# The War on Fact-Checkers: New GOP Strategy? **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [August 31, 2012, 12:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-on-fact-checkers-new-gop-strategy/633246 "2012-08-31T12:38:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2012, 12:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-on-fact-checkers-new-gop-strategy/633246/1 "2012-08-31T12:38:20Z")
Something’s been bugging me about the prevailing meme rattling around the mediasphere and interwebs lately. Yes, we’ve all had a good laugh about the Romney campaign announcing "We’re not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact-checkers " and about the FoxNews blogger talking about the media hiring “fact-checkers” to vet Paul Ryan’s speech and pushback on various blogs about “factchecking the factcheckers”. Then it hit me. What if this is more than just the GOP not really caring whether or not their message is accurate? What if this is the new Rovian strategy to use the Democrat’s strengths against them? Consider this: First you set the debate: Declare opposition to “fact-checkers”. Get everyone talking about how the GOP are against fact-checkers. Be sure to refer to “fact-checkers” in the most scornful way possible. Next: Have your Vice Presidential candidate give a speech filled with obvious falsehoods. Next: Use that speech to get everyone talking about “fact-checkers”, including your pet liberal FoxNews blogger. Make sure that the words “fact-checkers” get repeated in as many contexts as possible. Next: Kick off the “fact-checking the fact-checkers” campaign. Imply by any means possible that the people fact-checking you are both doing so for partisan reasons (rather than because you’re blatantly lying) and are lying themselves, or at least not rigorously checking their own facts. Result: “Fact-checker” becomes a dirty word. Anyone who calls you out for lying gets labelled a “fact-checker” and the debate becomes about the term rather than about the lie you told. You continue to get to say anything you want because your supporters don’t care and your opponents have been put on the defensive merely for pointing out that you were lying. Tell me this isn’t happening. Go on. ---
**Author:** ![Enkel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/df705f/32.png) [@Enkel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enkel)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2012, 12:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-on-fact-checkers-new-gop-strategy/633246/2 "2012-08-31T12:42:29Z")
Um, I can tell you that one of my “Facebook Friends” pushed back when I posted a Fox News article calling Ryan a liar. That person is a confirmed “FoxNews Only” person and I was shocked when she accused the FoxNews article of being leftist. (I personally never watch FoxNews and only rarely end up on their site) So, as convoluted as your theory sounds, I bet it would work. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2012, 12:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-on-fact-checkers-new-gop-strategy/633246/3 "2012-08-31T12:48:20Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > Tell me this isn’t happening. Go on. I doubt it; as Politifact’s staff dryly pointed out, the Romney campaign’s aversion to fact-checkers would be a bit easier to swallow if they did not continue to refer to various fact-checkers themselves in their ads that call out Obama’s statements. In other words, the campaign only seems to object to being fact-checked, not to fact-checkers. ---
**Author:** ![Rhythmdvl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/85f322/32.png) [@Rhythmdvl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rhythmdvl)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2012, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-on-fact-checkers-new-gop-strategy/633246/4 "2012-08-31T13:29:08Z")
If it’s an intentional strategy, it fits Fox/talk radio much more than the GOP itself (disregard the fine line between the two). Fox/Talk has been pushing the us-them mentality for years. You can’t trust _them_, you need to get your news from _us_. This is a natural extension of it. Given the Colberts it takes to pull this off, bypassing whatever hypocrisy seems to surface is par for the course. In this case, it’s exactly in line with the strategy. Note that the strategy wouldn’t be “look, _no_ fact checking is worth it,” it’s “look, when _they_ fact check, it’s spin, when _we_ fact check, it’s truth.” Or, “when they fact-checked my opponsent, they were correct and couldn’t hep but be faced with facts, but when they fact-checked _me_, it was partisan spin.” Look at the antagonism Fox et al have towards “mainstream” media (was MSM a Fox or a Rush invention?) and you’ll see how this is sound strategy. ---
**Author:** ![Jack\_Batty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jack_batty/32/3201_2.png) [@Jack\_Batty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jack_Batty)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2012, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-on-fact-checkers-new-gop-strategy/633246/5 "2012-08-31T13:51:27Z")
Actual quote from Newt Gingrich on Morning Joe a couple of days ago: “Liberals lie better than conservatives tell the truth.” I’m not exactly sure what he was getting at, since I started yelling and throwing food at my TeeVee at that point, but it seems apropos to this thread. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2012, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-on-fact-checkers-new-gop-strategy/633246/6 "2012-08-31T13:51:48Z")
