Politifact says Obama statement re Romney's equating Trump to a small business gets a 'false' rating [View all]
Auditing the Fact-checkers for legitimacey (of their rationalization of their judgements)
Are the people at Politifact playing dumb? Well, they're really stretching credulity with this one.
What I DO know they are doing, as they have in the past, is trying to find ways to judge statements by Demcrats as 'false' or 'questionable' so as to keep the balance (between Obama & the Democrats versus Romney and Republicans) from going too embarassingly hard against Romney and the Republicans. Thus, they have to come up with very questionable or outright fraudulent judgements against Obama and other Democrats.
In the review linked to below they say Obama gets a "false" for saying: "Under Gov. Romney's definition ... Donald Trump is a small business."
They go into a long discussion of technical definitions of what is a small business, going by number of employees or revenues. Then they say at the end of all this, Obama gets a 'false' because:
"Obama said that 'under Gov. Romney's definition ... Donald Trump is a small business.' But any tax cuts Trump would get from Romney would have nothing to do with whether hes a small business or not. We rate Obamas claim False."
THAT WAS OBAMA'S POINT! ARE WE SUPPOSED TO BELIEVE YOU DON'T 'GET' THAT? Obama is saying that Romney's definition of a small business is so loose as to include someone like Trump or super wealthy Hedge-fund managers. [font size="+1"] And Obama's point is that this is fucking
ridiculous[/font].
Politifact's Louis Jacobson also adds to his supposedly clinical analysis of the statement being examined that:
"The Obama campaign has often tried to remind voters of Romney's relationship with Trump, who has been the most prominent person to question where Obama was born. In TV ads, the Obama campaign has frequently shown a photo of Romney in front of a Trump jet. But was Obama correct when he said that "under Gov. Romney's definition ... Donald Trump is a small business"?"
[font size="+1"] ... is this part of your appraisal of the relevant facts Mr. Jacobson??[/font]
On this judgement call Politifact and Louis Jacobson, PolitiFact Senior Writer (really??), get a [font color="red"]FAIL[/font]
Barack Obama Says: "Under Gov. Romney's definition ... Donald Trump is a small business."