Associated Press
I enjoy a good fact check as much as the next guy, and I'm glad more news organizations are scrutinizing public claims ahead of the election. But the Associated Press' fact check of President Clinton's convention speech is, well, it's kind of weird.
CLINTON: "Their campaign pollster said, 'We're not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact checkers.' Now that is true. I couldn't have said it better myself -- I just hope you remember that every time you see the ad."
THE FACTS: Clinton, who famously finger-wagged a denial on national television about his sexual relationship with intern Monica Lewinsky and was subsequently impeached in the House on a perjury charge, has had his own uncomfortable moments over telling the truth. "I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky," Clinton told television viewers. Later, after he was forced to testify to a grand jury, Clinton said his statements were "legally accurate" but also allowed that he "misled people, including even my wife."
I haven't the foggiest idea what this is even trying to say. What Clinton said is accurate -- just last week, the Romney campaign's pollster, Neil Newhouse, really did say, "[W]e're not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact checkers." Newhouse said this in response to evidence that the Romney campaign has lied repeatedly about welfare policy.
It's the sort of thing an AP fact-checking piece should approve of -- Clinton made a claim, the claim is true.
But for the Associated Press, there's apparently something wrong with the claim because, 14 years ago, the former president said something untrue about a sex scandal. What does one have to do with the other? I have absolutely no idea, and the AP's deeply strange piece doesn't offer any explanation.
The same fact-check item, by the way, tries to argue "both parties" deserve blame for Washington "gridlock." As proof, the AP points to the Simpson-Bowles report the White House didn't embrace -- after the Simpson-Bowles commission failed because House Republicans weren't willing to compromise.
There's nothing wrong with a good fact check. This isn't a good fact check.
Update: Greg Sargent has a compelling theory to explain what in the world the AP was thinking.
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Shorter AP: "Both sides do it."
- as to "the AP's deeply strange piece doesn't offer any explanation.", perhaps the answer lies in who OWNS the AP. (Betcha a buck they have an R next to their names)
Expect this sort of thing all day long as the GOP (and its surrogates) attempt to spin the facts Clinton presented into something entirely different. When it's impossible to do that, we'll hear about Monica so often it'll seem like the entire thing happened yesterday.
I agree tho... what's one got to do with the other? Standard GOP tactics.
So sick of the lazy "both sides do it" argument. It's like equating an armored-car holdup to pocketing a pack of gum at the 7-11.
Nope something's going on. AP did a fact check on the 4.5 million jobs claim that wasn't a puff piece. I was shocked.
Something has gone on upper management, and it may be a response to subscriber complaints of liberal bias.
Liberal bias at the AP? Seriously?
Are you also afraid of shadows?
Dear AP: Please take a moment to familiarize yourself with this wonderful web site,
Your Logical Fallacy Is...Genetic.
Here's what's happening, and quite frankly, it is troublesome...
The Liberal Media line has been used so much, it is currently accepted as a fact by many.
So now, in order to be fair, if AP finds a Republican who tells a lie, they must find a Democrat who lies. If they only report on the lies of the GOP, then they are called the Liberal Media.
The media, in large, is a bunch of cowards who refuse to report the truth because they are worried they might offend the GOP.
The AP's pathetic "fact-check" can be summarized with the same pithiness that Fmr Pres Clinton used to summarize the main theme of the GOP convention in his speech:
"Clinton made a speech. He failed to mention Monica Lewinsky. Therefore, everything in the speech is factually tainted."
It appears that the AP, like most journalistic organizations out there, has succeeded in laying off all the experienced people with brains enough to call bullsh*t on that kind of bizarre screwiness.
The GOOFIEST part about all this is that this sort of associational taint is what passed for logic in the Ken Starr years, birthing the impeachment proceedings (and turning my friend, who worked in the Clinton Adm, sour on the press for the rest of his life), and then was solidified into the crazy crap that passed for proof and logic through all 8 years of Bush (I mean, challenging Saddam Hussein to PROVE he DIDN'T have WMD? How does anyone PROVE absence?).
So that all hardened into the Emperor's New Epistemology. And the journalist-courtiers who fawned over them adopted it as their own. They are all experiencing a pretty big cognitive dissonance that that odd kind of thinking is deemed unpersuasive.
Gary Longsine, that Logical Fallacy site is one of my favorites. Today I went and printed out the posters. They're great!
Another kind of site sends me off to wallow like a pig in poo: The Atlantic has a combined comparison of Clinton's advance speech text vs. his speech-as-spoken transcript. WOW. I was hoping for this kind of thing, and how wonderful to get it so quickly!
Disclaimer: I spent altogether too much time within the ancient discipline of Rhetoric, enough to properly be called a "Rhetorician," which basically means that speech-comm style "rhetorical analysis" papers make my socks roll up and down!
