Politifact yesterday earned itself a “Pants on Fire” award for declaring the statement that “Republicans voted to end Medicare” is the Lie of the Year. It isn’t. Here’s why.
So much has been written on Politfact’s decision to enter into the world of fake balance and opinion-posing-as-fact journalism. As a publisher and as a journalist, I applaud the words of Steve Bennen, Steve Bennen again, Dave Weigel, Matt Yglesias, Jamison Foser,  Igor Volsky, Paul Krugman, John Hudson, Digby, Jonathan Chait, Jamelle Bouie, Brian Beutler, and Greg Sargent.
Read all their thoughts, if you haven’t already.
Here’s a roundup. The top 10 facts about Politfact’s Lie:
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Matt Yglesias:
“House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan has spent the better part of this month running a ballot-stuffing campaign to get Politifact to label Democratic claims that he wants to “end Medicare” labeled as their “lie of the year” and today he succeeded as Politifact be clowns itself.” -
Jamison Foser:
“This is nonsensical hair-splitting. Medicare isn’t a broad concept; it’s a specific, concrete program. Ending it “as we know it” is ending it. Otherwise, ending it would require ending it as we don’t know it, which would be a neat trick.” -
Jamison Foser:
“False balance has the effect of a thumb on the scale in favor of the less meritorious position. Treating a falsehood and the truth as though they are equivalent gives lies — and the people who tell them — an advantage in the marketplace of ideas. It encourages politicians who lie to continue to lie, and those who tell the truth to start lying.” -
Brian Beutler:
“The reaction from Republicans has been muted so far — a sign, perhaps, that they don’t want to reopen this old wound. But back in their districts, when constituents grill them, Republicans will now have a compelling citation. It just happens to be a sham.” -
Steve Bennen:
“Medicare is a single-payer health care system offering guaranteed benefits to seniors. The House Republican budget plan intended to privatize the existing system and replace it with something very different — a voucher scheme. It would still be called ‘Medicare,’ but it wouldn’t be Medicare.It seems foolish to have to parse the meaning of the word ‘end,’ but if there’s a program, and it’s replaced with a different program, proponents brought an end to the original program. That’s what the verb means. I’ve been trying to think of the best analogy for this. How about this one: imagine someone owns a Ferrari. It’s expensive and drives beautifully, and the owner desperately wants to keep his car intact. Now imagine I took the car away, removed the metallic badge off the trunk that says ‘Ferrari,’ I stuck it on a golf cart, and I handed the owner the keys.“’Where’s my Ferrari?’ the owner would ask.“’It’s right here,’ I’d respond. ‘This has four wheels, a steering wheel, and pedals, and it says ‘Ferrari’ right there on the back.'”By PolitiFact’s reasoning, I haven’t actually replaced the car — and if you disagree, you’re a pants-on-fire liar.” -
Greg Sargent:
“I think there’s still a way of persuading Politifact that they erred. Here’s why: Even if you agree with PolitiFact that the GOP plan wouldn’t have “ended†Medicare, the Dem claim that this is the case still can’t be shown to be a “lie.†That’s because this disagreement ultimately comes down to differing interpretations of known facts — and not to a difference over the facts themselves.” -
Jonathan Chait:
“Does the Republican plan indeed end Medicare? I would argue yes. But it’s obviously a question of interpretation, not fact. And the whole problem with Politifact’s “Lie of the Year†is that it doesn’t grasp this distinction. Politifact doesn’t even seem to understand the criteria for judging whether a claim is a question of opinion or a question of fact, let alone whether it is true.” -
Paul Krugman:
“The answer is, of course, obvious: the people at Politifact are terrified of being considered partisan if they acknowledge the clear fact that there’s a lot more lying on one side of the political divide than on the other. So they’ve bent over backwards to appear ‘balanced’ — and in the process made themselves useless and irrelevant.” -
Greg Sargent via Twitter :
“If I bought Politifact and converted it into a direct mail enterprise, and you said I ended Politifact, you would be Liar of the Year.†- Finally, many who have written about this Politifact scandal have cited Politifact’s own reader poll — the one that was ballot-box stuffed by Paul Ryan — and suggested that it was from those top three lies — “elected,” as it were, by the general public, from which Politifact chose their “winner.”Politifact’s editor Bill Adair at 12:01 am on December 20 published “How we chose the 2011 Lie of the Year,” and in the second paragraph from the top clearly states, “How we chose the 2011 Lie of the Year.”Then, Adair spends the majority of the rest of the column detailing the readers’ votes process and results, and strongly suggests — really, leads readers to believe — Politifact chose the “winner” from the readers’ list, not from their total list of finalists.
But now, Adair is walking back that obvious suggestion, and claiming the “winner” came from the finalists list.
Really?
