NY Times fact-check of Clinton ad left out the facts
In an August 14 "Ad Campaign" analysis of the first television commercial produced by Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's (D-NY) presidential campaign, New York Times reporter Patrick Healy asserted in a section titled "Accuracy" that President Bush "would certainly disagree with Mrs. Clinton's accusation that he does not pay attention to single mothers, veterans or people who lack health care." Healy continued: "She does not offer facts in the advertisement to verify her claim." But, while Healy noted that the Clinton campaign "has a trove of statistics to illustrate unmet needs of the uninsured and of veterans," he did not provide any of them in his article.
In the commercial, Clinton asserts that families "who don't have health care," "single mom[s] trying to find affordable child care," and "soldiers who served in Iraq and Afghanistan" are all "invisible to this president." From the ad:
CLINTON: You know, if you're a family that is struggling and you don't have health care, well, you are invisible to this president. If you're a single mom trying to find affordable child care so you can go to work, well, you're invisible too. And I never thought I would see that our soldiers who served in Iraq and Afghanistan would be treated as though they were invisible as well.
Unmentioned in the write-up, in which Healy asserted that Bush "would certainly disagree" with the accusations in the ad, is a comment President Bush recently made relevant to his thinking about "famil[ies who] don't have health care." During a July 10 speech, Bush asserted: "I mean, people have access to health care in America. After all, you just go to an emergency room." The Times has covered this comment only on its op-ed page, in Paul Krugman's July 16 and July 30 columns (subscription required), as well as Judith Warner's July 21 guest column (subscription required). Times reporters Jeffrey Zeleny and Sheryl Gay Stolberg covered Bush's speech in a July 11 article but did not report his remarks concerning "access to health care in America."
From Healy's Times analysis:
ACCURACY President Bush would certainly disagree with Mrs. Clinton's accusation that he does not pay attention to single mothers, veterans or people who lack health care. She does not offer facts in the advertisement to verify her claim, but her campaign has a trove of statistics to illustrate unmet needs of the uninsured and of veterans.
There's a couple injured veterans, who could easly make a case against shrub's concern for veteran's health. What he's given single mothers is anxiety.
There you have it. MMFA labeling as conservative misinformation a fact-check piece that accurately identifies misinformation in a progressive ad. In the ad Senator Clinton repeatedly makes the claim that the president doesn't see (the implication being that he doesn't care about) single mothers, veterans, and Americans without health care. It's an absolutely absurd claim. One that, even if it were true, could never be substantiated. '[S]tatistics illustrating unmet needs' are simply not relevant to the claim that the president doesn't care. They do little more than illustrate that the president has not done enough--a perfectly acceptable accusation. Instead, the Senator has determined, for dramatic affect to say that the president simply doesn't see the problem. Or, if he does see it, he doesn't care. It's terribly hard to get around the misleading nature of that claim.
“During a July 10 speech, Bush asserted: ‘I mean, people have access to health care in America. After all, you just go to an emergency room.’”
And you, breakerbacker, believe, “…to say that the president simply doesn't see the problem. Or, if he does see it, he doesn't care. It's terribly hard to get around the misleading nature of that claim.”
So how f—king blind, stinking drunk are you?
All you're doing is stating a belief. You use the president's words to support your belief, but the nature of the belief is such that absent a full admission by the president that the belief is accurate, and that's all you've got: an inference which cannot honestly be stated unequivocally without the clarifier 'this is what I believe to be so.' Without that clarifier, it's misinformation, plain and simple.
It has nothing to do with being blind or drunk. It has to do with actually having the ability to see clearly.
The deceptive beguilement with which you, breakbacker, obfuscate the obvious, merely soils your endeavors. The belief is not mine it is a quote of Bush [July 10, 2007; Intercontinental Hotel Cleveland]. And it is not taken out of context, as you attempted to mislead with. There is no misinformation contained in my words, only in your continued deceptions, your duplicitous manipulations. Your words will not make right what Bush spoke. Bush stated what he believed. And he said it in full admission he believed [his words] to be accurate. Your baseless statement regarding the necessity of a clarifier remains, not even moot or worthy of comment. It merely obfuscates what you cannot perceive, his outright ineptly arrogant, ignorance
I'm not trying to make right what Bush spoke. I am speaking directly to the notion that the fact-checker did his job. And I'm absolutely correct on that account.
