By Florida Bill
Recently in the Chicago Tribune, I saw a comment by Columnist Clarence Page that President Trump has lied more than 16,000 times in public statements since he took office in January, 2017--and Page's source: "Fact Checkers" at the Washington Post.
Page complains regularly about Trump and has categorized him as a "racist" in many columns. He doesn't like Trump--I get that. The Washington Post is a bombastic critic of Trump and for that very reason alone, its reliability for producing accurate "fact finding" data is highly suspicious. In fact, its finding of 16,000 prevarications is absurd on its face and a veteran reporter like Clarence Page has to know that, but apparently he wants to remain in good standing with the media's "Trump-hating" crowd.
Based upon a three year time frame, (including weekends) during which the President allegedly misstated facts, the President would be lying at the rate of 44 times a day. I know that Post "fact checkers" may contend that there are countless prevarications in a single speech, but that statistic strains the imagination since prepared statements are for the most part examined by aides in the White House and by attorneys and former newsmen before they are delivered for pubic consumption. It is easy to sit back and point to this or that as false and untrue, and then call it a lie and pass out those armchair findings to hungry Trump critics in the subservient Democrat controlled media.
A main contention by the fact finders is that Trump's "most repeated falsehood" is his claim that the government is "going to have over 400 miles of wall built by the end of year (2020)." The President has repeated that more than 160 times, fact checkers assert. Since several hundred miles of the wall are already up, who is doing the fibbing on that one.
But what about the "fact checkers" who are accountable to no one? What are their credentials, and how do these gifted minds go about their work? The Post has published various commentaries patting themselves on the back, noting awards received for their work from other Trump-hating organizations. I waded through some of the Post's accounts of its fact-finding process, and concluded that its process would never stand the test of cross examination. But then--who cares. Freedom of the press!!!
The Post, like all corners of the news media, is protected by a First Amendment privilege which allows it to say in print absolutely anything, and the Post will pay no penalty for its scurrilous behavior and dishonesty. As every lawyer knows ( and I am one), it is virtually impossible to ever sue successfully for libel or defamation when the defamed party is a public official. There is a pathway in some cases, but it simply does not happen.
The Post has a "fact checking" team of four reporters headed by Glenn Kessler, 60, a veteran newsman with credentials in investigative journalism and as an author of one book. His has three assistants and their experience and abilities are anyone's guess. But their allegiance to the Post and its liberal anti Trump agenda presumes that they will pull out all stops in a team effort to discredit the president, honesty and objectivity be damned.
With their fact checking, the team awards "Pinocchios" that correspond to increasing levels of untruth, culminating at four. A pinocchio-4 is as bad as it gets and is called a "whopper," and with this process, the "fair minded" newspaper can say they do not call someone a "liar,--only that he has a long nose with the length indicating the severity of the dishonesty. The Post simply leaves it to others in the media, print and electronic, to denounce President Trump as a "liar," and point to the "fact checkers" at the Washington Post as the unassailable source.
Supposedly, other working bureaucrats are fact- checked in response to requests, but in truth it is President Trump that is the principal target for mendacious behavior. Around Post editorial offices, that mission is referred to as "Project Trump." Kessler has written that the Trump project takes up huge amounts of time, but not every entry to the "fact checkers" database, is a full length article and most require only 15 minutes on average for the armchair evaluators to compose a comment.
The Post which is committed to bringing down the nation's 45th President, and without having to account or be penalized for any fabrications and nonsensical interpretations, the the Post is free to accuse the President of unadulterated dishonesty, and serial exaggeration. The burden for proving the accuracy of a claim rests with the speaker, Kessler says. Trump haters love it, and it always supports the agenda of the Democrat party.
I have found that citizens who oppose the President call him a "liar," but are unable to cite examples. Some point to Trump's assertion that the Mexicans will be paying for the "wall," which was more of a promise than a lie, and actually in view of the tariff change, has come true. Like Trib columnist Page, who clearly hates Trump and has abandoned all objectivity, they "know" he is a liar because the Washington Post says so, and so do Democrats in the House of Representatives headed by Nancy Pelosi.
Thus far, in the past 40 months, the Post has been unsuccessful in destroying the Trump presidency through the phony "Russian" investigation and then the "Ukraine Quid Pro Quo," hoax and currently is attempting to blame the President for failing to properly lead the country's fight against Covid-19. Is this the Post's dreamy reenactment of their reporting in the 1970s, which was key in the take down and resignation of President Nixon?
The Post ignores all of the false and foolish statements of Joe Biden who they are supporting in a race against incumbent Trump next November. Stories of Biden's sexual attack on a senate aide is ignored. No "fact checking" there, although there would be plenty to feed into that "database." Currently, and even with WaPo's shameful reporting and lack of journalistic objectivity, pundits, without an agenda, are predicting that President Trump will win reelection in a landslide.
xxx
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