Politifact's 2011 Lie of the Year

The specific lie is the implication that CURRENT seniors are going to be thrown to the wolves. That much is, admittedly, a blatant lie.

OK, that much is probably a lie.

But their explanation of this goes far beyond that. In any case, it's less of an outright lie (like the one I gave on the last page) and more like a lie of omission. Which I more blame the sound-byte nature of politics rather than any individual. (And that goes the other way as well)

edited 24th Dec '11 4:08:24 PM by Karmakin

Well, if everyone who looked at Politifact *actually read the articles* there wouldn't be a problem.

My main objection with Poltifact is the complete absence of any real ARGUMENT. They just say "lulz, liberals want special treatment" and don't actually respond to the arguments.

Credibility means admitting when you're wrong. Look at Jon Stewart. He has twice been wrong as called out by Politifact and has owned up to it both times.

edited 24th Dec '11 4:48:29 PM by TheyCallMeTomu

Grumble grumble History Channel grumble.

Anyway, the selection is reasonable if you're going purely by how widespread the claim is. It's just weird because the term Lie OF The Year implies that it is well, a lie.

A little more detail.

God that makes me angry.

So what I'm getting from this thread is Politifact basically screwed their "objective" credibility and is the equivalent of any activist or news organization in terms of accuracy?

Naw, that would be a serious overreaction. A lot of people feel that they flubbed on this one, but that doesn't automatically sink them down to the levels of lol that is standard news sources. As noted, their actual ARTICLES are still great content - and they actually bother to report on relevant news instead of sensationalism.

(And merry Christmas!)

edited 25th Dec '11 7:28:10 AM by Karkadinn

I think what we're getting is that anything out of Politifact should be taken on a case by case basis.

Which is what you should do with everything anyways.

Yeah. I mean, the one thing I agree with Tom on is that we shouldn't just reject something from Fox News on the basis that it's from Fox News. Likewise, he shouldn't just reject something from, say, Media Matters (O Reiley: MEDIA MATTERS!) on the basis of it being from Media Matters.

Poltifact is full of shit when they bitch about the Echo Chamber. The echo chamber is not a problem by virtue of its being an echo chamber. The echo chamber is a problem by virtue of its reinforcing falsehoods. Having true reasonable positions be reinforced is not a problem. Having false reasonable positions rejected is not a problem.

It's like saying "Teach the controversy!" on the topic of evolution, and objecting to academics only hanging out with academics, and not listening to creationists. It's absurd.

edited 25th Dec '11 7:44:04 AM by TheyCallMeTomu

I think it seems most like "lie of the year" is just an unfortunate title. Like, it seems like "90% of what Planned Parenthood does is abortions" should be it because it's such a whopper, but it wasn't repeated much because even people who supported defunding Planned Parenthood knew it was so ridiculous. Something that's a lie of omission, like "the republicans want to end Medicare" when really it's medicare as we know it while yeah, it's not good, and it was repeated more often because it was closer to the truth, and could have become inaccurate due to telephoning.

Perhaps it seems like "Lie Of The Year" should not be a title that should be taken so seriously and should therefore go to the most ridiculous lie rather than the most pervasive lie.

The reason why the "lie" was repeated was because of the political impact of the statement, not because it was close to the truth.

Also, it's funny that they haven't called any actual news sources as having false results in regards to the "Lie of the Year"-only your standard political commercials.

And the Vice President...