I'm not here to defend anything but honesty. I said nothing of the post being out of context. Instead, I said you were using the quote to justify a belief you hold. A belief that cannot be verified as anything other than belief. Mind you, belief is not fact. Therefore, it was that job of the fact-checker to identify the difference between belief stated as fact and actual fact.
Hillary's statement was not a statement of fact, but was her belief.
Here's what she said last night.
"The White House just attacked me a few minutes ago, saying how dare I say that Americans weren't visible to the president," Clinton told a crowd of more than 800 in Dubuque. "Not only have I said it, I'm saying it now and I will keep saying it, because I happen to believe it."
A belief which she framed as fact. How long will you have us continue to go around in circles here.
I know it's her belief. I also know that she expressed it as more than just belief. That's the basic problem here.
Also, how long is the Clinton campaign tactic going to work where she claims to be the victim of an attack perpetrated by someone her campaign had already been attacking?
So we can't say anything against the president that he doesn't admit to? What kind of fascistic dreamworld do you live in?
You can say whatever you want about whomever you want. So can Senator Clinton. All I'm saying is that saying it (or believeing it) doesn't make it so.
Strawman argument. No one said that believing something makes it so.
Believing something, having an opinion, is not something that can be fact-checked.
Again, this isn't about somebody's right to have an opinion. It's about framing your opinion as an opinion. A possible perception. The problem, once again, is that the ad doesn't qualify the assertion as anything other than fact. It's really a basic issue of how the campaign is using language to frame its message. There are far more honest (and, in my opinion, effective) ways to make the points Senator Clinton is trying to lay out.
Well, one thing is clear...President Numbnuts never had to sit in an emergency waiting room for hours, trying to get someone to treat his kid's sore throat.
His statement was ignorant and flippant, and, yes UNCARING. The charge stands.
"There you have it. MMFA labeling as conservative misinformation a fact-check piece that accurately identifies misinformation in a progressive ad."
There's no misinformation in the ad.
Come come. To state that these people are 'invisible' to the president--which is to suggest that he doesn't care about their plight--is to make a very specific and unprovable accusation. One that can very easily be brushed off with a simple nuh-uh. And while the president hasn't officially said 'nuh-uh', I think we can all assume he would formulate such a response to such accusations. Therefore, since he's the only one capable of determining what he sees and whom he cares about, I think it's a pretty straight path from that realization to the one which states Senator Clinton's own divinations of the president's motives and feelings are probably less than accurate. By realizing that she's stating something that's quite probably (almost definitely) inaccurate as if it were obviously true, she's leading people to false conclusions. She is, in fact, misleading them. One could say, misinforming them.
i guess you've never heard of actions speak louder than words.
No, I'm familiar with all kinds of lame platitudes.
I don't plan to get into a long, drawn out argument regarding how intellectually dishonest the editors and consumers of this site are on such a regular basis. I've made that argument before. Rehashing it would be terribly boring.
All I'm saying is that MMFA's complaint here is terribly disingenuous and totally hypocritical. Anyone who doesn't see that basic truth at the outset, however, is unlikely to be convinced. If you're one of those, I congratulate you on the strength of your will to shun reason. And I bid you farewell.
What a bunch of bull. When you fact check an article, you look for facts that are inaccurate. That is what fact checking is. If Clinton had said that Bush raised taxes one trillion dollars, and he didn't, the NY Times would have a good story.
You can't say someone go their facts wrong when the person didn't state any hard facts to begin with. If you could, we would have to declare as unfactual many, if not most ads.
That means if politician A says "Politician B is bad for the country," you could declare it factually untrue because politician A couldn't prove it. That means if you say "I think the Iraq war was worth it," I could declare you made an unfactual claim.
The only intellectual dishonesty comes from you.
You know, if you're a family that is struggling and you don't have health care, well, you are invisible to this president. If you're a single mom trying to find affordable child care so you can go to work, well, you're invisible too. And I never thought I would see that our soldiers who served in Iraq and Afghanistan would be treated as though they were invisible as well.