Sick, I know, but there you are. Lord knows I've done enough rhetorical analyses in my lifetime (even of Clinton, back in the day--my friend even shared one of them with the Big Dog himself), you'd think I'd be sick of them. Even used it as my primary method in my dissertation (against the advice of my advisor), I love the lens so much.
So this is a Speech-English-Rhetoric professor's wet dream, a ready-made lesson plan. I no longer teach, but it makes me drool, thinking of all the fun I'd have for one full day out of the syllabus, just putting students in groups with the video clip of Clinton's speech on their computers and a print-out of this text.
I'd probably assign different groups different sections of the talk to report back to the class, on all the different ways the changes improved or weakened the final talk.
And then a rousing free-for-all discussion after! Oh hell, I could get a whole week (MWF) of classes out of this assignment! And then make them write papers on it too. Or a grad rhetorical analysis seminar could send teams off to all apply different analysis methods to the same speech, and see what the different methods turn up!
AH! I can dream can't I? Wallowwallowwallowwallowwallowwallow
Look at who wrote for the AP. Some of those clowns, especially the ownership, are totally in the tank for the Republicans. They have long been willing to sacrifice their brand for the party.
Republicans don't like Fact Checking. They don't care about the truth so there is not going to be any truth in Romney's campaign.
FactCheck.org gives the speech a much different rating.
WaPo took a look at it, didn't assign pinnochios, and couldn't commit to a rating at that moment.
Politifact (Georgia) Has given a couple of statements a "True" rating.
They are checking and it's taking some time. Ryan's speech "truthiness" was contested from the gitgo.
Imagine that.
Ryan's lies had already been employed, and previously debunked, which makes the turn-around cycle quicker on the fact checking.
I saw this this morning and nearly spat on the floor in disgust.
In hindsight, it was inevitable that all this MSM soul-searching about how the GOP's brazen lying represents an existential threat to democracy, and how the MSM's complicity in it through the use of false equivalence and "Democrats say, but Republicans say" narratives represents an existential threat to the profession of journalism, was going to generate a backlash among the assignment editors at the AP.
The AP is an institution whose entire business model is built upon the the use of those narrative frames. They sell unthreatening, unchallenging pap to outlets who wrongly think printing that pap will keep Fox-toxed conservatives from writing angry letters about "bias." That's what they do. This kind of self-reflection is a direct threat to their business.
But I confess I was truly surprised by how ostentatiously it descended into unintended self-parody.
Sent an e-mail to the editor of Associated Press Fact Check and complained about the comments. Explained you were suppose to check on what Former President Clinton said last night, and you failed to do that. Rather your attempt to discredit and insult Former President Clinton on an unrelated comment made years ago shows your bias. If you can not be bi-partisan in your fact checking - than do not do it. I expect, no I demand, if you have taken on a responsibility than do it correctly or do not do it.
@Lorr,
The GOTP have taken on a lot of responsibility - they just forget about being held accountable for their actions, after all that's so what democrats are the fall guys for!
Yes, you've got to love that supposed "librul bias" NOT, more like "corporate owned lame-stream GOTP propaganda" bias!
This all started with an investigation into Clinton's Whitewater business transactions. They couldn't find anything but that didn't stop them from "investigating" ....79 million dollars later, Kenneth Starr unearthed the Monica Lewinsky affair.
I wonder what Democrats could have uncovered with this unlimited budget..perhaps Newt Gingrich's affair, and a lot more..for a LOT less. If Democrats had tried this they would have been demonized and ran out of town. Shows the blatant hypocrisy even then!
Republicans want education as an expense, when it is every school should be providing the best education to everyone. Not education based on how much money you have than you get a good education. If you actually think these private schools are going to offer the best education in poor areas, you are very much wrong. Since the private school will not be paying the teachers enough and there will be overloaded classrooms. Poor people can only pay so much for a private school and that is not much. All these private schools will be pushing out is ignorance, regardless if the government helps to fund these private schools or not. This is one of Romney’s stupid ideas because his son owns some of these private schools. And if you look at how Romney ran his business that will be the same with the son. Because in this case, you can be very sure Romney taught his son his stupid ways. And a business, especially Romney’s type, makes money at any cost and no one gets in the way of lining their pockets.
I was looking at the 'fact check' for Bill's speech and it was the most hollow, empty fact check sheet I've ever seen: as if they had to create a fact check to feel bipartisan after skewering Paul Ryan's fact-free speech the week before. Odd, to say the least.
The AP is thinking only one thing, "Sex sells." They'd sell out anyone and everything to make their bucks. And they're mostly slanted toward the GOP, which shares their ethos.
Go to Wonkblog at WaPo for a real set of fact checks: on the economy, all "true" and "true, but.." (with small corrections, including Clinton's figures on Democratic presidents' job creation--it's actually MORE if you include farm labor, apparently).
