Thank you, Timothy Carney, senior political columnist at the Washington Examiner, for writing “Politifact fritters away its credibility”:
After busting the Politifact “Lie of the Year,” Mr. Carney goes on to bust Politifact:
In the Virginia conservative blogosphere, there have been increasing questions about Politifact’s bias. Many raised eyebrows in November when George Allen’s comment, “The new Congress must repeal and cutoff any additional money borrowed and set aside for Obama, Reid and Pelosi’s $1.2 trillion stimulus spending bill,” was rated as “Pants on Fire.”
Right-Wing Conservative blogger DJ McGuire was skeptical of that rating so looked into the real facts and deemed it “Politifail”, writing:
The long-term cost of the $825 billion economic recovery package before Congress could rise to $1.2 trillion over 10 years, a top budget official said Tuesday.
That’s because the government will borrow to fund the plan and pay an estimated $347 billion in interest, Congressional Budget Office Director Douglas Elmendorf told the House Budget Committee on Tuesday.
Way to “check it out,” guys. Now, to be fair, the PF guys were led astray by an Allen staffer, who sent them somewhere else and didn’t emphasize the interest-on-debt issue. Still, it’s not as if the $1.2T figure had vanished into the ether. The House Republicans used it just last month. Politifact? More like Politifail.
Writers from Red State, Newsbusters, American Spectator, and others have also questioned the findings of this journalistic watch dog. Politifact appears to be proving that it is no more than another of the Democrats’ allies in the mainstream media.