> [@Enkel](#): > > Um, I can tell you that one of my “Facebook Friends” pushed back when I posted a Fox News article calling Ryan a liar. That person is a confirmed “FoxNews Only” person and I was shocked when she accused the FoxNews article of being leftist. (I personally never watch FoxNews and only rarely end up on their site) > > So, as convoluted as your theory sounds, I bet it would work. In fairness, when I looked at the headlines for all of the articles written by the Fox News employee who wrote the one you’re referring to, it seemed apparent she must be one of Fox’s resident liberals. All of her articles are critical of the GOP. ---
**Author:** ![Enderw24](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ba9def/32.png) [@Enderw24](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enderw24)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2012, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-on-fact-checkers-new-gop-strategy/633246/7 "2012-08-31T13:58:27Z")
I get that I’m both preaching to the choir, shouting against the river, and a few other mixed metaphors here, but I’m going to say it anyway. There’s one, and only one, way to disprove a fact-checker. It’s not to say “they’re a leftist site.” It’s not to say “they come in with known biases.” It is this: present alternate facts which disprove the fact-checker’s assertions. If you cannot do this, you cannot complain about the fact checker. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2012, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-on-fact-checkers-new-gop-strategy/633246/8 "2012-08-31T14:54:46Z")
Pushback against the fact-checkers is perfectly healthy so long as it takes the form of \*factual \*pushback. For example, I think the pushback on the Janesville plant has been by and large pretty fair, regardless of which side you think is correct. And I think the Dems pushback on “End Medicare as we know it” being called a lie was perfectly legitimate. The bigger problem is dismissing the fact-checkers as biased and therefore not worthy of addressing. It used to be that entities like the CBO or various NGOs made up of both Republicans and Democrats could generally be relied upon as neutral sources whose claims could not be just dismissed as bias. But now it doesn’t really matter who you cite the GOP will just claim that it’s liberal conspiracy. I think that’s a related, but distinct and bigger problem than the pushback against fact-checkers. I don’t really have a problem with saying “We’re not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact-checkers.” You can read that as saying we’re going to disregard factual accuracy (which I think Romney is largely doing), but I think the more natural reading is that they’re not doing to defer to the truth as dictated by a couple of journalists who spend a few days investigating a complex issue. Fact-checkers have the advantage of having less of an interest in the outcome of the election, but often have worse information that the campaigns on the facts, and always worse information about the intentions of the speaker. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2012, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-on-fact-checkers-new-gop-strategy/633246/9 "2012-08-31T15:08:51Z")
I don’t think the fact checkers have been biased, but they have made wrong calls, like any umpire. Unlike a sporting event however, campaigns don’t have to acknowledge the calls of the umps. If they are sure they are right, they are free to continue pushing whatever facts they deem fit. And while the Democrats may not have declared war on the fact checkers, fact checks declaring them to be lying or false don’t stop them anymore than it stops Republicans. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2012, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-on-fact-checkers-new-gop-strategy/633246/10 "2012-08-31T15:12:07Z")
Which examples can you point to of substantive Democratic “lies”, other than the laughable PolitiFact one about ending Medicare, an example that has strongly helped to delegitimize fact-checkers in general? ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2012, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-on-fact-checkers-new-gop-strategy/633246/11 "2012-08-31T15:38:17Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > Pushback against the fact-checkers is perfectly healthy so long as it takes the form of \*factual \*pushback. For example, I think the pushback on the Janesville plant has been by and large pretty fair, regardless of which side you think is correct. And I think the Dems pushback on “End Medicare as we know it” being called a lie was perfectly legitimate. > > The bigger problem is dismissing the fact-checkers as biased and therefore not worthy of addressing. It used to be that entities like the CBO or various NGOs made up of both Republicans and Democrats could generally be relied upon as neutral sources whose claims could not be just dismissed as bias. But now it doesn’t really matter who you cite the GOP will just claim that it’s liberal