Romney puts Politifact on Ropes

Infidel Dog · #1 (**permalink**) 04-15-2012, 01:37 PM

This one's from a right wing blog, but prove it wrong.

Quote:

In two separate instances, Politifact has contradicted itself with its rating of the accurate claim made by the Romney campaign that women account for 92.3 percent of the jobs lost under President Obama.

The “fact checking” organization, which the mainstream media treats as an unbiased and neutral arbiter, showed how much it is willing to stretch the truth to support Obama and undermine Republicans.

On April 5, Politifact conceded that the 92.3 percent figure cited by the Romney campaign was accurate and, then, promptly -- and unbelievably -- said that the claims made by the Romney campaign were “mostly false.”

Politifact’s report left many scratching their heads, and one such person was Lanhee Chen, Romney’s Policy Director, who fired off an e-mail that eviscerated Politifact’s analysis point by point.

“Putting aside the obvious problems with rating an accurate statement mostly false, your analysis in this instance was so inadequate that the piece ended up being little more than Obama for America spin,” Chen wrote.

Chen then noted that Politifact had an “embarrassing bias and lack of journalistic standards” but “far more troubling were the selection of your two experts” and rightfully called Politifact out on its blatant biases.

Chen was referring to Gary Burtlett and Betsey Stevenson, the two experts Politifact cited in its takedown of Romney.

As Chen noted, “Gary Burtless has already donated twice to President Obama’s campaign this cycle” and, “much more inexplicably, Bestey (sic) Stevenson, who you identify simply as ‘a business and public policy professor at Princeton University,‘ was until recently the chief economist for Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis.”

Regarding Stevenson, Chen wrote that he had “no way of knowing whether Politifact was aware of this and failed to disclose it, or whether she failed to identify her role in the Administration – frankly, I am not sure which would be worse.”

Chen then wrote that he hoped Politifact would agree that “this rating was inappropriate and that the piece does not reflect the journalistic standards to which your organization intends to hold itself ... Please retract the piece and issue a correction as soon as possible.”

But before Chen wrote his e-mail, much of the damage was already done, for mainstream media outlets like CNN used Politifact’s “analysis” in a report to undermine the Romney campaign’s accurate claims and further gave a good housekeeping seal of approval to a biased study from an organization that is becoming more hackish with each rating it puts out against Republicans.

So how did Politifact respond to Chen’s e-mail?

It doubled down on its blatant bias by again doing the exact same thing Chen accused them of in his initial email -- hand-selecting economists that would verify how they wanted the facts to be spun.

“We considered the complaint and interviewed four other economists, none of whom have formal or financial ties to any campaigns,” Politifact wrote in an updated posting. “Our additional reporting found no reason to change our ruling, which remains at Mostly False.”

It is worth mentioning that three of the four economists that Politifact interviewed were liberals from the left-leaning Institute for Women’s Policy Research, the liberal New York Times, and the left-leaning Center on Economic and Policy Research.

Politifact’s token “conservative” was disgruntled Republican economist Bruce Bartlett, who has gone out of his way in recent years to call Republicans “stupid” and “ignorant.”

And on cue, Bartlett, whom Politifact proudly reminded its readers was a “conservative,” thus purportedly giving their conclusion a veneer of impartiality, said “there’s no reason to think” that Obama’s policies have brought hard times to women.

When Republicans come up with valid, factual points that threaten to undermine liberal talking points and memes, Politifact has too often gone out of its way, as it did in this case, to collude with the mainstream media to squash and proverbially kill those points in the cradle, before those arguments are able to get into the broader political bloodstream.

Conservatives need to confront and challenge Politifact as fiercely as Chen and the Romney campaign did to try and preempt future acts of dishonesty even, if it may be difficult.

By fabricating ratings when fact-checking Republicans, Politifact has shown that its own pants have been on fire quite often, and it may be more accurate to refer to them as a subsidiary of the Democratic National Committee and the Obama campaign.

Romney Puts Politifact on Ropes

saltwn · #2 (**permalink**) 04-15-2012, 02:17 PM

Women were the last to lose their jobs. The construction and manufacturing went first, typically male dominated jobs.
That said, both sides are vying for the women vote cause they know the gap can be bridged by Romney and doesn't take much to add to the core to tip it, so Obama's guarding all he can taking no chances (or prisoners). It's a game.

Infidel Dog · #3 (**permalink**) 04-15-2012, 02:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by saltwn

Women were the last to lose their jobs.

Really? That's interesting. So when exactly did this happen then...

Quote:

women account for 92.3 percent of the jobs lost under President Obama.

saltwn · #4 (**permalink**) 04-15-2012, 02:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Infidel Dog

Really? That's interesting. So when exactly did this happen then...

After the men, I thought I explained that.

