SATURDAY, JULY 2, 2016
Lies, Damn Lies And Politicians
By Freddie Factchecker, Whistleblower Senior Factual Content Analyst

PolitiFact is a website operated by the Tampa Bay Times that is dedicated to fact-checking questionable statements by politicians. They won a Pulitzer Prize in 2009 for their fact-checking during the 2008 presidential election. It may come as a shock to some people that politicians lie – a lot. Of course, some politicians lie more than others. Political lies run all the way from shading the truth, or exaggeration, to outrageous falsehoods, so PolitiFact has a rating system for how big the lies are in political statements. Their lie rating system looks like this.

True – Rarely given – otherwise, why would they be fact-checking a statement?
Mostly True – Typical for most political statements where they are only distorting the truth
Half True – The same as half-false but sounds better, supposedly
Mostly False – Lies like this offer some cover for the liar, as he/she can always point to the true part.
False – No cover here, just what you expect from politicians.
Pants on Fire – (from the childhood rhyme, “liar, liar, your pants are on fire”) Outrageous and Ridiculous Lies

PolitiFact also gives out an annual “lie of the year” award. Last year’s Lie of the Year went to Donald Trump for various Pants-on-Fire statements including that the Mexican Government sends their rapists and criminals here, and that he saw “thousands and thousands” of Muslims in New Jersey cheering on 9/11. Previous winners of the Lie of the Year are:

2014 – Exaggerations about Ebola – by various politicians and commentators, none of whom knew what they were talking about or cared to know.

2013 – Obama’s promise that if you like your health care plan you can keep it. – insurance companies later sent out 4 million cancellation notices.

2012 – Romney’s claim that President Obama “sold Chrysler to the Italians who are going to build Jeeps in China” at the cost of American jobs. – Obama didn’t sell Chrysler and they had no plans to move Jeep production off-shore.

2011 – The DemocRAT Congressional Campaign committee’s claim that “Republicans voted to end Medicare” – It is no secret that Republicans would like to put a dent in Medicare but they are not foolish enough to commit political suicide by completely ending something that so many Americans depend on.

2010 – The lie by various opponents that Obamacare was a “government takeover of healthcare” – Under Obamacare, all healthcare and insurance remains in the hands of private companies.

2009 – Sarah Palin’s lie that Obamacare would establish “Death Panels”

PolitiFact recently published a summary of the candidates’ lies during this presidential election. Although Hillary has a reputation for lying, she apparently only lies about as much as the average politician. On the other hand, Trump is the consummate liar. He has lied more than any of the other candidates during this election season. Moreover, Trump has lied more than all of the other 2016 candidates put together. He was fact-checked 158 times by Politifact, and was given a rating of “false” or “pants on fire” 95 times. That’s more than 60%. Meanwhile, he was given a “true” rating just four times. By comparison, Hillary Clinton was fact-checked 120 times, was rated “false”/”pants on fire” 16 times (13%), and was rated “true” 16 times.

What does this all mean for this presidential election? That’s easy – exactly nothing. No one cares about lies his candidate tells, as long as the lies fit their own political views. People do care strongly about lies the opponent tells though, because it suits their purposes in undermining the opponent.

Just remember, there are 4 kinds of liars: Regular Liars, Damned Liars, Pathological Liars, and Politicians.

Coming Next: Could PolitiFact Possibly Be Biased? Freddie Factchecker explains: journalists tend to lean ideologically left. The Tampa Bay Times, which started PolitiFact in conjunction with the Congressional Quarterly, is a traditionally liberal paper. PolitiFact’s stories appear to damage Republicans far more often than DemocRATS despite the fact that PF tends to choose about as many stories dealing with Republicans as for DemocRATS. If the selection process were blind, then either proportions should be approximately even or else the party with worse ratings should receive more ratings overall according to what PolitiFact lists as its selection criteria.