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As somebody who has used Politifact numerous times to check on the validity of stories, or statements from politicians, I applaud Rachel for calling them out on this egregious mistake.If you are going to identify yourself as a NON-PARTISAN fact checker, than you have to rise to the bar that you set for yourself. This was an absolute failure to do so.
If this is the best they can do, and it is not the first time they have made a similar mistake, then I suggest they change their name. Perhaps to something more fitting like, Politi-guess or Politi-opinion.
Because as of right now they have made a joke out of the name Politifact.
PolitiFart
ReplyDeleteRight on Rachel!
ReplyDeleteJust wish she or Keith or Lawrence would do an expose on 9/11.
Politifraud
ReplyDeleteI loved it when Rachel said something like, "Wikipedia called and they want the word "fact" back". She was on fire last night.
ReplyDeleteI see you're not referencing the sites that actually did meticulous-fact checking of the speech. As always there are many vague statements, lies, and purely political sentiments. Which is why the sotu is ultimately pointless.
ReplyDeletePolitifuck-up
ReplyDeleteHey, check this out!
ReplyDeleteLook at all those young people, the lines, the WEATHER, the excitement. Yep, President Obama in a landslide is the plan!
I love President Obama so much and obviously they do too!
http://theobamadiary.com/2012/01/26/hes-lost-the-youth-you-know-2/
And Rachel ROCKS. I love her intelligence and snark combined with hardhitting facts and figures.
OH GRYPHEN!!! Look who crawled out of her crate and had her ghostwriter fire off some religious nonsense about Alaska Airlines!
ReplyDeleteWhy it's old Baldy of course! She's also suppose to be on FAKE Business News tonight with....John Stossel!! This should be interesting!
Here's the facebook post...
http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=10150514412393435
Favorite part of Rachel's show last night was the opening segment where she patiently reviewed the *unbelievable* approval ratings for Tuesday night's SOTU (91%).
ReplyDeleteCrickets from MSM about how over 90% of Americans reacted to POTUS' speech. No wonder MSM is held in such contempt. They prove that they are only interested in their own narrative (horserace, anything-for-clicks), and are not interested in presenting facts.
Re: Jan Brewer and POTUS. Ever since a certain half-term Governor had the national spotlight shone on her, the GOP has a proven track record of treating politics as Reality TV. This confrontration was staged by Brewer, to increase book sales, just as Herman Cain entered the contest to increasing book sales/speaking gigs/TV appearances, etc.
Leave it up to Fox News to launch the dumbest attack on a president ever.
ReplyDeleteFox News’ Attack On Obama For Using Air Force One Crashes And Burns
...Beyond the hypocrisy, the most absurd part of Fox News’ Air Force One attack on Obama is the fact that they don’t think the president should be flying in the official president aircraft. If President Obama isn’t supposed to use Air Force One, how is he supposed to fly? The President Of The United States can’t fly commercial. President Obama isn’t using Air Force One as his personal taxi to head down to the ranch like George W. Bush did.
Bolling’s attack on the president was Fox News’ latest attempt to delegitimize Obama. White Republican presidents are allowed to abuse Air Force One as a birthright, but the African American president is not allowed to use the presidential jet for official business.
http://www.politicususa.com/en/obama-air-force-one
I attended an unannounced event that was not open to the public here in conservative Phoenix, AZ yesterday at my work. I had to win an employee lottery to get the ticket and I arrived to the event 3.5 hours early to find throngs of people had arrived before me. I got about as far as I can throw a baseball away from him. It was shoulder to shoulder. The man can draw a crowd for sure.
ReplyDeleteObama mania? U-M students consider level of excitement before president's speech Friday
http://annarbor.com/news/university-of-michigan-students-reflect-on-support-for-obama/
http://annarbor.com/news/roughly-3000-tickets-for-obama-speech-go-on-sale-today-at-9-am/
http://annarbor.com/news/how-to-watch-president-barack-obamas-friday-speech-sans-ticket/
re: previous comment that Brewer staged Obama "showdown."
ReplyDeleteTPM says that Mesa AZ mayor (on the tarmac with Brewer and Obama) said that POTUS lingered to talk to local officials, didn't "rudely" stalk off as Brewer claimed.
More credence to Brewer having staged this "confrontation" knowing that the media would lap it up like nectar.
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/01/mayor_seems_to_contradict_gov_brewers_story_on_oba.php?ref=fpb
Equal to their original mistake - adding their own spin to Obama's statement before they declared it Half True - when they were called on it, they changed their score to Mostly True, which is utter nonsense. W/out imposing their own spin, Obama's statement on jobs was absolutely true, and there is nothing to back a score of Mostly True. Clearly, the right wing has been giving the Tampa Bay Times (and PolitiFact) a ration of shit for calling them on so many of their lies, and the Times is responding the same way the MSM responded - by shirking their responsibility to report the truth and calling it "balance." Here's an example of the pressure from the right - "Right wing watchdog group launches $5 million media campaign targeting the media."
ReplyDeleteRecently in the NYT, Public Editor Arthur Brisbane posed the question: "Should reporters call out [the people they're covering] on their lies?" For perspective, what if, instead of a newspaper editor, a prominent attorney had written an Op-Ed posing the question: "Should attorneys start representing the interests of their clients?" Bye-bye partnership for that guy. Pressure from conservatives has made such a doormat of the MSM that the only surprise in someone asking the question asked by Brisbane is that there's still someone in the business w/ enough of a conscience to ask it. For those of us who grew up with the Cold War, the irony that we can now trust Russia Today more than our own MSM runs deep.
Thank God for this president.
