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Fact-Checking The Fact-Checkers Who Fact-Checked Ron Paul

This is rich. Factcheck.org’s Joe Miller wrote an incendiary piece on Ron Paul that was picked up by Newsweek, which was titled “Wrong Paul: Fantasy, fallacy and factual fumbles from the Republican insurgent”. Miller packs it full of false and disingenuous assertions. Some could expose Miller, Factcheck.org, and Newsweek to a libel claim. The rest are just nonsense. Apparently, Miller has a history of obfuscation, if not outright polemics in his fact-checking. His opening paragraphs claim to deliver criticisms of Paul’s more “outlandish claims”, but some of the claims are not even Paul’s.

First,

Paul claims that a secret conspiracy composed of the Security and Prosperity Partnership and a cabal of foreign companies is behind plans to build a NAFTA Superhighway as the first step toward creating a North American Union. But the NAFTA Superhighway that Paul describes is a myth, and the groups supposedly behind the plans are neither secret nor nefarious.

Actually, Paul claimed the exact opposite. He said it was “not secret” and it was “not a conspiracy”. Instead, it is a “contest between ideologies”. That means Paul thinks there are people who are ideologically driven to unify North America. Big deal.

Not only was Miller wrong about Paul’s claim, but Paul’s supposedly “outlandish” claim is actually pretty trite. So why did Paul bring it up? He didn’t. He said it when he was asked one of his three questions at the CNN/Youtube debate. The first was something like: What are you going to do when you lose? The second was: do you believe in all this conspiracy stuff? I think the third one had a little more substance.

So where did fact-checker, Joe Miller get this? Miller cited blogs, no less. One of them came from the Washington Posts’ Fact-Checker, whose quote of Paul omits the part where he said, explicitly, “It’s not a conspiracy”.

This is libel, pure and simple. This piece was clearly intended to hurt Paul. Miller makes references to X-Files’ Fox Mulder and other pop-paranoia to stir it up. You see, it’s fair game to call anything Paul supporters say a “conspiracy theory” because Paul was videotaped being polite to some 9-11 Truthers. Worse, Miller was inexcusably wrong. Finally, while most obnoxious bloggers defend against libel claims by saying they didn’t mean their accusations as ‘facts’, FactCheck.org doesn’t have that luxury. They hold themselves as authorities of ‘fact’, so a plaintiff could easily argue that they are held to the highest standard. There you have it, the three elements of a libel claim. Oh, and you need money to litigate. Unfortunately for Miller, Paul is the best funded Republican candidate and he is in a great position to retain the best libel lawyers on the planet.

For the record, I have no idea whether someone wants to build a superhighway, but the Canadian Government is planning on it. In fact, the linked website used to be called “NAFTA Superhighway” instead of “NAFTA Corridor” before this thing exploded after the CNN debate. There are several pages on that website that use the word NAFTA with regard to highways. And CNN is no stranger to the topic (see video).

Here is Miller’s second criticism:

Paul says that the U.S. spends $1 trillion per year to maintain a foreign empire and suggests that we could save that amount by cutting foreign spending. Paul gets that figure by including a lot of domestic programs that he isn’t planning to cut, like the U.S. Border Patrol and interest payments on the debt.

No, *Miller* gets that figure by including a lot of domestic programs that Paul isn’t planning to cut. Miller takes a winding stroll through assumption and surmise to conclude that Paul is including domestic programs. His source? Some campaign staffer told Miller to check out a website. The website provided is list of national security costs. None of them were exclusively domestic. Miller also criticizes Paul in an attenuated way for including interest and “medical and retirement pay for veterans”.

First, of course we should include the interest. As long as we are on the fiat monetary standard, our dollar is backed by the “Full Faith and Credit” of the United States Federal Government. Know what happens if we go into default? The dollar tanks, badly. So, while ‘interest’ may not concern the legions of Americans whose souls are owned by credit card companies, it should probably be considered when we calculate America’s financial future.

