We Had To Save The Law In Order To Destroy It

Some people might think defending the legitimacy of a particular law in court is the opposite of trying to repeal that law and erase it from the books.

No such problem over at Politifact!

Recently our non-partisan, unbiased friends updated their "Obamameter" ruling on the Presidents campaign promise to repeal the Don't Ask Don't Tell law-

"Here, we wanted to note in this update that the 2010 elections haven't stopped Obama's attempts to keep this particular promise. Its rating remains, for now, In the Works."

Or in other words Politifact wanted to reassure their flock that despite the GOP gains in the House, the mission to repeal DADT was alive and strong. Don't give up hope!

In their Pulitzer Prize winning quest to "help you sort out the truth", they forgot to include the actual truth itself. This "update" is simply a rehash of comments Obama made at a press conference after the recent election. There's nothing new. No new facts, no new information, no new policy stance. In reality it's the information that's missing in this rating that exposes the truth.

The most glaring omission in this piece is the fact that the Obama Administration's DOJ attorneys are currently actively defending the ban against gays in the military.

How could Politifact ignore this pertinent angle of the story?

Perhaps it's because in an ironic twist, it's a Republican activist group who originally filed the suit-

"After President Obama clearly stated that his highest priority for the LGBT community was to repeal 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell', it is quite troubling to see this 'about face,'" said Terry W. Hamilton, national Chairman of the Log Cabin Republicans. "This aggressive move by President Obama's Justice Department seriously undermines not only his commitment to our community and to the defense of our nation, but it also casts doubt on the motives of those at the highest levels of LGBT leadership in Washington who refuse to criticize the President over this double speak."

Shockingly, Politifact doesn't interview anyone from the Log Cabin Republicans for their take on the status of this "promise".

Politifact didn't even attempt to "sort out" Obama's incoherent justification for defending DADT in court, which is that he'd rather end the law through the "orderly repeal process" [the what?] rather than the legal system. Simply put-Obama has to advocate for maintaining the ban in the courtroom so Congress can have a chance to repeal it themselves. This is of course an updated version of the Bến Tre defense-

"We had to save the law in order to destroy it."

Politifact also omitted the fact that Obama doesn't actually need to repeal DADT in order to end the ban on gays. He already has the authority to suspend enforcement. As a recent Newsweek article noted-

"Obama’s other option: simply using his executive power to decide how the laws will be, or won’t be, executed. So Obama could simply order the military to stop applying the law, or to use it much more narrowly and infrequently. “There are a lot of laws on the books he doesn't rigorously enforce,” notes Geoffrey Corn, a military law expert who teaches at South Texas College of Law. “The courts have recognized that while Congress has full authority to pass laws, the president has authority over when to enforce laws,” says Turley."

But such trivial things aren't worthy of mention in a Politifact rating that gives you all the facts.

Another little nugget that failed to make it into the article is that roughly 1000 gay soldiers have been discharged on Obama's watch under the DADT ban that he's repeatedly promised to end.

Maybe Politifact could have interviewed Lt. Choi, seen here singing the praises of Obama's efforts-


How can this campaign "Promise" still be rated "In The Works", as if Obama is diligently working to repeal the law? Despite being an obvious broken promise to the rest of the wolrd, Politifact can't even bring themselves to rate it "Stalled". And not only that, they completely ignore anyone calling Obama out on his failure to act. Politifact doesn't refudiate the Log Cabin Republicans claims, they simply pretend they don't exist and attempt to shove an entirely relevant court battle down the memory hole.


Instead of facts, we're left with a one-sided puff piece that omits pertinent evidence that Obama has failed to deliver on a promise to one of his most reliable voting blocs. Obama's pledge to repeal DADT isn't "in the works", it's undeniably dead in the water.

And instead of any new developments or deviations in policy being the impetus for a change in status, this "update" is merely a chance for Angie Drobnic Holan to deliver a pep talk-

"We wanted to note in this update that the 2010 elections haven't stopped Obama's attempts to keep this particular promise."

Keep your chin up team! We can do it!

This isn't fact checking.

This isn't even journalism.

This is propaganda.

It's Easy Being Greene

Democratic candidate Alvin Greene has lost his bid to go down in history as the first African American elected to the Senate by a major party in South Carolina.


