# If a poster is wrong more than half the time, would you take them seriously?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-a-poster-is-wrong-more-than-half-the-time-would-you-take-them-seriously/668238>\
**Category:** The BBQ Pit\
**Created:** [September 7, 2013, 9:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-a-poster-is-wrong-more-than-half-the-time-would-you-take-them-seriously/668238 "2013-09-07T09:31:03Z")\
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**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\
**Post date:** [September 10, 2013, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-a-poster-is-wrong-more-than-half-the-time-would-you-take-them-seriously/668238/173 "2013-09-10T02:01:16Z")

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> [@adaher](#):
>
> Take the President for example:
> 
> [PolitiFact | Barack Obama](http://www.politifact.com/personalities/barack-obama/)
> 
> He’s wrong more than half the time he opens his mouth

Does Politifact check every utterance and tally the right things he says? Of course not. They check the things that sound fishy. So if you make 1000 statements a day, 10 of them sound fishy, and 5 of those are false, you can hardly say that 5 false statements out of 1000 makes you a compulsive liar.

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