PolitiHack Tracker: "PFT Voter ID Hackery"

Translating the title:

"PolitiFact Texas' voter ID hackery"

PolitiHack Tracker keeps tabs on PolitiFact's Texas operation at the Austin American-Statesman, and PolitiHack Tracker's Weston Hicks finds an example of the type of bad fact checking all too typical at PolitiFact:

Politifact Texas uses wooden literalism to put a bad graphic next to Attorney General David Dewhurst. AG Dewhurst made the following statement when making the point that requiring a photo ID is hardly a novel concept in our society, and that, in fact, we require photo IDs for many less important activities:

“…you can’t get on a plane without a photo ID, you can’t buy a Sudafed without photo ID, you can’t check out a library book without photo ID, we need to protect the sanctity of our votes.” 

PFT then cherry picks his statement about libraries, giving a “Barely True” because localities don’t uniformly require photo IDs to check out books.

This part of the critique is concise and spot on. Hicks perhaps goes a little to excess later on in the review by implying that PolitiFact spins by intent. While that may not be the case, his anecdote fits with a large collection of similar ones that treat conservatives unfairly.

Anecdotal evidence shows bias based on such cumulative results.

Kaiser Health News: "Just Call Me Liar of the Year"

Kaiser Health News publishes Cato Institute's Michael F. Cannon's politely blistering rebuke of PolitiFact's Lie of the Year for 2010:

ObamaCare is not a government takeover, I learned from PolitiFact, because it "uses the private health insurance system to expand health care coverage."
 
But wait. In my research, I found that distinction between public and private to be illusory: what difference is there between a public system where the government taxes and spends your money, and a "private" system where the government forces you to spend your money in the same way?

 Cannon's column is a must-read.

Though Cannon makes the same point made by other critics including the Wall Street Journal, the Kaiser name carries a certain cachet that boosts the power of this critique.

To reiterate what I've written before, PolitiFact's "Lie of the Year" for 2010 will hurt them more in the long run than it will hurt anybody else.  It goes a long way toward cementing PolitiFact's reputation as a partisan news source.

Texas Public Policy Foundation: "Putting Politifact’s “truth-o-meter” to the test"

David Guenthner of the Texas Public Policy Foundation seems to have the goods on yet another example of specious reasoning from PolitiFact:

On Monday, Talmadge Heflin issued a statement in response to the Comptroller’s biennial revenue estimate. Later in the day, Heflin wrote a “Speaking Freely” post on “the myth of the $27 billion shortfall,” which contained a thorough refutation of the dollar figure cited in some media accounts.

This morning, a project called Politifact – which in Texas operates under the umbrella of the Austin American-Statesman – applied its “truth-o-meter” to the closing statement of Heflin’s blog post, in which he concluded that claims of a $27 billion budget shortfall “are flat-out false.”

Somehow, Politifact concluded that Heflin’s statement was “false”. For real?

(read on)

Compare Guenthner's analysis with the take from PolitiFact and it seems the former has much the better argument.

Rick Perry vs. The World: "Politifact is Politipinion: Houston IS a sanctuary city"

Texas blogger Evan at Rick Perry vs. The World provides a terrific example of poor reasoning at PolitiFact:

Politifact holds itself out as a John Roberts-like umpire of political campaigns, dispassionately calling balls and strikes.

If you're going to do that, then you have to be careful. You have to refrain from favoring certain candidates. And neutral people should overwhelmingly not only agree, but think that disagreement would be childish.

(read on)

In a nutshell, the city of Houston carries out a policy that qualifies it as a "sanctuary city."  But because the policy is not statutory but instead a result of administrative policy, PolitiFact says it's "False" to call Houston a sanctuary city.  A critic of Democratic candidate for governor Bill White took the "Truth-O-Meter hit.

PolitiHackTracker.com

I am delighted with my recent discovery of PolitiHackTracker.com, a blog dedicated to reviewing the findings of PolitiFact Texas.

The site is slick in a vaguely PolitiFact-ish way, with Pinnochiotic avatars denoting the various degrees of journalistic torsion in PolitiFact Texas stories.  My initial survey of the PolitiHack entries suggests good quality analysis, and I expect to highlight various individual entries over time.

For tonight, I'll stick with adding PolitiHack.com to the "PolitiFact's Dectractors" section in the sidebar along with restricted domains within Bewz Newz 'n' Vewz, Hoystory, Sublime Bloviations and the Washington Examiner.  Pay PolitiHack Tracker a visit.

Anchor Rising: "Rating of John Loughlin on Social Security: PolitiFact's Truth-O-Meter Earns Itself a 'Pants on Fire'"

Blogger Monique Chartier of Anchor Rising noticed when PolitiFact failed to admit that Social Security is a Ponzi scheme:

Here's the definition of a Ponzi scheme.

A Ponzi scheme is an investment fraud that involves the payment of purported returns to existing investors from funds contributed by new investors.

Here's how social security works.

The Social Security system is funded primarily by federal taxation of payrolls.

Doubtless PolitiFact might defend itself by noting that "fraud" occurs in Chartier's definition of "Ponzi scheme."  The PolitiFact argument insists against the evidence that Ponzi schemes require fraud in order to fit the proper definition.

But that's only true if we cherry-pick the definition.

Chartier's criticism hits its mark, but would have more force if she pointed out that fraud is not a necessary feature of Ponzi schemes and Ponzi financing.

Bill Hallowell (Mediaite): "PoltiFact ‘Lie of the Year’ Falls Flat"

I'm not sure how I missed seeing this column on PolitiFact's "Lie of the Year" for 2010.  It might be my favorite so far.

Bill Hallowell scores direct hits on the most important points, so be sure to read it all:

Last Week, PolitiFact designated the term “government takeover of health care” as its “lie of the year”.  While this title certainly holds some surface merit (the final Congressional product does not denotatively constitute a takeover), the way in which PolitiFact dismisses the Republican attack line as a total fabrication is troubling.  Furthermore, PolitiFact brushes off public reaction as a mere byproduct of campaign politics, rather than an overt rejection of big government philosophy.  Accusing Republicans of flat out lying without offering a full context is journalistically irresponsible.

The Washington Examiner: "Is Obamacare a government takeover of the healthcare system? In important ways, it is"

Enjoy yet another fact-based takedown of PolitiFact's "Lie of the Year" story, this time from Hans Bader:

PolitiFact based its claim that Obamacare will not lead to a government takeover of healthcare on the false contention that Obamacare is not like European socialized medicine because the "European approach" is "where the government owns the hospitals and the doctors are public employees." But that was a straw man argument, since the government does not own all the hospitals or employ most of the doctors even in many European nations long run by Socialist parties.

Bader's critique also encompasses an approving reference to the "Lie of the Year" nonsense that appeared in the Washington Post under Glenn Kessler's byline.

Don't miss the kicker at the end.  It's well targeted.