Politifact isn’t known for being the most friendly of “fact checking” websites when it comes to right-leaning individuals. Put an “R” next to your name and you’ll more than likely get more negative ratings on your statements than positive ones.
Unless you’re Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.). Apparently, Ocasio-Cortez is so bad at telling the truth that even Politifact can’t give her a break.
So far, the fact-checking website has had to cover six of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s claims and rate all of them “False” with the exception of two, one of which rates “Pants On Fire” and one rated “Mostly True.”
@AOC in a photo pic.twitter.com/ho9D9avPRG
— Brandon Morse (@TheBrandonMorse) January 25, 2019
Funny enough, Ocasio-Cortez sees no problem with lying so long as she’s morally correct, as she informed Anderson Cooper.
“If people want to really blow up one figure here or one word there, I would argue that they’re missing the forest for the trees. I think that there’s a lot of people more concerned about being precisely, factually, and semantically correct than about being morally right,” said the democratic socialist.
This essentially is AOC pardoning AOC for lying, so long as she’s lying in the name of her Utopia.
The lying is so bad that fact-checkers are having a hard time getting around not addressing them, which forces them to do their jobs, which in turn makes Ocasio-Cortez angry with them, and prompts her to consider a friendly media her enemy. The New York freshman Democrat has spent a few tweets publicly lashing out at fact checkers including the Washington Post and Politifact, who have both answered her.
She accused Politifact specifically of targeting her lies while ignoring the true things she says. Politifact publicly responded.
We do spell out our process for selecting what facts we check. You can see it here https://t.co/M6EVP3A7Qh
tl;dr version: We focus on significant statements likely to be repeated by others that we think people will question whether or not the information is true.
— PolitiFact (@PolitiFact) January 7, 2019
The Washington Post itself responded to AOC complaining that she’s getting fact checked just like Sarah Sanders is. WaPo fact checkers responded by telling her that a whopper is a whopper whether or not it’s said by an R or a D.
There *is* a rubric. (https://t.co/xid950SVr7)
A whopper is a whopper whether a D is misleading about funding for Medicare-for-all or an R about deaths in Puerto Rico. Trump doesn't think he deserves as many Pinocchios as we give him, either. https://t.co/uuYajrxPfd
— Sal Rizzo (@rizzoTK) January 7, 2019
Of course, she didn’t take kindly to having her lies called “whoppers.”
Thank you for sharing @washingtonpost’s rubric!
Except the standard for “4 Pinocchios” just says: “Whoppers.”
That’s it. “Whoppers.” As an official fact checking standard.
Cheeky, but really not okay to be held to a jokey standard when 45 is advancing conspiracy theories. https://t.co/eNw4e8jhIu
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) January 7, 2019
On Thursday, AOC got into a fight with fact checkers again, this time trying to call them out on being funded by interest groups who would, of course, want to make her look bad because they’re evil capitalists.
If the point of fact-checking is to enforce some objective standard, why would @GlennKesslerWP use a Walmart-funded think tank as reference material for wage fairness?
That’s like citing the foxes to fact-check the hens.
Here’s 4 Geppettos for your contested Pinocchios 👨🏼👨🏼👨🏼👨🏼 https://t.co/uERpcjqvwT
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) January 24, 2019
Of course, Washington Posts Glenn Kessler corrected her assertion, noting that the man doing the fact checking was actually an Obama staffer who tackles income inequality all the time and that he was just using basic economics as a guide for facts.
Check the name of the author: Jason Furman, chairman of Council of Economic Advisers under Obama. He's someone I have known for 20+ years and he is simply citing some basic economics. I included the link only because his discussion of the economics was detailed and thorough.
— Glenn Kessler (@GlennKesslerWP) January 24, 2019
He also included some caveats which were too complex to include in that section of the fact check. So I included the link so readers could learn more. But focus on the author — who in his time in govt spent a lot time on addressing income inequality.
— Glenn Kessler (@GlennKesslerWP) January 24, 2019
The reason AOC is salty about being called out is because, like most socialist leaders, in order to create some kind of Utopia, you first have to be looked at as a flawless leader capable of leading people to said Utopia. Problem is, Utopia can’t exist and even promised lands have their hardships. Israelites can tell you that, and Moses would highlight a few of his mistakes on the asking.
Ocasio-Cortez doesn’t, and shouldn’t get special treatment no matter how much she complains.
But her complaints highlight the fact that she expected special treatment from the media, and she’s obviously upset that she’s not getting it. That’s revealing about a few things, not only about her but the media.
Still, if your lies are so big that even they can’t defend you, maybe scale it back a bit.
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