Second, what is “medical pay” for veterans? Does Miller mean disability payments and medical services through the Department of Veterans Affairs? Should we not include that in the cost of a six-year-and-counting war? Miller apparently doesn’t think so, but having worked at the VA, I choose to differ. We are still mounting unanticipated costs for services and payments to Viet Nam veterans. More importantly, the VA is stocked with Viet Nam vets who aren’t going to let their successors suffer the indignity that they did. As a result, it takes far less to get a PTSD claim these days. If a war veteran tells his psychiatrist he saw bullets flying, he will probably get at least 10% and I’ll be the last person to say he does not deserve it. No, I don’t have any documentation for that, I just worked for a psychological trauma facility for combat veterans for three years. My co-workers pretty much wrote the book on PTSD claims. My instinct tells me that any figures for disability payouts in the years to come are going to be low…way too low. And that’s Paul’s point, isn’t it? We’re not paying a trillion dollars per year, right now. The Chinese are paying for it. The figure represents the amount that will be retroactively attributed to the war once politicians can safely distance themselves from it.

This one is a gem:

Paul has run television ads touting an endorsement from Ronald Reagan, but he fails to mention that, in 1988, Paul wanted “to totally disassociate” himself from the Reagan administration.

This is Miller’s indictment of Paul’s ‘facts’? No, here it is:

Paul’s embrace of Reagan’s legacy represents a significant change of heart. Actually, it’s the second time that Paul has changed his mind about Reagan. After endorsing Reagan for president in 1976 and again in 1980, Paul became disenchanted, leaving the Republican party in 1987. The following year, he told the Los Angeles Times:

Paul (May 10, 1988): The American people have never reached this point of disgust with politicians before. I want to totally disassociate myself from the Reagan Administration.

So what? Paul was one of only four Republican Congressmen to endorse Reagan in ‘76. Then Reagan campaigned for Paul. Then Paul decided there were some unsavory characters in Reagan’s administration. Twenty years, and three big-government Presidents later, Paul decided he liked Reagan himself, if not his administration. Fair enough. It’s one thing to complain that politicians flip on issues. It’s just whiny to complain that they flip on friends. But it is downright telling that Miller thinks this is the more “outlandish” of Paul’s claims. Most important, how is this a fact check?

The more obvious reason why Paul puts Reagan in his ads is not that Paul was smitten with Reagan’s administration, of course, but that Paul and Regan are very ideologically similar (see the video). Their insistence on fiscal responsibility is a start. But Miller isn’t stupid. He knows this. That is why Miller’s piece is a disingenuous attack instead of a legitimate check on the facts.

Finally, Miller attacks Paul supporters in an “Introduction to Logic” section. I suppose I should let him have this one because assistant philosophy professors don’t get a lot of validation in life…then again, he has a real job now.

He explains the logical fallacy of “Denying the Antecedent”. I feel competent enough in logic to point out that colloquial sets of sentences, which never contain perfectly atomic elements, generally import some assumptions. Miller’s complaint that the following set is not valid completely misses that problem:

  1. If FactCheck.org writes about a candidate, then that candidate makes some inaccurate claims.
  2. FactCheck.org has not written about Ron Paul.
  3. Therefore Ron Paul does not make inaccurate claims.

You see, the Paul Supporters’ obvious assumption here is that FactCheck.org is diligent and significantly interested in checking facts instead of just posting inflammatory articles. Of course, my forgoing discussion should show that it is neither. But I should be fair, Miller kind-of addressed this:

And that’s the problem with the DailyPaul.com argument. It works only to the extent that you assume that we write about every single inaccurate claim uttered by every single political candidate. We don’t. We just hadn’t gotten around to mentioning many Ron Paul flubs.

We’ve corrected that oversight now.

Well, I look forward to reading that correction, but this ain’t it.

Click Here to DIGG

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 14th, 2008 at 8:55 am and is filed under Freshly Fresh News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

63 Responses to “Fact-Checking The Fact-Checkers Who Fact-Checked Ron Paul”

  1. Abraham Beldo Says:
    February 14th, 2008 at 6:37 pm

    I just want to clarify something, I like Ron Paul as a candidate, but he is not candidate of choice. I will spare you my candidate of choice.

    I agree with THIS article.

    The original newsweek article was moronic. I hope that an average person can see that, although i do wonder… In general, I do not read articles that are ONLY negative. And I rarely read articles that are ONLY about a single candidate. In fact, now that I know the author of the article, I will also NOT read anything by Miller. It could be worse, I suppose, they could randomly plug a candidate at the very end of the article.

    I tried to cycle through my head “who would read this article and actually be politically influenced by it”? This is all I could come up with:

    1. Long time Newsweek readers.
    2. Members of the opposite political party who have no stake in the game.
    3. People who have already obstinately secured their political view points and have secured a candidate of choice and will use this to further convince themselves of their correct choosing.
    4. Stupid people.
    5. People.
    6. People who for some reason enjoy Miller as a writer.

