Today, President Biden will give a major speech defending his record on inflation. But don’t expect media “fact-checkers” to give him much of a shakedown on his facts. For years “fact-checking” outlets like PolitiFact, Snopes, and the Washington Post have leaned to the left when it comes to ruling on how “accurate” a statement is.
PolitiFact has checked Biden’s critics almost six times as often as it scrutinizes Biden. It recently awarded Biden a “Mostly True” stamp for claiming that “the current spike in gas prices is largely the fault of Vladimir Putin.” Washington Post fact-checker Glenn Kessler called the claim “defensible,” so it didn’t warrant any “Pinnochios” from him.
It’s true that some Biden whoppers are probably “age-related.” Earlier this month, Biden suggested that we were sending missiles to Russia: “Before Russia attacked, we made sure Russia had Javelins and other weapons to strengthen their defenses . . .”
But other Biden assertions are clearly partisan hooey, as when this month he declared that “this MAGA crowd is really the most extreme political organization that has existed in American history.” That could be interpreted as saying that Trump voters — half of the country — are more extreme than the KKK, Neo Nazis, and the Flat Earth Society. Reporters quoted the president without challenging his facts, with some praising him for being forthright and plain-speaking.
Let’s see what kind of job the self-appointed guardians of accuracy do with Biden’s inflation speech today.