Posted on 12/22/2015 7:52:48 AM PST by Isara
Sen. Ted Cruz's team is accusing the Washington Post of engaging in "yellow journalism" this week after its fact checker awarded the Texas lawmaker "four Pinocchios" for an ad that says Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., supported a bill that would have allowed Islamic terrorists into the United States.
"Cruz writes in his book that there's a new form of yellow journalism called 'fact-checking,' which is really just another way for liberals to attack conservatives," campaign spokesman Brian Phillips told the Washington Examiner's media desk.
He also accused the Post of "attacking [Cruz] with false claims so that they can get the ad pulled down."
"[The Post] is going after the ad so that the ad gets pulled down. Just understand, that what's going on," Phillips said.
The latest salvo in the escalating war of words between the two 2016 primary opponents involves a campaign ad knocking Rubio for supporting for the failed 2013 immigration bill. The legislation, which was put together by a group of Republican and Democratic senators known more commonly as the "Gang of Eight," ultimately failed in the Congress.
However, if the bill backed by Rubio passed, it would've given the Obama administration the authority to allow thousands of Middle East refugees, including Islamic jihadists, into the United States without requiring background checks of any sort, according to Cruz.
"Their misguided [Gang of Eight immigration] plan would have given President Obama the authority to admit Syrian refugees, including ISIS terrorists. That's just wrong," the Texas senator said in a commercial now airing in Iowa.
Various media fact checkers, including factcheck.org and PolitiFact, have already rated the thrust of Cruz's argument as "false," but the Texas senator does not appear to be backing away from it, and the Post's fact checker is not impressed.
"Politicians often hone their talking points to make them easy to digest and understand. But Cruz's new ad is an example of a false talking point that has been honed to the point of ridiculousness," the Post's Glen Kessler wrote Monday, awarding Cruz the lowest grade possible.
The Post fact checker then called attention to longer comments that Cruz made to reporters on Nov. 19, in which he said the bill would have given the president "blanket authority to admit Syrian refugees, tens of thousands of them, without mandating any meaningful background checks whatsoever."
Cruz's claim is based primarily on articles authored by the Conservative Review's Daniel Horowitz, who maintains that little-known provisions in the "Gang of Eight" bill would've "opened the floodgates to Islamic refugees."
As proof of his assertion, Horowitz cited a section of the 2013 immigration bill that reads, "This section would allow the small number of individuals in the United States, who have no nationality through no fault of their own, to apply for lawful status if they are not inadmissible under criminal or security grounds."
The Post vigorously rejected Horowitz's arguments.
"[T]his provision applies to people who are already in the United States," Kessler wrote, citing the bill's committee report.
The Conservative Review author also said another section of the immigration bill "would have granted Obama broad authority to create entire classes of refugees by categorically declaring them eligible based on humanitarian grounds."
Again, the Post disagreed.
"As the conference report states, this is simply a codification of something known as the Lautenberg amendment, which was enacted in 1990 as a rider in an appropriations bill and, thus, must be renewed each year," Kessler wrote. "The provision eases the burden of proof for the applicant after the State Department has invited a particular group to apply for refugee status for reasons of 'humanitarian concern,' such as religious persecution."
Cruz is therefore wrong to say that Rubio tried to broaden the president's authority and make it possible to permit Islamic terrorists into the United States, according to Kessler.
"With or without the Senate immigration bill, Obama had the authority to admit refugees, from any country, under the Refugee Act of 1980, as long as they are refugees and are admissible. Every president since the passage of the law ... has exercised that right repeatedly for hundreds of thousands of refugees," he wrote.
"What does ISIS have to do with it? Nothing. Terrorists are not admissible under the laws of the United States," he added.
Kessler concluded, "In this ad, Cruz has taken a ridiculous claim and brought it to new heights of absurdity."
However, both Horowitz and Phillips say the Post is way off the mark.
"There are two major problems," said Cruz's campaign spokesman, explaining that they were the ones who pointed Kessler in Horowitz's direction. "The first one is that [Kessler] doesn't actually fact check the ad. He starts with the ad, but then he uses a quote from a press gaggle that Cruz gave at one point."
"The second part is that, at the very end of his article, he actually argues that what we said in the ad is correct. That, in fact, the president already has the powers, already has that authority. ... He actually affirms that what was said is true in the ad," Phillips added, referring to powers that Cruz said would have been expanded under the failed 2013 immigration law.
Horowitz piled on, accusing Kessler of approaching the fact check in bad faith.
"[Kessler] came in with a premise. He came with an agenda. He didn't want to hear a word I had to say," he told the Examiner. "He just didn't care, and I wasn't going to convince him. I sensed from him he was going all political on me."
Horowitz said that he tried to explain to Kessler the Conservative Review articles cited by Cruz, but eventually gave up because he "literally did not know how to respond" to the Post reporter's inquiries. "I don't understand what [Kessler's] fact-checking. He throws in a bunch of things that he never addresses," Horowitz said.
"They have an agenda. They'll focus on two or three points in a very hyper-literalist ... way," he added. "And they do it on purpose and then they do that to just open that whole and create their own narrative, and throw three or four loosely related things in and then they got their story on you."
Rubio's team, for its part, maintains that Cruz's ad is simply false.
"It's not just false ads. It's also false statements. Senator Cruz is not being straightforward with voters about his own past proposal to give legal status to illegal immigrants," Rubio spokesman Alex Conant told the Examiner's media desk.
"Senator Cruz should be truthful about his own positions before attacking somebody else's," he added.
But Team Cruz has no intention of backing off the claim, multiple media fact checks notwithstanding. "We're going to keep with it because what Ted Cruz said is accurate," Phillips told the Examiner.
Kessler did not respond to a request for comment.
Note which candidate is working with the lying MSM.
It’s a shame that Sen. Cruz has to respond to such a sleazebag rag.
“Fact Checker” distorts claim.
Asserts false claim, falsely attributed to conservative, is false.
Claims conservative is lying.
“Fact Checker” is lying.
These awards for lying is the new liberal strategy. Just proclaim that a politician has lied x number of times. Give them degrees of lying with cutesy names, etc.
Exactly. If the immigration dweeb has "probable cause" to go into the refugee's wallet, and he finds their ISIS membership card, by golly, they are not coming in.
How many time has the Compost noted Hitlery or O-hole’s lies? Yeah, that’s what I thought... POS libtard rag.
Fact checkers need fact checking.
Much closer to Red than Yellow.
“Fact check” -> “stack the deck”
Stack the deck (dictionary.reference.com):
to arrange cards or a pack of cards so as to cheat:
He stacked the deck and won every hand.
to manipulate events, information, etc., especially unethically, in order to achieve an advantage or desired result.
Exactly. Who is fact checking the “fact checkers”?
It is a hyper-extension of grade school logic, but accurate.
Who pays any attention to The Washington Post? They do not report news. Only political advocacy.
I like the fact that he got the term ‘yellow journalism’ out there. He should use it often. Everybody should. This article is yellow journalism at its most insidious.
Accurate description.
They claimed the reports on Obama Care were wrong too. Almost all have proven to be true. So take their “fact” checking with a grain of salt.
If the Washington Post says something, believe the opposite.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.