Why Fact Checking Matters In The Debate
If past is prelude Donald Trump will lie at least 18 times during the debate tonight. Simple math, the debate is 90 minutes long, Trump will speak half the time , and he has been found to lie , on average, once every two and a half minutes on the campaign trail.
The Clinton campaign wants the moderator or the networks to fact check the debate. Trump says that would be unfair.
Just think about that, and what it says about Trump's definition of fairness. When it was even suggested that the moderator might 'fact check' , Trump lied and said the moderator, Lester Holt is a Democrat (Holt is a Republican). So Trump lied about the circumstances of the moderator fact checking his lies. Whaddya know?
The Trump camp wants him to be able to stand up there and lie a couple dozen times, often about very significant issues, and have that sent into the national television audience of 100 million people with no objective rebuttal. Sure Clinton can fact check him but run the risk of looking "scolding" or as if she is "nit picking" him.
Trump's entire campaign is based on the presumption that the audience are chumps. How many people will look tomorrow to see the op- eds describing all Trump's lies from the night before? The same 100 million that watched the debate? Not a chance, and Trump knows that and is counting on it.
This could be his greatest political con job yet.
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There is some chance that the Trump forces will succeed in turning the PERCEPTION of tonight's debate into a farce.
This is what happens when there is apathy and rampant "who cares, both sides are the same".
It ain't apathy. Disgust, perhaps, and a serious desire for change coupled with the realization that voting within these two parties is antithetical to change.
Look my friend, you say you have been voting third party for decades, did you not? What has it gotten you other than the ability to place yourself above or beyond it all ?
There is virtually NO history of third party success in the United States of America . We are a two party country. If you are liberal left, then try and push the bulk of the party in that direction, ala Sanders. If you are conservative/libertarian/ right, god help ya. (But they have a wing for that too. )
What is a third party to you? Let's say you are like the rest of the fed up people and just want an honest government. What are it's goals? What are it's policy interests? What does it want to do beyond being "honest"? No one that I see talk about third parties can answer this. There has to be more than just offering an alternative.
This "both sides do it" bs might be the end of us yet, especially in the context of this election. We going to elect someone president that has told 4 pinocchio or pants on fire lies almost 200 times?
Are we serious?
I am more worried about the apathy and cynicism concerning politics injected into the people through social media than I am worried about the government itself.
Have you read or listened to the 176 reasons Trump should not be president by Keith Olbermann in GQ? If you can see that and still say it doesn't matter who wins then I dont know what to tell ya.
I vote third party because I believe there has to be a voice from alternative points of view. The only manner in which to do so within the electoral process is to so do by casting a vote. I don't, for a heartbeat, think that any alternative party I vote for has a chance in hell of winning an election. On the other hand, the only way to give voice to dissent in this case is where we cast our lots. Not that they mean all that much anyhow nationally. The electoral college defines who will be our next Prez. In my opinion, your vote on a local level is of far more import in actually bringing about change.
Therefore, I generally vote radical left. I just wish the Wobblies were still a viable entity.
You are preaching to the choir in regard to Trump. In my small hipbilly opinion I think it a national disgrace that he has a platform and followers. I also have little use for Ms Clinton though I am sure she would be fascinating, affable and a hoot to chew the fat with.
"Government in its last analysis is this power reduced to a science. Governments never lead; they follow progress. When the prison, stake or scaffold can no longer silence the voice of the protesting minority, progress moves on a step, but not until then." Lucy Parsons
There is virtually NO history of third party success in the United States of America .
Not within recent history BUT the GOP of Lincoln was a successful 3rd party . When the time is right shyte happens !
Preparing for the loss? Good strategy. Start the spin early.
This could be his greatest political con job yet.
We've been living through this for months, already... It's too bad that most people can't find the facts so they can read the truth.
This probably won't post, but it is Frank Schaeffer, and it's good!
Here's a coupla venues that will be fact checking along with the debate.
This should be entertaining. I really wish the moderators would have had the courage to fact check in real time. Last I read they were not. Perhaps that has altered?
Real time fact checking of Donald Trump? You'd have to quadruple the length of the debate. I'm down with it though. His supporters need a mega-dose of reality ... but we would need a carrot to get them to watch. Topless moderator? A crawler with ethnic jokes running across the screen?
Here is another good one!
T he Clinton campaign wants the moderator or the networks to fact check the debate. Trump says that would be unfair.
Poor Clinton can't handle Trump so she needs the moderator to step in and help.
It's says all you need to know about her competence that her camp has spent the last week begging the moderator to step out of his role as moderator and participate in the debate. It's like asking a ref of a boxing match to bring gloves and start hitting one of the participants. If she needs a moderator to violate their job duties to protect her, how can she possibly handle negotiating on a world stage?
Is she going to ask for a moderator to help her with Putin?
As Presidential Debate Historian says, moderators do not act as participants in the debate, even when a debater say's something obviously untrue.
Sad Clinton can't handle the debate rules that have been followed since their inception.
Ask the expert, debate historian Alan Schroeder:
It has not traditionally been the role of the moderator to engage in a lot of fact-checking. Other than the Candy Crowley incident, it really doesn’t tend to happen. I’ll give you an example: In 1976, Gerald Ford very famously said that Europe was not under Soviet domination, and that was in response to a question that a journalist on the panel had asked. And the journalist goes back to him, doesn’t fact-check him but says, “I just want to clarify. Is that what you really mean?” And then Ford went back and more or less reiterated it. So there have been moments where questioners have asked for clarifications of remarks by the candidates, but not so much “you’re right, and he’s wrong.”
