Is Politifact starting to bend to the right now?

[Proud Liberal Dem]

I'm an avid reader of Politifact but I'm becoming concerned that, after facing some right-wing criticism, they are starting to tack to the right a bit- or at least attempt to give the GOP, specifically the members of the US House a lot more validity and credibility than they deserve IMHO, choosing to focus a lot of their time on trumping their "progress" on the GOP "pledge-o-meter", often offering quite favorable progress ratings on their pledges. I've also noticed that they've recently been offering less favorable ratings to President Obama and his pledge meter. They are apparently holding him accountable for nearly every promise and pledge- around 500 total- that he made from 2007 onward no matter how obscure and they seem to be highlighting an awful lot of his "broken" promises lately. The one that galls me the most is that they have basically declared his failure to close Gitmo to be a broken promise despite the fact that some of the circumstances surrounding it made it impossible for him to do so. Is it fair to hold him (or anybody else for that matter) accountable for something he wanted to do but was ultimately thwarted from doing? Am I looking at a "new" Politifact or has Politifact always been like this and I just haven't noticed. :shrug:

[DJ13]

1. If I wanted to slant the facts, there would be no better way to do that

.... than to start a "fact" website, run it neutrally for a few years, then gradually bias the "facts" towards one political ideology over the other.

I keep reminding myself that pro corporate conservatism operates on a long term plan to reshape our country, and something as insidious as a multi year plan to bias the facts would fit in with their goals.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

2. Do you think that Politifact is "in on it"?

Are all of the other "fact-checking" websites in on it as well? I see just about all of them making some pretty wrong-headed analyses from time to time- some being more glaring and head-scratching than others.

[DJ13]

6. Even a group with no bias can make mistakes

But if theres a pattern of bias creeping in to their facts then I wouldnt doubt its deliberate.

I wouldnt put anything past the conservatives who are trying to seize power here in the US.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

7. No, I certainly wouldn't either.

n/t

[The Magistrate]

3. They Always Have Been A Tad Kind To The Opposition, Sir

[Hannah Bell]

4. starting? i think they've always been right-wing.

[Tx4obama]

5. Yes, I've noticed.

There have been two very recent ratings one for GOP and one for Obama that they have totally screwed up in my opinion.
And I have been furiously emailing with them about it - we've gone back and forth for two days regarding the two issues.

In the past on Obama's promises Politifact always used to hold Obama to his 'exact' words but they are NOT doing that with the GOP, they are giving the GOP leeway that Obama has never gotten from them.
And now they have actually changed one of Obama's kept promises to a promise broken, only because of how the program he created turned out and they have totally disregarded that the actual promise was about 'creating and funding' the program and not about its success.

I am very upset with Politifact right now! ;(

In one of my emails to them I told them that the Politifact train has derailed.

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Edited to add:

Look at this one .... Obama Promise: Create a $10 billion fund to help homeowners refinance or sell their homes. "The Fund will not help speculators, people who bought vacation homes or people who falsely represented their incomes."

Well Obama created it and funded it with $75 billion.

But now Politifact changed that one to a 'promise broken' from originally saying 'promise kept'

See here: http://politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/obameter/promise/15/create-a-foreclosure-prevention-fund-for-homeowner/

Everyone needs to WRITE TO THEM about it! At [e-mail]

[Proud Liberal Dem]

8. I don't like the pictures they use for Obama either

They make him look dumb, particularly the "broken promise" ratings. For the GOP, we just get a red and blue elephant. No pictures of a "weeping Boehner" or something like that. He is the leader of the GOP House, is he not?