Unemployed and living with his father, Greene spent 81 million dollars less than Meg Whitman on his Primary campaign, not including his filing fee (which he paid for with a personal check). He didn't have a campaign website, he didn't have campaign yard signs, and he didn't actually, uh, campaign. Nonetheless he received 60 percent of the vote in the Democratic primary, capturing all but 4 counties in South Carolina. This led enlightened Democrat Senator Robert Ford to suggest that Greene garnered so many votes because he was able to identify with his constituency through name recognition-

"No white folks have an 'e' on the end of Green. The blacks after they left the plantation couldn't spell, and they threw an 'e' on the end."

Green with an "e" notwithstanding, Alvin faced an uphill battle against Tea Party darling Jim DeMint, and ran a tireless campaign, which consisted pretty much of having his manifesto posted at The Guardian, and defending himself against felony obscenity charges.

Greene's Quixotian fight came to an end Tuesday, when he lost to DeMint by more than a 2-1 ratio. But things could have been much worse for our courageous pol.

For all the struggles Greene endured, in this era of 24 hour news cycles and constant media attention paid to the most insignificant minutiae, there was one place in the world where Greene found safe harbor, a refuge from scrutiny.

I'm speaking of course about our unbiased, non-partisan, objective, help you sort out the truth in Politics friends at Politifact.

Despite the novelty, history, and nefarious charges surrounding his failed run towards the Senate, Politifact never seemed to have the time to rate a single one of his statements.

Perhaps Greene simply didn't say anything outlandish, or misleading during the campaign for Politifact to check?

"The department of defence can't say where $1 trillion went. The army can't locate 56 planes and 32 tanks – how do you lose a plane? Rumour has it, the Pentagon started off as the Hexagon, but one day one of the sides went missing."

"Half the members of the US senate work for BP. The other half work for Halliburton."

"Jim DeMint started the recession."

"I am the best candidate for the United States Senate in South Carolina...And I am also the best person to be TIME magazine's Man of the Year. "

Of course, we can't expect Politifact to check every fringe candidate in every race, especially the ones who have no chance of winning.

Unless of course that candidate is sponsored by the Tea Party.

That brings us to Christine "I'm not a witch you" O'Donnell who rang up four Truth-O-Meter ratings on her own and yet another one about her for a total of five Politifact reviews.

O'Donnell's disingenuous rhetoric that needed to be verified included "We haven't yet taken out a negative ad." (which earned "Pants On Fire") and an ad in which the narrator claimed her opponent "thought that a 911 call should be taxed." This one was knocked down to "Barely True" because Coons proposed the 911 tax on cell phones, and it was already a tax on landline phones, and also because it was a tariff, not a tax. Glad we sorted out that truth in American politics.

When Politifact didn't have any O'Donnell statements to rate, they resorted to making them up.

It's also interesting to note that while ignoring any comments made by Greene, Politifact also chose to ignore the widespread accusations, including those made by Congressman James Clyburn (D-SC), that claimed Greene was a Right Wing plant. That is the type of thing where Politifact would have been helpful, you know, to sort out. But instead those baseless accusations were left unchallenged by our objective defenders of truth.

And if there were any evidence that suggested the Democratic Party was using chicanery to silence Greene, I'm sure Politifact would have been all over it.

But it doesn't matter now. Greene was just a fringe, protest candidate that no one was going to vote for anyway. Maybe that's why Politifact ignored him during the entire campaign.

Or not. Greene ended up with 356,969 votes, which is more than O'Donnell (123,025) and Coons (173,900), combined. So much for that excuse.

The truth is that Politifact ignored Greene because he was embarrassing to Democrats. His Primary opponent, Vic Rawl, was so bad he was beaten by a man that didn't even campaign. When Greene did secure the nomination, Tolerant Liberals excused it as stupid black voters selecting a candidate based on race, and accused the Tea Party and Republicans of fraud. Then Democrats went out of their way to suppress and marginalize Greene. Just by rating Greene, Politifact would have brought unwanted attention to Democrats unsavory behavior.

The story of Alvin Greene is an example of just one aspect of Politifacts bias. It doesn't always manifest itself in how they rate an item, or what they choose to rate. Their bias is evident in the things they choose to ignore.