I first noticed Politifact was going out of its way to let Republicans rack up “trues” when they did an entire article crediting Rep. Eric Cantor for correctly saying 10,000 Baby Boomers a day are becoming eligible for Social Security & Medicare. I mean, is that the hot-button political dispute of the day in need of fact checking? Or an excuse to give an easy “true” to a guy who managed only 1 full truth in his first 11 fact-checks?
Rep. Jim Moran has fared just the opposite under Politifact’s examination, rating 3 out of 4 “true” or “mostly true.” Today, Politifact tries to bring him back into “balance” with a really weird “pants on fire.” I say weird because … well, what Rep. Moran said was at least half true. He said House Republicans had gleefully ordered biodegradable plates, trays & cutlery removed from the House cafeteria … which they did. And he said they’re using materials made by a Koch Industries subsidiary … and while he got that wrong, it’s actually a competitor, Koch does make the types of products in question.
Politifact giddily declares, “Moran must have been wearing a tin foil hat on the day he came up with this one.” Sure, the Koch reference was sloppy (if pretty insignificant to warrant Politifact’s pants conflagration). But Politifact is completely disingenuous to say Republicans didn’t require a switch to plastic & styrofoam. Republicans wanted to stick a thumb in the eye of environmentalists & told the vendor to stop giving them all this nice, beneficial biodegradable stuff and switch to the cheapest crap possible.
Talk about going out of your way to absolve Republicans of responsibility for the consequences of their actions. I mean, if Republicans block an increase on the debt ceiling, will Politifact say, “Well, Republicans didn’t require the Treasury to stop writing disability checks to wounded veterans & Social Security checks to seniors”? What’s the point of having “fact-checkers” if you’re going to play just as dumb as the talking heads chasing Sarah Palin?
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