as a hyperbolic amplification of that point.

Hannity's response to Haley's comment came in the same vein, in fact mocking Democrats who acknowledged Soleimani got what he deserved while questioning the wisdom of the move.

PolitiFact could legitimately check to see if world leaders offered statements much in the same vein leading Democrats offered. Instead of doing that, PolitiFact used a wooden-literal interpretation of Haley's remarks as a basis for its fact check.

How do mistakes like this (and these) make it past PolitiFact's exalted "Star Chamber" of experienced fact check editors?

Could be bias.

The Weekly Standard Notes PolitiFact's "Amazing" Fact Check

The Weekly Standard took note of PolitiFact's audacity in fact-checking Donald Trump's claim that the economy grew at the amazing rate of 4.1 percent rate in the second quarter.

The Trumpian assertion that moved the PolitiFact’s scrutineers to action? This one: “In the second quarter of this year, the United States economy grew at the amazing rate of 4.1 percent.” PolitiFact’s objection wasn’t to the data—the economy really did grow at 4.1 percent in the second quarter—but to the adjective: amazing.

That's amazing!

PolitiFact did not rate the statement on its "Truth-O-Meter" but published its "Share The Facts" box featuring the judgment "Strong, but not amazing."

PolitiFact claims it does not rate opinions and grants license for hyperbole.

As we have noted before, it must be the fault of Republicans who keep trying to use hyperbole without a license.



Correction Jan. 2, 2018: Fixed hotlink to the Weekly Standard, which mistakenly linked directly to the PolitiFact story.

PolitiFact Wisconsin and the Worry-O-Meter

PolitiFact Wisconsin had no representation in our article on the worst 17 PolitiFact fact checks of 2017.

A May 18, 2018 fact check of Republican Leah Vukmir should help ensure PolitiFact Wisconsin makes the list for 2018.

Vukmir, a Republican looking for an opportunity to run against Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisc.) in the 2018 election cycle, has used a hyperbolic ad campaign to paint Baldwin as weak on terrorism. Vukmir said Baldwin worried more about the architect of the 9-11 terrorist attacks than confirming Gina Haspel to head the CIA.

The key to Democrat opposition to the Haspel nomination stemmed from Haspel's involvement in the enhanced interrogation program, which included the technique of waterboarding. The CIA released a disciplinary review saying Haspel had no involvement in the decision to use enhanced interrogation, but that she simply carried out the orders she was issued.

PolitiFact Wisconsin adroitly skipped over all that and took the liberty of re-interpreting Vukmir's claim:

Does U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin have so much more concern for a 9/11 terrorist, compared to the president’s nominee to run the CIA, that she would vote against the nominee?

Vukmir's claim was more simple than PolitiFact Wisconsin's creative paraphrase (source: PolitiFact):

Tammy and her party are more interested, and they’re more worried about, the mastermind of 9/11 -- the individual that plotted and ultimately killed over 3,000 Americans on our soil. And she‘s more worried about those individuals than to support a very strong woman with a track record to be the head of the CIA.

Note that Vukmir did not say anything about what motivated Baldwin to withhold support for Haspel.

We suspect PolitiFact Wisconsin counts as a minority for its inability to figure out Vukmir's message: Opposing Haspel's nomination based merely on her following orders within the CIA hampers the CIA's ability to do its job effectively. Imagine working at the CIA and thinking one must second-guess the orders one receives to have a realistic shot at one day leading the CIA.

PolitiFact Wisconsin's fact check spent not a word on that angle of the story, sticking instead to its own idea that Vukmir must show that Baldwin personally showed significant worry about Khalid Sheik Mohammed in order to earn a rating better than "Pants on Fire."

Farcical Fact-Checking

To fact check what Vukmir actually said, PolitiFact Wisconsin would have needed evidence not only showing Baldwin's level of worry for Mohammed but also her level of worry for Haspel's nomination. Otherwise there's no baseline for determining one is greater than the other.

After all, Vukmir clearly made a claim comparing the two.

And how does one assess levels of worry without asserting an opinion? One might go by what a person said, but that assumes an entirely forthright subject. We don't know the answer. And PolitiFact offered no evidence it has an answer.

PolitiFact's approach was preposterous from the outset. It showed no specific level of worry over Mohammed and no specific level of worry over the Haspel nomination. And yet concluded that one was not lower than the other.

Vukmir's statement was best interpreted as hyperbole expressing the damage to CIA operations stemming from refusing a leadership role to a fully qualified woman for nothing more than following orders associated with the enhanced interrogation program--a program that the CIA described to leading congressional members of both parties without apparent objection at the time.

PolitiFact says it grants license for hyperbole. Exceptions doubtless stem, as we've said before, from Republicans trying to use hyperbole without a license.

• Is the statement rooted in a fact that is verifiable? We don’t check opinions, and we recognize that in the world of speechmaking and political rhetoric, there is license for hyperbole.

PolitiFact says it doesn't rate opinions. We suppose PolitiFact is entitled to its own opinion.


After Vukmir made her claim about Baldwin, Baldwin ended up voting in opposition to the Haspel nomination.

PolitiFact catches Fiorina using hyperbole without a license

PolitiFact's statement of principles guidelines assures readers that PolitiFact allows license for hyperbole:

Is the statement rooted in a fact that is verifiable? We don’t check opinions, and we recognize that in the world of speechmaking and political rhetoric, there is license for hyperbole. 

In practice, however, it's very difficult to uncover evidence that PolitiFact is able to identify hyperbole. The latest example involves GOP presidential candidate Carly Fiorina (bold emphasis added):

The Affordable Care Act -- Obamacare to some -- is a perennial target of Republicans. But at the GOP presidential debate in Milwaukee, Carly Fiorina made a particularly strong statement about the law’s ineffectiveness.

"Look, I'm a cancer survivor, okay?" Fiorina told moderator Maria Bartiromo of Fox Business Network. "I understand that you cannot have someone who's battled cancer just become known as a pre-existing condition. I understand that you cannot allow families to go bankrupt if they truly need help. But, I also understand that Obamacare isn't helping anyone."

 So PolitiFact fact checks the last sentence and rules it "Pants on Fire." No, we're not kidding.

We say it is odd PolitiFact can hear Fiorina's statement affirming two positive aspects of the Affordable Care Act yet fail to interpret her last statement (denying positive effects) as hyperbole.

Once again, PolitiFact catches a Republican using hyperbole without a license. Those lawless Republicans!