conspiracy. I think that’s a related, but distinct and bigger problem than the pushback against fact-checkers. > > I don’t really have a problem with saying “We’re not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact-checkers.” You can read that as saying we’re going to disregard factual accuracy (which I think Romney is largely doing), but I think the more natural reading is that they’re not doing to defer to the truth as dictated by a couple of journalists who spend a few days investigating a complex issue. Fact-checkers have the advantage of having less of an interest in the outcome of the election, but often have worse information that the campaigns on the facts, and always worse information about the intentions of the speaker. I generally agree with the sentiments above, but do want to point out that there’s an aspect of the fact-checker milieu that is not susceptible to factual refutation. Example: Politifact calls [Stephanie Cutter](http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2012/aug/27/stephanie-cutter/barack-obama-says-his-recovery-has-outpaced-ronald/)’s claim “False.” > [@](#): > > Well, I think that worker probably has a good understanding of what’s happened over the past four years in terms of the president coming in and seeing 800,000 jobs lost on the day that the president was being sworn in, and seeing the president moving pretty quickly to stem the losses, to turn the economy around, and over the past, you know, 27 months we’ve created 4.5 million private sector jobs. That’s more jobs than in the Bush recovery, in the Reagan recovery, there’s obviously more we need to do… As Politifact points out: > [@](#): > > Cutter counted the past 27 months. That’s the most favorable measurement for Obama, since 27 months ago was the low point in employment numbers, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the official federal scorekeeper for jobs numbers. Cutter also used private-sector job numbers rather than the overall job numbers, which helps Obama’s case too; government job losses have been a drag on the overall numbers over that period. > > Between March 2010 and July 2012 (which is actually 28 months), the number of private-sector jobs rose from 106.9 million to 111.3 million, an increase of 4.4 million – just shy of Cutter’s 4.5 million. > > What about Reagan? The low point for employment under Reagan was December 1982, with 72.8 million private-sector jobs. Fast-forward 27 months to March 1985 and the number of private-sector jobs was 80.4 million. That’s an increase of 7.7 million – a far bigger jobs bump than under Obama. > > Even more impressively, the Reagan recovery took place within a much smaller economy. The 27-month Reagan recovery represented an 11 percent increase in jobs, compared to a 4 percent increase during the comparable period under Obama. > > So the Gipper wins this faceoff. Other methods of counting, they go on to say, makes the comparison even less favorable to Obama. In other words, it’s clearly and unambiguously false. So I guess I’m OK with it being rated “False.” Then we have this one, from the NRA: “Obama admits he’s coming for our guns, telling Sarah Brady, ‘We are working on (gun control), but under the radar.’” Here are the results of their [fact-check](http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2012/jun/14/national-rifle-association/barack-obama-coming-after-guns-under-radar-nra-say/): > [@](#): > > While the NRA didn’t respond to our questions about the claim, we found the genesis of the Obama quote easy enough. > > It comes from a 2011 Washington Post profile of White House gun policy adviser Steve Croley. It’s not a direct quote from Obama, rather it’s Brady recalling to Post reporter Jason Horowitz her meeting with Obama on March 30, 2011, the 30th anniversary of the assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan. > > Here’s what Horowitz wrote: > > > [@](#): > > > > During the meeting, President Obama dropped in and, according to Sarah Brady, brought up the issue of gun control, “to fill us in that it was very much on his agenda,” she said. > > > > “I just want you to know that we are working on it,” Brady recalled the president telling them. “We have to go through a few processes, but under the radar.” > > > > In the meeting, she said, Obama discussed how records get into the system and what can be done about firearms retailers. Her husband specifically brought up the proposed ban on large magazine clips, and she noted that even former Vice President Dick Cheney had suggested that some restrictions on the clips might make sense. > > > > “He just laughed,” Sarah Brady said approvingly of the president. Both she and her husband, she emphasized, had absolute confidence that the president was committed to regulation. > > . > . > . > To recap: The Washington Post reported that Sarah Brady said Obama told her his administration is “working on it,” likely referring to gun control (in what way is unclear in the article). And Brady then tells the Post Obama said, “We have to go through a few processes, but under the radar.” > > The quote then gets distorted by the NRA to “Obama admits he’s coming for our guns, telling Sarah Brady, ‘We are working on (gun control), but under the radar.’” > > Although the wording leaves plenty of room for interpretation, it’s not accurate to summarize that quote by saying “Obama admits he’s coming for our guns” because the specifics of Obama’s comment – as relayed by Brady – are unknown. They go on to say they contacted Brady and she disputes the accuracy of the quote. Their ruling: > [@](#): > > In a mailer, the National Rifle Association says that "Obama admits he’s coming for our guns, telling Sarah Brady, ‘We are working on (gun control), but under the radar.’ " > > We found no evidence of an Obama admission anything like the NRA suggests. > > What happened is Brady gave an interview to the Washington Post, where she recalled what the president said to her during a private meeting. > > But the NRA makes a tremendous leap by concluding that the quote shows that “Obama admits he’s coming for our guns.” A person at the meeting said Obama was likely referring to an in-the-works program to get gun dealers in border states to forward some gun purchases to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Brady says she never talked to Obama about gun policy. I think there’s a case to be made that the NRA simply relied on the article, and what they wrote was not a huge leap away from the article. But I can agree that a careful rhetor would have made sure of the facts, and it’s fair to call this a lie, although not as unambiguous a lie as the Cutter claim above. Yet Politifact rates this one “Pants on Fire,” a worse rating than Cutter’s. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2012, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-on-fact-checkers-new-gop-strategy/633246/12 "2012-08-31T15:50:42Z")
These examples are good for two reasons. First, they show how superficial the fact-checking process can be. The claim that Cutter’s statement is a lie is based on the premise that she arbitrarily measured from the bottom of the recession to 27 months after that point. Politifact takes that premise–which they’ve merely inferred–and runs with, applying it to Reagan to show it to be false. But an equally plausible premise is that a President’s responsibility for the state of the economy–to the extent he has any–should only start from the date when the policies he enacted were expected to bear fruit to the date when you’re currently talking about the state of the recovery. If you measured Reagan’s numbers from a point one year after taking office (March of '82 instead of December of '82) to the end of his term, it would have been a fairer comparison. (Though I don’t know if she’d still be right or not.) And second, they show how trying to assess not only falsity but intent is a sucker’s game. Absent actual investigation into the speaker’s intentions, it rests entirely on speculation. Obviously, to the extent that fact-checkers shift the discourse toward actual factual debates like this, they are a great benefit. But we ought not consider them more than providing another useful perspective to consider. ---
**Author:** ![Iggy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iggy/32/3364_2.png) [@Iggy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Iggy)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2012, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-on-fact-checkers-new-gop-strategy/633246/13 "2012-08-31T17:58:20Z")
When fact checkers stray away from verifiable facts and start relying on arbitrary subjective decisions then their usefulness and credibility are diminished. Blowing something like the details of the Janesville GM plant is unacceptable. It is a simple factual issue which was reported contemporaneously in the local media. GM was a major employer in the area and such closings do not happen unnoticed. And when the last vehicle rolls off the assembly line and the workers are sent home the economic shock waves reverberate through the community. When fact checkers start weighing in on whether a cut to the rate of growth of spending on a particular program counts as a cut or not then they are straying into the realm of political debate where answers are not clean cut. Obama proposes a “cut” to Medicare, which is to say a reduction in the rate of growth of Medicare spending. That savings is being achieved by making real cuts to physician reimbursement under Medicare. Spending is still going up, just not as fast. Ryan refers to this as Obama cutting Medicare - gross simplification. Fact checkers declare this false. More accurately the truth is one of those weasely political truths, in the political parlance a budgetary “cut” can be a smaller increase than was previously anticipated. And its an entire issue where the reputation and impartiality of fact checkers would be better served by laying out facts and not providing simplified explanations. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2012, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-on-fact-checkers-new-gop-strategy/633246/14 "2012-08-31T20:04:44Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > These examples are good for two reasons. > > First, they show how superficial the fact-checking process can be. The claim that Cutter’s statement is a lie is based on the premise that she arbitrarily measured from the bottom of the recession to 27 months after that point. Politifact takes that premise–which they’ve merely inferred–and runs with, applying it to Reagan to show it to be false. But an equally plausible premise is that a President’s responsibility for the state of the economy–to the extent he has any–should only start from the date when the policies he enacted were expected to bear fruit to the date when you’re currently talking about the state of the recovery. If you measured Reagan’s numbers from a point one year after taking office (March of '82 instead of December of '82) to the end of his term, it would have been a fairer comparison. (Though I don’t know if she’d still be right or not.) She’d be wrong. Worser wrong, in fact. 