First of all, the focus has got to be on the candidates. The journalists are there to facilitate the conversation but not to become protagonists. When a journalist gets involved in that way, all of a sudden it’s a back and forth between a particular candidate and the journalist, and you’ve lost the point of the exercise, which is that the candidates are supposed to be engaging.
THE FIX: The counter to that is you’re counting on voters to do extra work. You’re counting on them to read follow-up articles or perhaps monitor live fact-checkers online during the debate. Is that a reasonable expectation?
SCHROEDER: Look, it’s a democracy, and citizens have responsibilities beyond just watching TV. If the only source of information you’re getting is what the candidates tell you on TV, then that’s your choice. But I think we’d be crazy to take anything any politician said to us at face value and just assume it’s objective truth. The debate is a really important part of the education process during a campaign, but it is not a standalone thing.
No other candidate has had 70% of his fact checked statements declared false Sean. You have the misfortune of supporting the most pathological liar in the history of presidential elections .
No other candidate has had 70% of his fact checked statements declared false S
Do you know what a bullshit statistic that is? It's silly on so many levels. You know that these "fact checkers" self select what statements they examine, right? Do you see the problem with that ? Anyone can be given a 100% truth or false rating simply by the choice of statements that are examined.
All that number reflects is the selection bias of the fact checker. And that's without even going into the completely subjective arguments that liberal fact checkers use to determine whether a statement is true or false.
How hard do you think it would be to give Hilary that rating? It never ceases to amaze me that Clinton voters think they have a leg to stand on with the honesty issue with anyone. She lies, you repeat her lies and you seem happy about it. Sad.
It's even sadder how left wing sites constantly take advantage of left wingers ignorance of basic statistical methodology to throw around these seemingly objective numbers that are total bullshit. So which is it, do you realize how b.s. that number is and are happy exploiting others ignorance or are you unfamiliar with basic statistical concepts?
Sean, where are the "conservative" fact checkers?
The fact checkers are not biased, although I would agree they cannot check everything someone says. They fact check the controversial things.
You have sunk way low when you find yourself "defending" the "veracity" of Donald Trump.
He lied about the political persuasion of the moderator tonight , lol. His mouthpiece Conway, who lies almost as much as Trump does , said this morning that he didn't lie about Lester Holt, he just didn't know whether he is Democrat or Republican.
Then why did he open his mouth about it at all? His knowledge or lack of knowledge doesn't make it a lie, the intention to deceive does, and he has that with just about every breath.
The fact checkers are not biased
Of course they are. There have been side by side comparisons of they treat candidates saying something similarly wrong and comparing the treatment of the two. The democrat's "lie" is always excused, the Republican condemned.
As the Wall Street Journal's James Taranto has consistently reported, the fact checking business often – too often for anyone's good – turns on matters of opinion rather than matters of "fact." One recent example that drives the point home is the Washington Post's recent fact check that gave President Barack Obama "four Pinocchios" for asserting that he had, in fact, called what happened in Benghazi an act of "terrorism."
According to the Post's Glenn Kessler, Obama did in fact refer to it the next day in a Rose Garden address as an "act of terror," but did not call it "terrorism." Is this a distinction without a difference? Hardly, at least as far as former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney might be concerned. It will be a long time before anyone forgets how the second presidential debate turned into a tag team match with Obama and CNN's Candy Crowley both explaining to the mystified Republican that Romney was, in fact, wrong when he accused the president of not having called the Benghazi attack a terrorist incident.
Here's but one example of the double standard:
On July 6, 2015 , Bernie Sanders made the following comment about Black youth unemployment in the United States :
Shortly after that comment was made, Politifact decided to " fact check " Bernie's assertion that black youth unemployment was sky high and found that it was " Mostly True. "
The problem is that when Donald Trump made a similar assertion at a rally on June 11, 2016, Politifact 's " fact checking " analysis had a slightly different conclusion. Here is what Trump said :
But this time around Politifact claimed that " Trump exaggerates " the level of black youth unemployment through a " misleading use of statistics. " Politifact concludes that Trumps comments are therefore " Mostly False. "
Wait, now it is 18.7% when Politi"fact" said a year prior that Benie's 51% claim was "mostly true?"
You would have to read the articles more closely Sean. The methodology applied to Trump's statement was a response to his source material.
Sanders claim came at it from a different place.
The source Sanders claims his statement comes from doesn't matter, the actual number at issue is the same for both his and Trumps statements. They are talking about the same thing. As Zerohedge says, "Politifact was able to "recall" this study when "fact checking" Bernie but, like Hillary in an FBI interview, they "did not recall" the study when fact checking Trump. "
The fact checkers used the source material of the claims in order to investigate them. Trump and Sanders were using different source material, which is why the claims were addressed in different ways.
Why don't you write Polifact a letter and then post their response here?
" Demanding that the candidates fact-check each other encourages a derailment of the debate, forcing the contenders to bicker over who is telling the truth and who is not. That’s not necessary. If the moderator knows what is true, and what is false, the moderator should say so—not to embarrass the candidate who is wrong, nor to help the candidate who is right, but to lead a debate that is grounded in reality rather than an exercise in confusion. If Donald Trump claims he always opposed the war in Iraq , it should be pointed out that the record does not support his claim. If Hillary Clinton tries to spin her vote to authorize the Bush-Cheney administration to attack Iraq, it is fair to point out that almost two dozen of her fellow senators (most of them Democrats) made the right call.
There’s a general sense that fact-checking will favor Clinton . But that’s not an excuse for failing to hold both candidates to account. If Trump’s statements require that he be held to account more frequently, so be it."