Infidel Dog · #5 (**permalink**) 04-15-2012, 03:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by saltwn

After the men, I thought I explained that.

See this?

"So when exactly did this happen then?"

The word exactly is important there. That's why emboldened it.

I get the general time frame in Salty-World. Men lost their jobs first, then the 92.3 percent of women lost theirs. So when exactly did this happen then...

"92.3 percent of the jobs lost under President Obama were women".

I'm curious when exactly during the reign of Dear Leader did the 92.3 percent of jobs lost become women's jobs? It seems curious because percentage of jobs lost were actually larger in the early days. So some time in the last two years then. Is that when it happened?

saltwn · #6 (**permalink**) 04-15-2012, 04:46 PM

Quote:

the recession began 13 months before Obama took office. Men have lost more jobs overall during the downturn — 3.4 million, compared with 1.8 million lost by women.

manufacturing and construction job losses were heavy in the early days of the recession, while professions with more women, such as teaching, were hurt later.

many of the president's efforts to help the economy were strongly opposed by Republicans in Congress. Republicans opposed stimulus spending, bailouts of General Motors and Chrysler and the Dodd-Frank Act that overhauled financial regulations.

"If he'd had more support from his opponents in Congress, then we could have got more things passed that would have put more people back to work more quickly,"

the debate over raising the debt ceiling, by raising the possibility of a default on the nation's debt obligations, shook consumer and business confidence at a fragile time for the economy.
"It was very damaging, completely unnecessary and very avoidable,"

The idiot new Republicans are responsible more than anyone for the decline of jobs.

off the porch · #7 (**permalink**) 04-15-2012, 04:47 PM

When the right and the left are angry at Politifact (which even cnredd has sited), then I think it's a safe bet that they're right most of the time.

WallyWager · #8 (**permalink**) 04-15-2012, 05:11 PM

Two years ago, the death panels lie was chosen as Politifact's lie of the year and some on the right flipped out. Last year, the "GOPers want to end Medicare" BS took home the prize and some on the left got pissed off over that.

Keep up the good work, Politifact.

As for Romney's claim, it gets a "Mostly false" because the numbers can be accurate if you only focus on the jobs lost at the tail end of the recession, and blame the jobs lost in January in Obama when the President's chair still carried on the warmth from Bush's arse, and if you blame Obama for jobs lost before his economic policies were even passed and signed.

There is kernel of truth, but the popcorn is rather iffy.

Infidel Dog · #9 (**permalink**) 04-15-2012, 05:17 PM

What? You mean Obama's Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner disagrees with Romney. Who woulda thunk it?

Let's take his critique apart a bit though so I can get a clearer picture of what he, and you are saying. We'll start with...

Quote:

Romney said last week that 92.3 percent of jobs lost since President Barack Obama took office were held by women. He said the "real war on women is being waged by the president's failed economic policies."

While the statistic is accurate...

Again, the emboldened part is important, I think. Even ABC admits the actual statistic Romney quotes is true. That's what the OP said. The stat of 92 percent of the jobs lost under Obama were women is factual.

We'll go on though to examine the thing you and Obama's treasury secretary find important.

Quote:

the recession began 13 months before Obama took office. Men have lost more jobs overall during the downturn — 3.4 million, compared with 1.8 million lost by women.

He's talking about this...

Quote:

The late-2000s recession, sometimes referred to as the Great Recession,[1] the Lesser Depression,[2] or the Long Recession,[3] is a marked global economic decline that began in December 2007 and took a particularly sharp downward turn in September 2008. The Great Recession has affected the entire world economy, with higher detriment in some countries than others. It is a major global recession characterized by various systemic imbalances and was sparked by the outbreak of the late-2000s financial crisis.

Late-2000s recession - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

So Geithner wants you to believe that because mostly men lost their jobs in America during a portion of the early days of the global recession it doesn't matter that mostly American women lost their jobs during the Obama portion.

He suggests it's a natural progression, or something. I imagine the other stat of women working in the Whitehouse making less than men is also natural progression.

In any case until he can prove it the stat remains the stat, and apparently it's based in fact. 92 percent of jobs lost under Obama were women

Politifact's claim of mostly false is supportable only by spin based on theory. The statistical fact is on Romney's side.

WallyWager · #10 (**permalink**) 04-15-2012, 11:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Infidel Dog

Politifact's claim of mostly false is supportable only by spin based on theory. The statistical fact is on Romney's side.

Mostly false isn't false or pants-on-fire false, but the assertion from Politifact supportable because of Romney's little bit spin on the subject. You have to ignore a lot in order to reach that statistic. It would be like me saying George Bush hates men because most of the jobs lost during the recession under his watch were jobs employed by men. It looks like a desperate counter-attack to try to regain some of the woman vote after the GOP politicians decided to collectively say "Eh, f-ck it.".

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