One of the routine ways the "independent fact checkers" demonstrate a liberal bias is by leaping to attack conservatives for making a rhetorical flourish on cable news. On Tuesday, PolitiFact threw a Pants On Fire" verdict at former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley for saying no government is protesting the killing of Iranian terrorist mastermind Qasem Soleimani, only Democrats are "mourning the loss of Soleimani."
HALEY: You don't see anyone standing up for Iran. You're not hearing any of the Gulf members. You're not hearing China, you're not hearing Russia. Not hearing China or Russia. The only ones mourning the loss of Soleimani are our Democrat leadership and Democrat presidential candidates. No one else in the world. Because they knew that this man had evil veins. They knew what he was capable of, and they saw the destruction and the lives lost based from his hands.
PolitiFact's Louis Jacobson and Amy Sherman then dutifully listed top Democrat leaders saying Soleimani was a bad guy, but. It's true that the Democrats didn't wear black and go into mourning. But they intensely criticized the military action.
It's also not strictly factual for Democrats to say Trump is Hitler. Or Putin's puppet. But those kinds of statements are very rarely noticed by the PolitiFact squad.
Jacobson and Sherman strongly editorialized in their verdict:
Haley said the Democratic leadership and presidential candidates "are mourning the loss of Soleimani."
That’s a complete fabrication. Most of the top congressional Democrats and the leading candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination have gone out of their way to say that Soleimani was a bad actor who is responsible for many deaths, including deaths of Americans. The few top Democrats who didn’t go out of their way to say something along those lines simply ignored him in their statements.
Haley’s statement is ridiculous. Pants on Fire!
A review of PolitiFact "Truth-o-Meter" rulings shows that no Democrats have been tagged for making wild or false statements on the subject of the Soleimani strike.
House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy said Speaker Nancy Pelosi was lying when she claimed the nonbinding House resolution about the War Powers Act had "real teeth." It didn't, even if journalists puffed it up as a "powerful" action.
Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar tweeted that Trump would be guilty of "war crimes" if he targeted Iranian cultural sites. AOC called him a "monster." Would PolitiFact rule "It's a complete fabrication to say Trump is a monster. He's actually fully human."
Rep. Jackie Speier went on CNN and claimed Iran shooting down a passenger jet was "collateral damage" of Trump's attack on Soleimani. Those go unchecked.
For demonstrating an emotional knee-jerk reaction in defense of Democrats -- while ignoring wild things Democrats say -- we rule PolitiFact is Half Baked.
