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.

Just The Hacks, Ma'am

Few media outlets are as disingenuous and misleading as the supposed "fact checking" outfit Politifact. Despite making the claim that they "help you find the truth in American politics", the project is simply an extension of the unabashedly left-wing St. Petersburg Times editorial page, and their consistently flawed Truth-O-Meter shtick betrays this bias.

This week produced a fine example of the bizarre contortions this "unbiased" outfit will go through to defend Obama. On Tuesday they offered up RNC chairman Michael Steele and his comments regarding disclosure of campaign donors-




Specifically, Politifact chose to rate Steele's charge of Obama's hypocrisy-

"When President, then candidate, Obama was asked to disclose some of his donors because there was suspicion of their being the foreign source of money into his campaign, they refused to do it. So don't give me this high-and-mighty, holier-than-thou attitude about special interests flooding the political marketplace."

With Obama's false narrative about the Chamber of Commerce, and Pelosi's hysterical warnings about plutocracies, Steele's comments were timely and spot on (for a change).


Was Obama asked to disclose donors, and did he refuse? It seems simple enough to verify.

It is a well documented fact that during the 2008 Presidential campaign Obama refused to disclose the names of over 2 million donors. These particular donors contributed less than 200 dollars each, and therefore fell below the reporting requirements. While Obama had no legal obligation to disclose them, he was under pressure to do just that. The reason was Obama had reduced the security safeguards on his campaign website that prevent fraudulent or illegal contributions. Obama claimed this was necessary due to the high volume of donations and the fact that the security measures slowed the process down. Fair enough.

Then erratic and abnormal donation patterns began to appear, including odd and un-rounded amounts (e.g. $133.29-suggesting foreign currency conversion), and curiously named donors like John Galt and Nodda Realperson, and of course Adolf Hitler and "Hbkjb,jkbkj".

In allowing donors to evade standard verification procedures, it became easier for people in Gaza, or even passionate supporters in Vermont, to circumvent donor disclosure laws. Basically, a single person using phony names could make multiple donations, with each individual donation under the $200.00 limit, but totaling tens of thousands of dollars in the aggregate, in order to avoid the reporting threshold.

These types of contribution shenanigans aren't unique to Obama's campaign. They happen to all politicians. What was unusual however was Obama's steadfast refusal to disclose the names of donors so independent journalists could vet the legitimacy of erroneous contributions.

Several groups started asking Obama to disclose the full list of donors in order to investigate these discrepancies. Obama refused.

The Republican National Committee went as far as filing a complaint with the FEC over the irregularities claiming Obama was accepting foreign cash. The Center For Responsive Politics asked Obama twice to disclose the names of "bundler" donors.

When the supposedly tech savvy Obama campaign finally responded with the ridiculous claim that compiling the list of names would be too technologically difficult, left-leaning Slate.com asked "So how come we were able to do it in a couple hours?"


Slate also noted-

"Politically, there would be several advantages in releasing the names. Obama has campaigned on a platform of making government more transparent..."

Ultimately the Obama campaign refused to disclose the names of over 2 million donors representing roughly 400 million dollars in donations.

In response to Obama's recent misleading attacks against the disclosure policies of Republican PAC's, the Wall Street Journal pointed out the hypocrisy in an editorial-

"Mr. Axelrod told CNN the White House "believes deeply in disclosure"...But it wasn't always the case. During 2008, the Obama campaign didn't show any interest in going beyond the letter of the law in disclosing its donors to the general public. Despite public pleas from campaign-finance reform groups such as Common Cause and Democracy 21, Team Obama refused to...release names of donors who gave less than $200, even though such donors supplied about half of the $800 million the Obama campaign raised."

The bottom line is Obama accepted donations from contributors who were likely foreign nationals and he refused to publicly disclose the names. With all of this evidence it wasn't hard for Politifact to rate Michael Steele's claim......False?????

Politifact tries to frame the "facts"-

Despite the context of the conversation, Steele was not contending that the Obama campaign was asked to disclose donors to independent groups funding attack ads. That's a somewhat new phenomenon this election cycle. Trade groups and other 501 (c) groups were always allowed to keep donors anonymous. But the Supreme Court's Citizen United case upped the stakes with a ruling that allows corporations to contribute unlimited amounts to independent efforts to support or oppose a candidate.

What the what?!

Politifact correctly notes that Steele didn't imply that Obama refused to disclose donors of independent PAC groups. So why bring it up except to confuse the issue? And speaking of confusing the issue, what exactly does the Citizens United case have to do with Obama's 2008 campaign? Well, nothing except to throw the controversial ruling into the mix to get the base all fired up and attempt to connect two things that are otherwise unconnected. In this case it's diversionary and misleading.

Steele's statement begins and ends with calling Obama a hypocrite because in 2008 he refused to disclose his donors, and now Obama's complaining about right wing groups failing to disclose donors. All they need to determine is whether or not Obama refused to name names of donors. But if Politifact did that they'd have to call Obama a hypocrite.

Surprisingly, Politifact had the balls to cite Opensecrets.org to "prove" Obama's innocence while also taking a thinly veiled swipe at John McCain-

In fact, an analysis of campaign contributions by the Center for Responsive Politics found that the Obama campaign scored slightly higher than McCain's when it came to full disclosure of donors. The center found the Obama campaign fully disclosed 90 percent of the donations to the campaign, as opposed to 87 percent for the McCain campaign..

Those numbers are accurate. But what the unbiased, non-partisan, help you sort out the truth, fact checkers at Politifact fail to tell you is that those numbers don't include donor's who contributed under $200, which is the exact group of donors Steele was talking about. Oh, what Politifact also fails to mention in their snub was that unlike Obama, John McCain did release the names of donors who contributed less than $200. Why was this fact left out of the article?

What other gems did Politifact come up with?

"We think Steele's comment is misleading in the context of responding to Democrats' complaints about tens of millions of dollars anonymously making their way into this election via independent groups like Crosssroads GPS. Steele's comments aren't directly related to that issue."

Huh? The argument is about transparency. How is it not a relevant criticism? And even if it was irrelevant, that doesn't make it false.

"Again, it's not that the Obama campaign was asked for names of foreign donors and refused."

Well, except for the fact that that is exactly what happened.

And finally they offer up their conclusion-

"There was no issue of the Obama campaign willfully refusing to disclose the names of foreign donors."

Yes. There was. For Politifact to ignore the mountain of evidence that supports Steele's claim can only be a deliberate evasion of reality. Politifact's disingenous "fact checking" can only be considered ideological cheerleading, and yet another example of media bias.

This latest disservice to facts is not new for Politifact. Bryan White over at Sublime Bloviations has been documenting their flawed and misleading ratings for a long time. His site is an invaluable source for exposing the misleading conclusions and flexible standards Politifact employs in their farcical "truth seeking" project.

Politics is full of misleading statements and outright lies. A truly unbiased source providing actual facts would be a welcome addition to political discourse.

But Politifact is not unbiased. They are simply a Liberal opinion site, riddled with inaccuracies, rhetoric, and ideology.

Falsely claiming to be objective purveyors of truth is wholly offensive, and Politifact should be exposed for the left wing ideologues they are.


Edit 3/9/2013: Removed link from "warnings about plutocracies" due to dubious source.