The biggest lie of 2011 came from Democrats. That is the conclusion of PolitiFact.com.
The Democrat claim that PolitiFact calls “Lie of the Year” is this: “Republicans voted to end Medicare.”
As to be expected, Democrats have ranted against PolitiFact, claiming that the Democrat lie is not a lie. Yet, Democrats have a couple of problems that contradict their rant.
1. FactCheck.org has proclaimed that the same Democrat claim is one of the Whoppers of 2011.
Regarding the biggest lie of 2011, Glenn Kessler (the WAPo’s Fact Checker) states,
We stand with our colleagues at Politifact and Factcheck.org on this one. As we noted at the time, “there’s certainly a worthwhile debate about whether the Medicare changes proposed by Ryan would help or hurt Medicare, and whether too much of a burden would be shifted to beneficiaries.” But that does not mean “killing” Medicare.
It didn’t take long for the usual liberal shills to sound off against Politifact. Ezra Klein wrote, “Ryan actually campaigned to get PolitiFact to name “end Medicare” their Lie of the Year.”
Klein was responding to Slate’s David Weigel’s claim that Politifact’s choice of Lie of the Year was the result of Paul Ryan’s influence.
PolitiFact editor Bill Adair replied, “Some of our critics wrongly attributed our choice to our readers’ poll and said we were swayed by a lobbying campaign by Ryan. But our editors made the choice and the poll was not a factor. ”
Paul Krugman wrote, “The people at Politifact are terrified of being considered partisan if they acknowledge the clear fact that there’s a lot more lying on one side of the political divide than on the other. So they’ve bent over backwards to appear “balanced” — and in the process made themselves useless and irrelevant.”
Apparently Krugman hasn’t noticed that he is making himself useless and irrelevant.
Granted, Republican politicians are not immune from making false statements. Indeed, PolitiFact’s “Lie of the Year” for years 2009 and 2010 were claims made by Republicans.
Isn’t it odd that Democrat pundits have no problem with PolitiFact when the website says that Republican statements are false?
Bill Adair said it best: “For many of our readers, the love for PolitiFact has always been conditional. They love us when we confirm their views that the other side is wrong — and they hate us when we don’t.”
So, the fact checkers have caught Democrats making a false statement about Republicans, and Democrat minions don’t like it.
Permit me to offer those minions something to go with their whine:
