I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: “Mostly false” and “half true” fact-check rulings are garbage.
These middle-of-the-road pronouncements often are used by media fact-checkers either to express their own personal opinions, and defend or attack certain public figures.
Case in point: PolitiFact awarded a “mostly false” rating this month to Sen. Dean Heller, R-Nev., for claiming his Democratic challenger, Rep. Jacky Rosen, D-Nev., “skipped work … at the expense of veterans” to “attend a publicity stunt.”
[Also read: Dean Heller wants his re-election fight to be ‘the race.’ He may get his wish]
The senator’s office said specifically in a June 26 press release:
Everything in this statement is true. Literally.
The House voted on June 25, 2018, to pass the Blue Water Navy Vietnam Veterans Act, which offers aid to veterans who were exposed to “certain herbicide agents” during the Vietnam War. Rosen, who was one of bill’s 330 cosponsors, was not there for the vote. On June 25, the Nevada congresswoman was in Texas with members of the American Civil Liberties Union. They toured both a U.S. Customs and Border Protection processing facility in El Paso as well as a facility for unaccompanied minors in in Tornillo.
Yet, PoltiFact gives the Republican senator’s criticism a “mostly false” rating.
“Heller said that Rosen skipped work at the expense of veterans for a publicity stunt,” PolitiFact explains. “Heller highlighted his own support as a cosponsor of a companion measure in the Senate — but he forgot to highlight the same of Rosen.”
“Rosen did miss the vote. The bill faced zero opposition, was on a formal fast-track for passage, and passed 382-0,” the “fact-check” added. “Rosen didn’t skip ‘work.’ She made an official visit, along with another congressman, to sites near the Mexican border that were relevant to legislation she introduced related to family separation at the border. The thread of accuracy here is Rosen missed a vote. We rate this claim Mostly False.”
What?
Everything Heller said was true! She didn’t vote on the veterans bill because she was in Texas having her photo taken with immigration activists.
The above photos were even published on her website with a press release touting her trip! Perhaps PolitiFact would’ve been happier had Heller referred to her visit as a photo-op and not a “publicity stunt.”
It’s true Rosen is part of a group of Democrats who introduced a bill demanding the White House reunite illegal immigrant families. It’s also true President Trump on June 20 signed an executive order ending the practice of separating families. The veterans vote was on June 25.
The funny thing is: PolitiFact is careful to provide all the relevant information regarding the bill, Rosen’s support for it, and the timing of her Texas trip with the president’s reversal of the practice of separating immigrant families.
The fact-checking group simply don’t want to give Heller, a vulnerable Republican incumbent seeking reelection, the win on this one.
