Breitbart News analyzed the Washington Post fact check column for all of 2015 and found that so far this year Republicans and their claims have been targeted twice as often as Democrats and their claims. A good faith search revealed that over almost four full months, Republicans (this includes Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu) were fact-checked a total of 32 times. Democrats were fact-checked only 16 times.
Fact checked claims also fell along the same 2-to-1 partisan line. Four claims from the left received fact checks, compared to nine from the right. A “claim” falls along the lines of Republicans claiming each household has a $15,000 regulatory burden, Obama issued 300 new rules in a single week, the cost of health care under ObamaCare, etc.
As we reported last week, one Washington Post fact check against Ted Cruz had nothing to do with facts. What Cruz said was objectively true. Nonetheless, Cruz was taunted by the Post because the fact-checker found what Cruz said “ridiculous.” Over the course of this year, Breitbart News found that not a single Democrat was subjected to a fact check that even came close to this gratuitous attack on Cruz.
Hillary Clinton has not been awarded a single Pinocchio.
Seven fact-checks were politically neutral.
Of the 32 Republican fact-checks, only 2 were judged as true. No Democrat fact-checks are judged true. None of the Republican (or Democrat) claims were judged as true.
We found one especially noxious fact-check that involves a trick the mainstream media has played for 7 years to defend President Obama from all of the disturbing associations in his past. Because Obama never would have become president, the media never vetted him. For example: The same media that pummeled Mitt Romney over tax returns the IRS had already seen, never said a word about Obama’s decision to seal his college records.
Further, the same Washington Post that brutalized Romney over a 50 year-old haircut, and Rick Perry over a 25 year-old rock, has never given any in-depth coverage to Obama’s association with admitted communist Frank Marshall Davis — that is, until the Post could call Giuliani a liar for bringing the subject up.
This is a trick the media has consistently used to downplay Obama’s troubling past. Obama’s terrifying associations are ignored until a Republican can be accused of overreach or racism. It is a brilliant media tactic to make Obama palling around with domestic terrorists and racist preachers look like a nothingburger.
Glenn Kessler is the editor of the fact check column and has always been responsive to Breitbart News. We asked him about our findings and he said that the four-month time frame we chose to look at “is too small.” He added, “You started at the beginning of the year, and that is kind of like flipping a coin 20 times and using that to determine the result of flipping a coin 100 times.”
Kessler also admitted, though, that…
[W]e are entering the campaign season and unfortunately—from my perspective–there are many more Republicans running for president than Democrats. Greater scrutiny is given to candidates because they are making speeches, giving interviews etc.—and readers are constantly requesting fact checks on what they say. …
I have no control over how many candidates are on each side. I personally would love another factcheckable Democratic primary match like Obama versus Clinton. It’s not only good for business but good for voters.
When Breitbart News asked if high-profile Democrats like Martin O’Malley (who is considering a run against Hillary), Jerry Brown, and Elizabeth Warren might offset this issue, Kessler wrote, ” I hear you. We are looking at O’Malley, Warren, etc. I certainly would welcome suggestions from your readers. We can’t possibly see everything and miss a lot.”
“You need to look at a whole year to be fair,” Kessler repeated.
While we appreciate Kessler’s response and encourage our readers to make suggestions to him, in a world that now has more than one news-cycle per day, being told during a presidential election to wait a year for editorial balance is far from comforting.
John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC
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