🙂 > [@Politifact](#): > > Starting with the beginning of the recovery > > The comparison is even more unflattering to Obama if you use a less cherry-picked time frame than the one Cutter used – one that starts when the recoveries officially began, rather than the low point for jobs. > > Using this formula, Obama’s numbers change quite a bit, since he’s suffered from the growing pattern of recoveries creating fewer jobs, and more slowly, than was typical in past recoveries. > > The recession under Obama officially ended in June 2009. That means that the number of jobs continued to fall for another nine months before hitting rock bottom. Counting these nine extra months of job losses, Obama’s private-sector job creation total falls to 3.4 million over three years and one month. > > By contrast, using this formula actually boosts Reagan’s private-sector job-creation totals. The recession under Reagan officially ended in November 1982, almost simultaneously with the low point in jobs. Over the next three years and one month – the comparable period under Obama – the number of private-sector jobs increased by 9.1 million. > > Taking into account the growth of the workforce overall, employment has grown by 3 percent during the Obama recovery, compared to 13 percent under Reagan. > > Chalk up an even stronger win for the Gipper. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2012, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-on-fact-checkers-new-gop-strategy/633246/15 "2012-08-31T20:11:32Z")
Did you notice how few of us on the left ever cite _Politifact_ any more? Wonder why that is? Think on it for a while, if you still don’t get it, we’re here for you. ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2012, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-on-fact-checkers-new-gop-strategy/633246/16 "2012-08-31T20:13:09Z")
On other boards, I have encountered Republicans who dismiss [FactCheck.org](http://FactCheck.org), Politifact, and any other fact-checking source as liberal bias. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2012, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-on-fact-checkers-new-gop-strategy/633246/17 "2012-08-31T20:17:49Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > She’d be wrong. Worser wrong, in fact. 🙂 I don’t think the part of their analysis you posted is responsive to my point. I’m saying that if Cutter had an implicit premise about when the measurement should start, the most charitable implicit premise is that it starts about a year after inauguration. That isn’t what Politifact goes on to calculate. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2012, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-on-fact-checkers-new-gop-strategy/633246/18 "2012-08-31T20:18:32Z")
Well, shit, who then do they turn to for fact checking that is far and bal…oh. Right. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2012, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-on-fact-checkers-new-gop-strategy/633246/19 "2012-08-31T20:31:33Z")
> [@bup](#): > > On other boards, I have encountered Republicans who dismiss [FactCheck.org](http://FactCheck.org), Politifact, and any other fact-checking source as liberal bias. On these boards, only Politifact gets dumped as too conservative, though. > [@elucidator](#): > > Did you notice how few of us on the left ever cite _Politifact_ any more? Wonder why that is? Think on it for a while, if you still don’t get it, we’re here for you. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2012, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-on-fact-checkers-new-gop-strategy/633246/20 "2012-08-31T20:33:51Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > I don’t think the part of their analysis you posted is responsive to my point. I’m saying that if Cutter had an implicit premise about when the measurement should start, the most charitable implicit premise is that it starts about a year after inauguration. That isn’t what Politifact goes on to calculate. What the heck are you talking about? Cutter’s premise wasn’t implicit. It was explicit: > [@Cutter](#): > > Cutter responded, “Well, I think that worker probably has a good understanding of what’s happened over the past four years in terms of the president coming in and seeing 800,000 jobs lost on the day that the president was being sworn in, and seeing the president moving pretty quickly to stem the losses, to turn the economy around, \*\*and over the past, you know, 27 months \*\*we’ve created 4.5 million private sector jobs. That’s more jobs than in the Bush recovery, in the Reagan recovery, there’s obviously more we need to do…” That’s the time frame she picked, and indeed it’s the one that gives her the best possible numbers. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-on-fact-checkers-new-gop-strategy/633246.md?page=2)