2013.12.12 Obama and Politifact share lie of the year

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From 2008-2013 Politifact rated Obamacare's "If you like your plan, you can keep your Health Plan" (or Doctor) promises as true, and rated everyone who called it untrue, as a liar (on their truth-o-meter). In 2013, they finally admitted that it was a lie all along, and it was the lie of the year (4 years late). But they didn't fix all the times they called anyone else a liar who had said it was false: in fact, they mislead people (lied) by linking back to some select articles where they had called other people a liar, by rating it as only partly true -- and didn't fix those articles. So they lied, then admitting the truth when it was too late, then lied about lying in the first place.


PolitiFact gives themselves lie of the year

  1. Politifact rated Obamacare's 'Keep Your Health Plan' promise as "True]" in 2008[1]
  2. In 2013 they rated it, "Pants on Fire" and "Lie of the Year]".[2]
  3. But then they lied about it by referencing the 2009 or 2012 articles where they rated it "half true"... which is half true, since they rated it completely true in 2008. [3]

and they "forgot" to point that out, or all the times they (or they were used) to call anyone a liar who said that you couldn't actually keep your plan (as it was)

So they were wrong (biased) about Obama in 2008, then biased in 2013 by not admitting their bias of 2008 and telling the whole truth about their history of that claim.

Then they ignore that for the last 5 years, they dinged Republicans dozens of times as "Half True" (or worse), for pointing out that Obama's claim was proving to be false and likely to get worse. They didn't go back and correct the record for | Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus or Mitt Romney in | June or | October of 2012 -- leaving their "false" claim to impugn the reputation of a politician that was telling the truth they didn't want to hear. Not that it would matter, the harm had been done during an election, which is what was important.

In case the fact that they eventually corrected the record gives you some sense of vindication that at least they can eventually be embarrassed into doing the right thing, remember the context: they didn't even have "if you like your plan" as one of the choices on their poll. But so many readers complained that it was reluctantly added (despite them trying to bury the lede)... and then to their frustration, it won their reader poll, and by so much that they had to add it as their lie of the year. So this wasn't exactly PolitiFact being honest or introspective, it was more a reader revolt holding them accountable.


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