ReplyDeletePOTUS Comments on GOP's Class Warfare Claims in Las Vegas, NV
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIfJfa_FOtY&feature=player_embedded
Quote For The Day
ReplyDelete"[A]t some point you just have to stand back, take a sip of bourbon, and sigh 'Damn' under your breath as you behold the carnage being wrought within the Republican Party," - Erick Erickson, RedState.
Well, they asked for it.
We’re Fighting Over Two Guys and Neither Side Thinks the Other Can Win
http://www.redstate.com/erick/2012/01/24/were-fighting-over-two-guys-and-neither-side-thinks-the-other-can-win/
lol at the former half a governor's Facebook post.
ReplyDeleteIs that a letter or a commercial for the book she is still trying to sell?
Dear Mr. Ayer and Mr. Tilden:
Thank you for your tremendous service to Alaskans and so many others over all these years! We love Alaska Airlines. As I tell everyone, it is my favorite.
In my book “Going Rogue” I gave a special shout-out to airline employees
I thought it was so classy of Franklin Graham to let her know of the opportunity to pimp her closeout bin book once again.
I thought Sarah's favorite planes were the GIIs and whatever Moby Dick Airways sent her. What do I know?
Mayor Seems To Contradict Gov. Brewer’s Story On Obama Run-In
ReplyDeletePresident Obama didn’t exactly walk away from Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer (R) during their disagreement on Wednesday on an airport tarmac near Phoenix, said one of the only people to witness the exchange up close. The president simply began talking to the other two elected officials who were there to greet him.
Mayor Scott Smith of Mesa, Ariz., declined to say exactly what he heard Obama and Brewer talk about during their now-infamous tiff next to Air Force One.
But the mayor said he was standing right next to the governor when the exchange took place and Obama didn’t seem to be in any kind of hurry to leave.
“There was no sense that he was running to or from anything,” Smith told TPM. In fact, he said, the president stayed and had a pleasant conversation with Smith, who’s a Republican, and Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton, a Democrat.
It was “just the four of us,” Smith said. “Mayor Stanton and I had a decent talk with him.”
The portrayal of a calm, friendly president seems to at least partly contradict what Brewer has said about the encounter in numerous interviews since Wednesday afternoon. She described the president as “tense” and said he walked away from her while she was in mid-sentence. She told a Phoenix television station she felt “a little bit threatened” by the encounter.
Obama was in the area to tour a nearby Intel chip manufacturing plant and to promote his jobs strategy. But after landing in Mesa, the president somehow ended up talking to Brewer about a book she wrote last year.
Both the governor and White House have said the discussion involved a disagreement about how the book portrayed a June 2010 meeting between Brewer and Obama. A photo of the encounter shows Brewer pointing her finger at the president after handing him a letter she had written.
“It was somewhat of an animated discussion,” Smith said on Thursday. “It revolved around the presentation of the letter…Other than that, I don’t want to get into specifics.”
Smith described the situation as an “awkward moment” but little more than that. He expected the meeting to involve casual pleasantries, not a sticky encounter. “You don’t expect to see that at the bottom of the stairs of Air Force One,” he said.
Smith was disappointed that a small dispute was getting more press than some of the region’s success stories like the Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport, where the confrontation took place and which has grown exponentially even in the midst of the economic downturn.
He said he was glad the president came to town to highlight Intel and wished the focus could have remained there.
“It was an honor to be able to welcome the president to Mesa, to Arizona,” Smith said, “and I hoped that this little episode between the governor and the president didn’t overshadow all the great things that are going on in the middle of this recession.”
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/01/mayor_seems_to_contradict_gov_brewers_story_on_oba.php
Obama Says Exchange With Arizona Gov. 'Blown Out Of Proportion'
ReplyDeletePresident Obama said on Thursday that his previous day’s run-in with Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer on an airport tarmac near Phoenix has been “blown out of proportion.”
In an interview with ABC News, the president joked that he’s usually accused of being too calm, not “tense” like Brewer had accused him of being after their discussion.
“I think it’s always good publicity for a Republican if they’re in an argument with me. But this was really not a big deal,” Obama said. “She wanted to give me a letter, asking for a meeting. And I said, ‘We’d be happy to meet.’ Last time we met she wasn’t fully satisfied. But, you know, I think this is a classic example of things getting blown out of proportion.”
The network planned to air the interview during its 6:30 p.m. broadcast on Thursday.
>>>I see you're not referencing the sites that actually did meticulous-fact checking of the speech.<<<
ReplyDeleteLike Faux Newz?
Or Newt "I have character witnesses" Swingerich?
Go away.
I love Rachel and watch her show every day! She's one of the very, very best out there! She researches in detail and is honest. Very few in the media like that anymore.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Rachel, for calling out Politifact. I would love to see her working with Keith again...love them both.
Re Rachel...and she's not afraid to apologize on her show when she's wrong.
ReplyDeletePolitiFox has my vote.
ReplyDeleteRachael just did a follow up and produced the source.
OT Two of Walker's Aids have been arrested! Something tells me the FBI is involved, and I hope it's HUGE.
Liz Warren 2012!
When did the Koch Bro's get them, and what was their price? Or, was it always a plot to go from "fair and balanced" to leaning right - for credibility?
ReplyDeletePolitifact has set itself up as the self declared final arbiter of truth with nobody monitoring their work. They are the editors and reporters of the St. Petersburg Times, and as such tend to exhibit both the best and the worst of newspaper journalism in the 21st century.
ReplyDeleteThey usually oversimplify and frequently co-mingle their own editorial opinion with what they declare to be THE TRUTH. They bristle at criticism and don't ever fully acknowledge their own error even when they have been demonstrably proven to be wrong. As such, they are about as useful as my nipples.
NOBODY gets to be the final arbiter of THE TRUTH, especially if they are self appointed.
Polifarce?
ReplyDeletePolifake?
Polifactiness (ht to Colbert)