Rachel Maddow you are fired. You sully the word journalist.

Ummm... Politifact was arguably right the first time. Obama didn't simply say A and B, he said: (from listening to the clip on Maddow's own show!)

"In the six months before I took office, we lost nearly 4 million jobs. And we lost another 4 million before our policies were in full effect."

THEN he said the bit about A and B, to which politifact agreed A and B were true.

The problem is that I think there is a solid argument that there are some implications made by those opening 2 sentences. "In the six months before I took office, we lost nearly 4 million jobs" translates roughly to "that asshole that was president before me sucked so hard that you lost 4 million jobs" (which can be evaluated for truth and fairness on its own). "And we lost another 4 million before our policies were in full effect" means "That last dude sucked so hard that it took even someone as breathtakingly awesome as ME 6 months to climb out of the river of shit that he got us into." Again, something that can evaluated and argued for or against, but it definitely isn't just a non-entity, completely irrelevant throwaway statement as Maddow would have you believe.

I like Maddow, but I disagree with her chiding Politifact here.

@MilkmanDan a lot of ink has been spilled around the interwebs over this particular Politifact finding, but I gotta say what they did here was completely wrong.

Obama said the incontestable truth here:

Most of the job losses happened before he was sworn in.
The rest of the decline happened before any of his policies took effect.
In the last 22 months businesses created 3 million jobs.

Now, what's Politifact calling a lie? Did Obama claim personal credit for every job? No. Did Obama claim partial credit? Only in the most oblique and indirect way possible.

So is Politifact saying Obama definitely deserves no credit for the job creation? If so, that's pants-on-fire false, according to Politifact.

So again, what's their objection? That Obama presented accurate, non-misleading facts that support the notion that he's actually doing a good job on the economy? That's not lying, that's making an argument, and using facts to support it. It's how honest people try to make their case.

While presidents are not directly responsible for private sector job creation and the economy, they get blamed/credited for it. For politifact to this ignore this convention is disingenuous at best.

Maybe PF should stay away from examining soft rhetoric, political assertions and implications, and just stick to verifying objective facts. I agree with Maddow on this one.>> ^MilkmanDan:

Ummm... Politifact was arguably right the first time. Obama didn't simply say A and B, he said: (from listening to the clip on Maddow's own show!)
"In the six months before I took office, we lost nearly 4 million jobs. And we lost another 4 million before our policies were in full effect."
THEN he said the bit about A and B, to which politifact agreed A and B were true.
The problem is that I think there is a solid argument that there are some implications made by those opening 2 sentences. "In the six months before I took office, we lost nearly 4 million jobs" translates roughly to "that asshole that was president before me sucked so hard that you lost 4 million jobs" (which can be evaluated for truth and fairness on its own). "And we lost another 4 million before our policies were in full effect" means "That last dude sucked so hard that it took even someone as breathtakingly awesome as ME 6 months to climb out of the river of shit that he got us into." Again, something that can evaluated and argued for or against, but it definitely isn't just a non-entity, completely irrelevant throwaway statement as Maddow would have you believe.
I like Maddow, but I disagree with her chiding Politifact here.

I'm not interested in a fact checker who adds their own implications to the statements they fact check. I'm smart enough to decide for myself when a politician is trying hint at something. Just tell me when his figures and his history is accurate.

Obama must know that his political future rides on our perception of the economy. But he's a smart enough guy to also know that no President's policies have ever seriously impacted the macroeconomic state of the country while he held office. He says stuff like this because, sadly, the American people really are stupid enough to think that if they just pick the guy with the right policies, we'll all have jobs tomorrow.

I agree with @MilkmanDan for the same reasons stated. Obama clearly implied it had something to do with his jobs policy, so for that reason, Maddow you're fired.

>> ^ghark:

I agree with @MilkmanDan for the same reasons stated. Obama clearly implied it had something to do with his jobs policy, so for that reason, Maddow you're fired.


So...you think that means Obama lied?

You're saying that anyone who says "I believe the job creation we've seen in the last 22 months is partly due to the stimulus and other policies put in place by Obama and the Democratic party," is a liar?

You're fired.

Ok so he stretched the truth. What politician / president hasn't?

I stand with Politifact -- Half truth.

However I must say even more jobs would have been created had not created any policies.

>> ^Mikus_Aurelius:

I'm not interested in a fact checker who adds their own implications to the statements they fact check.

.

Straying into opinion destroys the rest of their fact-checking work. The rest of the internet already has opinion covered, just check the damned facts and figures.