    That’s all I could come up with.
    Pardon my sarcastic and pessimistic response.

  2. Samuel Garcia Says:
    February 15th, 2008 at 12:02 am

    Wonderful article. I have recieved this bit of information concerning Ron Paul’s comments and how they were to be false, via a Obama supporter. Turns out their pandering on simple statements made me wonder of their validity and had me searching for verity. Researching this type of critizism I found many of the same arguements you acknowledged, once everything became lucid I found myself being drawn to shove a pencil in said supporters ear, reluctantly I hesitated and did the obvious, bambarded him with the facts. As relished in that moment as I was, it did nothing to relinquish the pain (Obama is still in this race). But, in hind-sight, I can now reference this site for further fluidity when needed, and smack a face or two with truthiness (Colbert rocks). I’ll file it under resource “word to the mother-board.”

  3. Doug Says:
    February 15th, 2008 at 6:55 am

    I thought it was hilarious — the 3 “facts” he checked on Ron Paul turned out to be one that wasn’t something Paul claimed at all, one that was disputable, but at most an exaggeration, and one that was entirely true.

    Meanwhile, Newsweek admitted that Ron Paul had raised front-runner type money, that Ron Paul had attracted front-runner type numbers of volunteers, that Ron Paul was the most searched-for candidate by their readers on Newsweek.com, and despite all that, they hadn’t covered him!

    Their only defense was that they thought he didn’t have a chance to win the nomination! Based on what? They covered other candidates who ended up doing less well.

  4. ahmnodtheare Says:
    February 15th, 2008 at 12:39 pm

    I love Newsweek! It burns in the fireplace more colorfully than the New York Times does.

  5. sauer kraut Says:
    February 15th, 2008 at 4:13 pm

    No matter how stupid Miller may be in some of his writings, Ron Paul remains irrelevant to this election. Why not direct your attention to someone who actually matters at this stage?

    btw - the Ron Paul - Ron Reagan hookup is a bunch of hooey. He’s just trying to hitch his wagon to the dead body in the same fashion as all the other former contemporary candidates did. Fact is, Reagan isn’t around to endorse anyone. That just about everyone and his mother does the stupid dog trick makes it no less bizarre or absurd.

  6. Kemp Says:
    February 15th, 2008 at 5:32 pm

    Hey Sauer Kraut -

    You think just letting a site that calls itself “fact check” get away with a ridiculous smear job is the way we should go just because, in your mind, “Ron Paul remains irrelevant in this election”?

    Don’t be a stooge.

    Ridiculous smear jobs executed by a site that claims to be the CHECKER OF FACTS obviously need to be smashed with reality regardless of what is going on in the election.

  7. Wanda Says:
    February 15th, 2008 at 9:03 pm

    By the way…for everyone’s information…Ron Paul is a viable candidate, because HE IS STILL IN THE RACE. It went from 11 to 3, and two more will be dropping off soon, and it won’t be Ron. Then we can breath a sigh of relief that we won’t be saddled with:

    amnesty for illegals
    higher taxes
    liars who voted for the war
    liars who voted for the Patriot Act
    liars who are pushing for a U.N. backed global tax on the United States
    liars who say the SPP and NAU are conspiracy theories
    liars who say the NAFTA super highway is not happening
    liars who say they support our Constitution when they are guilty of violating it 100’s of times by their voting records
    liars who say they will pull our troops out of Iraq, but have voted time and time again to back the war
    liars who support the IRS when it is a completely unConstitutional organization

    Liars like Barak Obama, Hillary Clinton, John McCain and Mike Huckabee!!!

    Let’s start there first when you are giving REAL FACTS about who should be leading our nation.

  8. Wanda Says:
    February 15th, 2008 at 9:11 pm

    Oh, and lets start also with the fact that Newsweek is, and has been for a long time, a CFR NWO step n’ fetch it treasonous stump machine news organization for the neocon fascist elites whose only goal is to destroy the Constitution, our sovereignty as a nation, the American middle class, and all we have stood for for over 200 years as a nation, while quietly forcing a blatently visible nazi organization for government on us.

    Newsweek can lie all they want, and act like nobody notices how pathetic they truly are, but the day WILL come when they will be asking for the handouts they are forcing us to tolerate.

    NO MORE TOLERATING THEIR LIES AND GARBAGE.

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    April 6th, 2008 at 6:14 pm

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