Posted on 07/20/2016 10:08:36 AM PDT by Kaslin
When FBI Director James Comey came before the press to deliver his bizarre proclamation -- that Hillary Clinton had lied relentlessly about her private email server but shouldn't be prosecuted because no prosecutor would ever dare take her to court (even though prosecutors all over the country rose to say they'd do so immediately) -- many were shocked and angered. One industry was thoroughly embarrassed: the media-elite "fact-checker" websites and projects, from PolitiFact to FactCheck.org to The Washington Post's Fact Checker column.
These so-called guardians of truth felt forced to revise and upgrade their "Pinocchio" counts to reflect the fact that so many pivotal things Clinton had claimed about her emails turned out to be falsehoods. It's all well and good that they had to change their rulings, but how effective were these watchdogs in the first place?
James Taranto of The Wall Street Journal describes the problem well: "Frequently they accuse politicians of dishonesty because the journalists favor a different interpretation of facts that are not in dispute. Sometimes their 'rulings' are mere opinions on matters about which they do not know the facts, or that are not factual questions at all."
This was seriously underlined on the first night of the Republican National Convention. Patricia Smith -- the mother of Sean Smith, who died in the terrorist attack on our consulate in Benghazi, Libya, on Sept. 11, 2012 -- gave an impassioned speech, tearing into Clinton for lying. "For all of this loss, for all of this grief, for all of the cynicism the tragedy in Benghazi has wrought upon America, I blame Hillary Clinton. I blame Hillary Clinton personally for the death of my son."
This could not stand. PolitiFact put a picture of this angry mother on their home page with the headline "Checking Patricia Smith's claims about Clinton and Benghazi." The suggestion? Smith probably told some whoppers on the floor in Cleveland.
But the article that followed was, to borrow from Taranto, "mere opinions on matters about which they do not know the facts." PolitiFact creator Bill Adair wrote, "We can't put Smith's claims on the Truth-O-Meter. But here, we'll lay out the case for and against the allegations against Clinton and let readers come to their own conclusion."
When the review of what the survivors of the four men lost in Benghazi said was finished, PolitiFact merely threw up its hands, claiming that none of these grieving relatives can really be trusted as reliable providers of fact.
"It is impossible to know with certainty what Clinton told these families in brief conversations at a private reception only three days after Benghazi. Some, but not all, family members who have spoken to the media said Clinton mentioned a video or protests in their meeting. Some said she didn't mention a video. Clinton says she did not."
To Politi-"Fact," Clinton's record of lying about her server doesn't tilt the scales of credibility. In another article on Monday night, the website suggested grieving relatives might have "fuzzy" memories. Adair even suggested that even if Clinton was incorrect, she might not have been lying: "If she did say something about the video, would it have been an intentional lie? It's very possible that this is one of the many conflicting pieces of intelligence that the administration was working with at the time."
Adair claimed no one can really claim Clinton lied: "There simply is not enough concrete information in the public domain for Rubio or anyone to claim as fact that Clinton did or did not lie to the Benghazi families."
Adair and his ilk aren't fact-checking in any way. They're masquerading in fact-checker costumes to engage in shameless speculation, blather and spin favoring democrats.
Hillary For Prison 2016
Bill Adaire is the liar who tells everyone if someone is lying.
Clinton and Obama lied to the NATION on TV about the video being the cause of Benghazi. She lied to the video producer and jailed him for nothing. They made a commercial about it for Pakistan TV for some freakish reason.
And the media DOUBTS this bitch lied to the dead heroes’ MOM?????
Wow. Just, wow.
There is no BOTTOM with these people, is there? They’ll go as low as they can, and then they’ll keep right on digging!
Sure wish the Enemy Media put those skills to work on Hillary! and her phony baloney ‘charity.’
*SPIT*
So far, they’re saying Hillary had nothing to do with it. That’s what kids will be taught in school, but before long they will be casting doubt on the entire incident. Wasn’t this started by some terrible YouTube video? Which “facts” will history remember and record?
There is NOT ONE member of the PolitiFact team that’s conservative. Everyone of them is liberal democrat... and about as ‘objective’ as the New York Times or Washington Post.
Someone at the convention had a sign Hillary For Prison 2016
They have been chanting “Lock her UP” about Hillary from the convention floor. Loved it.
Usually contemporaneous notes, in real time, on scene, carry a lot of weight. There were contemporaneous notes made by family members - not given any weight to the so-called investigative reporters. Perhaps Hillary's head injury, brain surgery, and multiple falls are catching up with her - and confirms Huma's comments in the released emails that Hilary is often "confused". So, who do we believe?
Soon they will reappear in China.
Her political days may be quite numbered now.
“Flog a mocker, and the simple fools will learn wisdom” — holy bible
OK, so why doesn’t FR or some similar group spin off a fact checking site where people can find the documented facts instead of opinions. It seems that most of the current fact checking sites have liberal to very liberal propagandists doing and publishing the “fact checking” -— but since there isn’t an alternative who can we blame people from believing the only information offered?!?
SECRETARY CLINTON: Thank you very much, Chaplain. Mr. President, Mr. Vice President, Secretary Panetta, Ambassador Rice, Secretary Powell and Mrs. Powell, family members of the four patriots and heroes we bring home, members of the State Department family, ladies and gentlemen, today we bring home four Americans...
This has been a difficult week for the State Department and for our country. We’ve seen the heavy assault on our post in Benghazi that took the lives of those brave men. We’ve seen rage and violence directed at American embassies over an awful internet video that we had nothing to do with. (13:12)
http://www.state.gov/secretary/20092013clinton/rm/2012/09/197780.htm
video (Clinton's statement begins at 7:13 mark):
http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid1336128748001?bckey=AQ~~,AAAAAGWqYgE~,KxHPzbPALrG119kxMLhATbeQKohSc4Zs&bctid=1841326614001
There is Conservapedia.com
Mrs Smith did NOT lie.
RIP, Sean and all victims of the Clinton Crime Family.
As soon as I saw them “fact checking” things that they couldn’t possibly verify I stopped listening to them. I’ve seen many instances of “facts” that are mere opinions without the necessary insight into the data to make such a conclusion.
Did anybody REALLY think that just because a group calls themselves “fact checkers” that they’d be anything but just another political front with a bias? With so many lies out there I’m just supposed to say, “oh, but the fact checkers say it is true!”??? They’re just another means of controlling useful idiots.
“The Ballad of Hillary Clinton” - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5dTsCMXqkc
The FACT is that Hillary told Chelsea that very night that it was an Al Qaeda terrorist operation, and then later lied to the families of the victims about the video. That isn’t opinion or speculation, it’s a documentable FACT.
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