Politifact Rates Accurate Figure from Romney Only Half True

Politifact, which was one of the “fact-checking” sites that emerged after the Swift Boat Veterans exposed John Kerry, has revealed that it’s stumping for Barack Obama again.

Mitt Romney has a new ad stating that Massachusetts unemployment at the end of his term was 4.7%–a rather simple statement, one would think. As James Thurber would say,” you could look it up.” Politifact did so and found that the number was accurate. They then concluded that Romney’s claim was “half true.”

And how did Politifact reach this convoluted conclusion?

First, they snidely disparaged the ad for images of Romney “gladhandling” with factory employees. Briefly mentioning that the Bureau of Labor Statistics data confirmed Romney’s claim, they immediately move on to the fact that the national economy also showed signs of lower unemployment.

Then they deride Romeny’s impact, stating, “it’s important to note, as we often do, that governors have limited impact on a state’s economy … As for Romney’s impact, economists have consistently told us that policies of a governor have a relatively small effect on a state’s economy.”

And just which economists do they quote? Try these: Michael Widmer, president of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, who served in the first Dukakis administration as the Governor’s Director of Communications and Deputy Chief Secretary, and Gary Burtless, from the left-wing  Brookings Institution, who just happened to contribute $750 to Obama’s campaign in 2011.

But Politifact has been stumping for Obama for years. They reported that Obama presided over the slowest federal spending growth of any president when that was palpably false.

They claimed that women appear to have lost more jobs than men because the male job losses “had already taken place before Obama took office.” That claim was supported by one former Obama official and one Obama donor.

Unemployment was at 4.7% when Romney left office. That’s a fact. And no amount of spinning for Obama will change the truth.