Fact and Friction

“Fact checkers come to this with their own set of facts and beliefs and we’re not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact checkers’ Romney pollster Neil Newhouse said at a panel organized by ABC News.”

A tip of the hat to Mr. Newhouse and his candor! I could never have described Republican indifference to fact as convincingly as he has demonstrated it. I agree that these folks come with their own set of beliefs. But they’re Democrats and they see things a little differently. You have to expect them to get a little contrary now and then.

But it’s another cup of tea having “their own set of facts.” I’m put in mind of a New Jersey local political radio commercial years ago, in which the candidate, who happened to be a Republican, warned voters not to be taken in by his opponent’s “false facts.” Can there be two incompatible facts on a specific subject? Can the earth be round and flat?

Fact checking by both political parties is nothing new. Virginia Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, has worked in this capacity for years doing extra-curricular work digging up dirt on Democrats when there are no facts to check. I’d argue that we’d all be better off if statements were checked for accuracy before we heard them, an “ounce of prevention” sort of thing.

Fact checkers by definition check facts. To publicly declare that you won’t let your party’s campaign be dictated by their findings, reduced to its essentials, is declaring freedom to lie, a transgression comparable to claiming that science is irrelevant. Neither political party has a monopoly on spreading misinformation. But I am a partisan who thinks Republicans are guilty of it more often and more egregiously than Democrats. It gives me great satisfaction to hear one of them coming so clean publicly.