Ezra Klein had some criticisms of specifics re Romney/Ryan, but those two are such weasels, no one could be faulted for their characterizations of their multiple positions.
Ryan, dastardly, keeps thumbing his nose at President Carter, while at the same time keeps 'fighting' for Isreal. Where would we and the Middle East be today without the dedicated efforts of Jimmy Carter? And, Ryan keeps claiming he is such a good religious person. Well, his interpretation of Catholic Social Justice does not square with mine or with my practices! Kathryn
This is why the important business of journalism and telling the nation's story should not be left to journalists and people who went to journalism school. These people simply can't think. They're, for all practical purposes, essentially idiots.
Anybody catch Charlie Rose with John Harris and some NYT guy last night. Horse race jabbering, and not once getting to the important issues.
This is ludicrous the point of parody. I've seen satirical memes wherein pundits in the Republican party that wants to argue with Clinton, his ideas or the Democrats just starts yelling, "But MONICA, MONCIA!!! Clinton's penis..!" etc. That used to be a joke about extremists but here it is, in print. A "news source" literally brought up a sex scandal as a retort to a completely unrelated issue. Just .... WOW.
Has anyone noted that Romney will get a 2.5 million dollar personal tax break per year when he controls the white house?
That 10 million could be 5,000 low paying jobs.
The Reason why my Okie is in Utah!
This is how they roll. 'Yeah Ryan and Romney LIED all thru their speeches BUT 20 years ago CLINTON lied'. Deflect, deflect, deflect. Let's talk about how they've been building Clinton UP for the last six months and NOW he's a liar. Consistently inconsistent. Yep.
The AP has an existensial financial interest in the race being close enough to drive eyeballs to daily coverage for the next two months. Last night's speech had the potential to change the dynamic of the race to something much less dramatic. AP had to find an antidote.
Lol. Matt Apuzzo isn't the AP's fact checker, he's their Ad-hominem attacker. Just replace every instance of "THE FACTS:" in this article with "THE AD-HOMINEM ATTACK" and it makes perfect sense. I'm sure this must have just been an inadvertent editing error by an overworked intern.
The Ryan Solution.
The Ryan Solution?
Journalism's ideological belief in its "view from nowhere" is what necessitated the need for fact-checkers, but when those fact-checkers succumb to the same religious belief that they, alone, are objective and even-handed, then their work will suffer for the same reason.
As we've seen, the better they do at fact-checking, the more it drives conservatives to establish their own ConservaFactCheckers, bogus studies, bogus expertise. They are like the Amish, except instead of dropping out of the modern world because they can't handle modern technology, Republicans are dropping out of the real world because they can't handle reality. We didn't try to appease the Amish by giving up our radios, keeping the Pony Express. We let them drop out of society and form their little isolated enclaves. We ought to do the same here.
Fact-checkers arose out of the need created by journalism's blind reliance on false equivalence.
Just wanted to point that out.
Gee I thought in order to fact check an item there must be a fact that can be checked? How do you fact check a premise that has yet to take place? Are we now using ESP to fact check "beliefs" and possibilities?
Facts are facts and are not subject to interpretation.Interpretations are mere beliefs not facts.
ESP to fact check "beliefs" and possibilities?
That comes on after the "news" or you can go to church!
Hey CONS, let's do some ARITHMETIC...
Name the Obama policies that added trillions to the debt and the amounts.
Then deduct that amount from the current $16 TRILLION.
The rest is GOP spending.
Spending to fix the GOP F'ups is still GOP spending and NOT Obama's fault so do not count those.
INTEREST ON the GOP created debt DOESN'T count either.
All progressives should start asking that question and doing that ARITHMETIC.
The CONS will NEVER have those numbers because they DO NOT exist.
I bet all you will get is NOTHING but insults and ridicule.
This same pair "fact checked" yesterday too:
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_CVN_DEMOCRATS_FACT_CHECK?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2012-09-04-23-35-49
It's a fact check, AP, not a character check.
It's too bad the AP let itself get dragged down by a badly reasoned fact check. Whether the organization as a whole meant it or not, the bizarre fact check truly does seem partisan and reflects badly on them. We'll probably see a similar theme through to the election where Republicans will cry out, "Remember Lewinsky!" each time Bill Clinton debunks Romney's misrepresentations.
And even then, in terms of values, an indiscretion with a consenting adult seems a lesser evil to me than the business practices Bain used to load companies with debt and lay off workers. Business practices which take away people's livelihoods, health insurance and pensions can be even more devastating than affairs.
Bill Clinton has already been fact checked on Lewinsky when the timing was appropriate. He's not talking about her anymore and it's not an issue, except for those who don't want to listen to anything he has to say.
The AP obviously has a different definition of "fact."