To their credit, Factcheck.org made the correct call, though they added that jobs have yet to fully recover to month Obama first took office and 6 million under the best point in the Bush administration. In other words, the recession made employment fall a long way.

>> ^NetRunner:

>> ^ghark:
I agree with @MilkmanDan for the same reasons stated. Obama clearly implied it had something to do with his jobs policy, so for that reason, Maddow you're fired.

So...you think that means Obama lied?
You're saying that anyone who says "I believe the job creation we've seen in the last 22 months is partly due to the stimulus and other policies put in place by Obama and the Democratic party," is a liar?
You're fired.


Like Obama has never been dishonest before?

And no, I'm not saying that, I'm saying his attribution of the new jobs to his job policies was only a half truth because he conveniently forgot to mention the other factors that can influence job creation.

I think you're confusing lies and half-truths, PolitiFact said his statement was a half truth, not a lie, you seem to think that those of us that agree with PolitiFact are saying Obama lied, when in fact we are agreeing that his statement was a half truth - a subtle difference perhaps, but an important one it seems. They've gone and upgraded it now to a "mostly true", which is probably closer to being accurate, but the point stands.

@NetRunner -
I like the way that you've made your case here, but I still personally think Politifact's stance/take on the statement was OK. Particularly the revised "mostly true" rating, but even the "half-true" rating was acceptable depending on how you interpret it.

The sentence that I think is specifically subject to some scrutiny is:
"And we lost another 4 million before our policies were in full effect."

You can take that as a fairly straightforward logical statement -- that from the time that Obama entered office until whatever time that it is determined that his "policies were in full effect", 4 million more jobs were lost. If a specific date can be set that all observers would agree on for the "policies in full effect" bit, the whole sentence could be evaluated as a statement of fact, true or false. Just like the following bits about A and B, that Politifact certified as true.

However, I think that it is quite reasonable to assert that there is a heavy implication in that sentence that Obama's policies were largely or entirely responsible for the following upturn in jobs. That is something that is impossible to rigorously prove. I'm happy for Obama to say it, and I think that it is also quite reasonable for him to feel vindicated by it. But I also think that it is worth applying some small print to explain that more fully to anyone who is inquiring about it, for example someone looking it up at Politifact.

Consider this: before I was born, the Inquisition, Crusades, and Holocaust happened. In the 30+ years that I have been alive the global standard of living, as independently measured by the Human Development Index has been steadily climbing in every region evaluated to current all-time highs around the world.

There are two sentences there, basically 2 statements of fact. They are both true. Am I the pinnacle of evolution? Has the world been collectively basking in the glory of my mere presence on earth, matching the implication that I am responsible for or at least contributing to those facts? ...Probably not. I rate my own statements as only "half true" or perhaps "mostly true" ( I am pretty goddamn awesome, so who knows ).

@ghark, @MilkmanDan, here's the original politifact link.

For the moment, ignore the full text of the article. Just look at the headline. This is the statement they were rating:

In the last 22 months, businesses have created more than 3 million jobs. Last year, they created the most jobs since 2005.

1. Did businesses create 3 million jobs in the last 22 months?
   
2. Was 2011 the highest year of job-growth since 2005?
   

The thumbnail image for this video has been updated - thumbnail added by luxury_pie.

@NetRunner -
Thanks for the link to the Politifact page. I probably shouldn't have argued about it without actually reading that page, but I was mainly concerned with Maddow's reaction to it rather than the Politifact page itself.

Long story short, I think that whatever rating Politifact assigns to the statement (True / Mostly True / Half-True), it is going to be important in this case for them to have an asterisk with further explanation. Arguments can be made for any of those ratings, and you're making a good one for "True" since the statements referenced in their own heading are limited to the 2 that are fully true. However, since they include Obama's previous 2 statments (implying that his policies were responsible) in their full explanation, I think that the revised rating of "Mostly True" is fine, and probably the best assessment. Much more "fair and balanced" than some other sources would tout themselves as being.

I fired politi"facts" after this:

>> ^MilkmanDan:

Arguments can be made for any of those ratings, and you're making a good one for "True" since the statements referenced in their own heading are limited to the 2 that are fully true. However, since they include Obama's previous 2 statments (implying that his policies were responsible) in their full explanation, I think that the revised rating of "Mostly True" is fine, and probably the best assessment. Much more "fair and balanced" than some other sources would tout themselves as being.


But again you're acting as though the existence of that implication injects some sort of falsehood into the mix.

