One reason many Americans don’t trust those “fact checker” websites is because to know them is to see right through their incessant liberal worldview. These impartial arbiters of truth routinely defend Democrats as being “Mostly True” on everything, while savaging Republicans as just the opposite. It's not just Trump, mind you. It's Cruz, and Santorum, and Gingrich, and pretty much anyone who challenges liberal orthodoxy.
So it was maddening that NBC News put its “fact checker” Jane Timm on the first Democrat debate, who then proclaimed on their “NBC News Now” live-stream that “we had a pretty clean debate.” No errors? Timm proceeded to support Julian Castro when he “tied the tragic death of that father and daughter to Trump’s own immigration policies. We checked that, it is true!”
“Trump policies kill immigrants” is graded as True? That, according to NBC, is a natural consequence from following the rule of law.
MSNBC viewers woke up to Joe Scarborough touting how incredibly the Democrats were. “Not only were they talking substantive policy, but also, making it a very boring night for Fact Checkers who haven't slept for two and a half years!” There was laughter, and applause from the breakfast crowd he assembled for his show. Joe’s wife Mika Brzezinski chimed in: “They took the night off!” MSNBC analyst Eddie Glaude seconded the emotion, oozing the Democrats brought “fact-based reality” to their policy talk.
The “independent fact-checkers” at PolitiFact issued seven fact-check tweets during the first debate. Check the tilt of these rulings, delivered after each candidate spoke:
1. Beto O’Rourke: Half True.
2. Cory Booker: True.
3. Booker: Half True.
4. Beto O’Rourke: Mostly True.
5. Julian Castro: Mostly True.
6. Elizabeth Warren: Mostly True.
7. Booker: Mostly True.
The same happened on Thursday: Bernie was True and then Half True, John Hickenlooper was True, Pete Buttigieg was True, and Michael Bennet was "basically right."
That certainly sounds like “taking the night off.” Nothing stated by these socialists with their the-earth-is-dying-and-it's-rich-people's-fault screaming scare tactics was controversial, even questionable?
PolitiFact actually boasted on Twitter during the debate that “We’ve been fact-checking @EWarren since 2014. She has never received a rating lower than Half True.” How is that possible? Easy. For one, they’ve never issued a “Truth-O-Meter” ruling on Warren claiming to be part Cherokee Indian.
Warren and Ted Cruz were both elected to the U.S. Senate in 2012. But through 2018, Warren was assessed seven times, all favorably. Cruz was evaluated on 139 statements – roughly 20 times as often! In 2018, as both ran for re-election, PolitiFact evaluated Cruz 16 times...and Warren zero.
Doesn’t this underline how these “independents” think liberals are incapable of dishonesty and conservatives lie once a minute?
Let’s give one cheer for The Washington Post Fact Checker, which found several glaring falsehoods in the first debate. Beto O’Rourke claimed that Purdue Pharma, the maker of the opioid OxyContin, has “been able to act with complete impunity and pay no consequences.” Wrong. In March, they “agreed to pay a $270 million civil settlement in Oklahoma and faces lawsuits around the country.” (FactCheck.org also tagged Beto on that one.)
Rep. Tim Ryan claimed the top one percent in America controls 90 percent of the wealth. The Post team said no, it’s 40 percent. Ryan was only wrong by 50 percent!
Our favorite whopper of the night was Julian Castro asserting a “trans female” should have a right to an abortion, when a “trans female” is male, born without a uterus.
Anyone who gets through a Democrat debate and pronounces it’s “pretty clean,” implying every utterance was true, cannot be taken seriously as nonpartisan and independent.
