For several years now, PolitiFact has been waging war on anyone who points out that America has the smallest Navy it’s had in nearly a century. Mitt Romney pointed out this fact in a presidential debate in 2012 and PolitiFact rated his statement “pants on fire” even though the number of ships in the U.S. Navy dropped below 300 in 2003 and the last time the U.S. Navy had fewer than 300 ships was 1916. It would seem Romney got his facts from no less an authoritative source than the secretary of the navy, who said a few years back, “We have 288 today in the battle fleet: the lowest number since 1916, which – during that time, the intervening years, our responsibilities have grown somewhat.”
And yet, PolitiFact called Romney’s statement “pants on fire” despite the fact that the very military historian PolitiFact consulted to verify Romney’s statement was appalled at their ruling:
In his final few paragraphs, Jacobson refers to Romney’s statements as “meaningless,” “glib,” “preposterous,” and “ridiculous.” To be frank, I’m a little surprised by that wording, especially in writing for a site that strives for objectivity.
Politico called PolitiFact’s ruling here an “epic fail.” And yet, both FactCheck.org and the Washington Post fact checker also claimed Romney’s statement was dishonest. While there’s a certainly a debate to be had about how relevant the number of ships is relative to the capabilities of nuclear submarines and aircraft carriers, it’s also true that the threats and responsibilities for protecting commercial shipping lanes have grown considerably in the modern era as well. Flatly declaring this statement false under the rubric that media fact checkers somehow know more about the Navy’s capabilities and readiness than the secretary of the navy, who clearly thinks the diminished number of ships is a problem, is incredibly arrogant and misleading.
Apparently not sufficently humbled by his previous “epic fail,” just a few weeks ago Lou Jacobson wrote another article for the PolitiFact — “Anatomy of a talking point: the smallest Navy since 1917” — that rehashes the same tired and unconvincing arguments. This prompted a lengthy twitter rebuke from John Noonan, a consultant to Jeb Bush’s campaign and defense expert:
4. But here, @loujacobson and @Politifact are doing more than just fact checking. They are a picking a side in an on-going debate.
— John Noonan (@noonanjo) August 4, 2015
6. The Chief of Naval ops said that cuts are effecting ‘fleet response’ and forcing the Navy to cut ‘afloat and ashore operations.’
— John Noonan (@noonanjo) August 4, 2015
7. What you don’t see in @Politifact is mention that deployments have grown so long due to ship shrinkage, sailors are getting hardship pay.
— John Noonan (@noonanjo) August 4, 2015
10. Nor does @Politifact mention that we just had a big problem in the gulf. We don’t have a carrier on station there for first time in yrs.
— John Noonan (@noonanjo) August 4, 2015
11. Nor does @Politifact acknowledge the rise in Russian bomber threats in Atlantic and Pacific, the air war against ISIL, or rise of China.
— John Noonan (@noonanjo) August 4, 2015
I’m being selective, as Noonan makes several other important points in his tweetstorm. But the gist is that PolitiFact has clearly wandered very far afield from the realm of fact checking a straightforward talking point, and is offering up tendentious arguments of its own.
Anyway, if you think they couldn’t make the debate over the number of ships any worse, well, you don’t know PolitiFact. After PolitiFact’s recent exhuming of the issue, a reader sent in this PolitFact ruling from May that, again, takes on Georgia Senator David Perdue’s claim that America has the “the smallest Navy since WWI.” They at least gave him a “half-true” rating, but their ruling is astonishingly incompetent:
In 1915, two years before the U.S. became part of World War I, the Navy had 231 deployable ships.
Projected cuts have also not hit the Navy, which has 273 deployable ships today, according to the Department of the Navy website.
And our allies and foes alike have kept their word to the 1922 Washington Naval Conference, which limits the world’s navies by tonnage as a solution to an early arms race.
In other words, the Navy has been small since WWI not because of any single administration decision but due to a nearly century-old disarmament accord.
The 1922 Washington Naval Conference is the reason our Navy is small? What on God’s green earth are they talking about? The pacts and treateies that came out of the Washington Naval Conference have been defunct since 1936. One might recall any existing naval treaties weren’t adhered to as there was a pretty massive build up of naval forces worldwide shortly after 1936.
I’m sorry, but this is not fact checking. It’s clear that as an organization, PolitiFact, has made a sustained campaign over years to undercut political arguments about enhancing our military capabilities and readiness. PolitiFact has zero credibility on this issue. The organization has repeatedly embarassed itself with rulings that contradict military historians, the secretary of the navy, and easily verifiable historical facts.
Follow Mark Hemingway on Twitter @Heminator