Obama recounted the facts only. The fact that the facts themselves imply that Obama's policies might be partially behind the recovery doesn't make what he said "half true" or "mostly true", it was still just "true"

As for the "fair and balanced" thing, I think that's really what's behind Politifact's follies. They're worried that if they don't ding Democrats roughly as often as Republicans, they'll be accused of being "biased" which would chip away at their credibility.

Instead what they've done is ruin their reputation in one fell swoop by letting concerns about their reputation bring them to the point where they're calling the truth "half true" in order to try to appear "fair and balanced".

What part of "fact" is confusing? It's depressing that a once respected (and sorely needed) organization like politifact has abandoned its own mission. Worse than that, they are in fact now distorting facts. By presenting facts as 'half-facts' and "truths" as the biggest lies, they've become the demon they were once trying to slay.

ie. bullshit

>> ^NetRunner:

But again you're acting as though the existence of that implication injects some sort of falsehood into the mix.

Yes and no. It doesn't make any element of it false, but it makes part of it less than fully true. I'd propose this hypothetical assertion:
9/11 happened before the TSA was formed. There have been no successful terrorist attacks on the USA since the TSA was created.

Two statements. Both true. Yet I'd have a problem with anyone fluffing their resume with those two statements. Further explanation is needed to note that just because A and B are true, A doesn't imply B or vice-versa. Reading the fulltext of the Politifact page provides that explanation for their assessment, which I think is fair.

>> ^NetRunner:
Obama recounted the facts only. The fact that the facts themselves imply that Obama's policies might be partially behind the recovery doesn't make what he said "half true" or "mostly true", it was still just "true"

Shades of gray. I think that the evidence is in Obama's favor -- much moreso than in my hypothetical statement that implies that the TSA is 100% responsible for having prevented terrorism on US soil since 9/11. But in either case, I think that to know the truth as fully as possible, you need more information than any single assertion that the statements are "true" "mostly true" or "half true".

I'd even concede to Politifact altering their rating to "true" IF they were to maintain fulltext below that explains that such a rating excludes the implication that Obama's policies were largely or fully responsible for the recovery. If they did that, would it be an acceptable response from your point of view?

>> ^NetRunner:
As for the "fair and balanced" thing, I think that's really what's behind Politifact's follies. They're worried that if they don't ding Democrats roughly as often as Republicans, they'll be accused of being "biased" which would chip away at their credibility.

This is just my take on it, but I don't think that Politifact is keeping score and trying to get their digs in on both sides to avoid accusations of bias. I think there is a distinction to be made between them saying that a statement is "mostly true" or "half true" and accusing someone of lying. When they say that Obama's statements (or those of anyone else) were "mostly true", they don't mean to suggest that some part of it was false, just that they need to be supplemented with some additional information to fully appreciate. ie., Take this with a grain of salt.

>> ^NetRunner:
Instead what they've done is ruin their reputation in one fell swoop by letting concerns about their reputation bring them to the point where they're calling the truth "half true" in order to try to appear "fair and balanced".

I think that is just a bit overly dramatic -- no offense. Perhaps this ruined their reputation for you, but I don't think they deserve that reaction in general. I'm sure that they could make the same sort of assessments on statements from somebody of the Republican side -- say, taking credit for prosperity during the Reagan administration -- and it would elicit similar reactions from conservative readers ("Politifact has lost all credibility!", etc.).


By the way, just wanted to note here that I appreciate your point of view and have enjoyed considering this further. So while I'm basically sticking to my story and I think Maddow overreacted, I'm going to upvote the video (I didn't originally) on the basis of the strong and healthy discussion. Good sift and good support of your take on it in comments here.

@MilkmanDan I'm just gonna outsource this to a post that I think nails the point I'm making home rather solidly.

The key graf is this:

Got it?
- So the statement they checked is factual.
- Politifact can't find a statement where the President takes credit, which is what they really want to fact check.
- So instead of fact-checking the fact, they instead fact check what they think the fact was meant to suggest.
- And for good measure, their argument is oil dependence went down because of the economic recovery and it would be unfair for Obama to claim any credit for the recovery.

Politifact's insane new standard seems to be:

There are no facts that a Democratic President can cite about the economy if they are good news. Once the President cites a fact, it ceases to be a fact... because facts might lead people to give the President credit, even if he didn't claim credit, and we can't have that.

Therefore, whether something is a fact or not a fact depends entirely on who says it, not on whether it's, you know, true.

I think it shows that modern media and political tactics have won out: Americans can't tell the difference between a fact and an opinion. How depressing.