Find a sentence here that isn't stated as fact.
They are all stated as opinion. There's not a single sentence there that's stated as a fact.
Therefore, there was no accuracy to the "fact-checking" that the journalist does.
[I]f you're a family that is struggling and you don't have health care, well, you are invisible to this president.
That is not framed as an opinion. There's no qualification of the statement as anything other than a description of the way things are.
If you're a single mom trying to find affordable child care so you can go to work, well, you're invisible too.
Framed as fact again, and for the same reason.
And I never thought I would see that our soldiers who served in Iraq and Afghanistan would be treated as though they were invisible as well.
This comes closest to being framed as opinion or, at least, as perception. The phrase, 'as though' allows for that reading. The others do not.
No, they are not "framed as facts". They're her opinion.
As she said last night,
"The White House just attacked me a few minutes ago, saying how dare I say that Americans weren't visible to the president," Clinton told a crowd of more than 800 in Dubuque. "Not only have I said it, I'm saying it now and I will keep saying it, because I happen to believe it."
And BTW, it's a weak style to say "I think soldiers are invisible to Bush." It's much better to say "soldiers are invisible to Bush."
Neither statement is a statement of fact, however. They're both opinions.
I didn't say she should necessarily say 'I believe...' I said that was a clearly more accurate phrasing. A more powerful one would be to speak with regard to how the soldiers themselves feel. As in 'this government and this white house leave many soldiers I've spoken to with the distinct impression that they're invisible.'
There are lots of ways to phrase things powerfully and honestly. The campaign seems most concerned with power and less with honesty.
Also, to state that you believe something to be true is not an opinion if you truly believe it. It's a fact.
When you fact check an article, you look for facts that are inaccurate.
Not for nothing, but there's no such thing as an inaccurate fact. The point of the fact check is to ensure the statements made as facts are facts at all, and to ensure the facts stated are not misleading. That's kind of why this is being identified by the NYT. We can all have our opinion with regard to why this Times piece is being identified by MMFA. I certainly have mine.
There's nothing disingenious here. The number of uninsured Americans has increased significantly under Bush's tenure and he has not done anything about it. He had a republican Congress to help him push any proposals he wanted for six years and nothing was done. There has been a number of nonpartisan VA groups telling him for years that because of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, a significant increase in VA funding was needed. And consistently every year, Bush has only proposed modest increases that don't meet the needs of veterans (the increases barely keep up with inflation). My only conclusion is: none of this concerns him.
My only conclusion is: none of this concerns him.
My being the operative word here.
Exactly. Clinton's commercial was her opinion too.
If only she had framed it as such, we wouldn't be having this discussion.
She did frame it as such, as I explained quite clearly.
It's your mistaken (and dishonest, perhaps) description of it that's flawed, not her framing of it.
It was opinion. It was her belief. As such, fact-checking was inappropriate.
Without being clearly stated as either opinion or belief, the implicit designation of the statement is that it's true. Factual. Not open for discussion. How is it that you don't understand this?
What a ridiculous post. Ads state claims like this all the frickin time. The job of a fact check is to check the facts in the ad, not the assertions.
You make the absurd argument that because we can't factually prove that Bush doesn't care about the poor, we can't make that claim in an ad.
That is simply silly.
The fact check did not fact check. It is thus misinformation.
Assertions stated as facts should be treated as facts. Had Senator Clinton cloaked the assertions in the trappings of beliefs, feelings, or perceptions (e.g. These people feel as if they're invisible, OR His policies make it look like they're invisible to him) then it would have been a totally fair negative ad. Seeing as she dressed the assertions up like facts, then it's the fact-checkers job to call foul.
Kayne West said "George Bush doesn't care about black people". The proof, Hurricane Katrina
Who cares what you think? There isn't, to my mind, a single false statement in that commercial. If there's a big problem, and the person responsible doesn't act to fix it, then you can certainly say they don't care. A president who cared would have seen the chaos in New Orleans and waited until national TV shamed him into acting. (And then, it was a speech, and then good-bye.) Kanye West was completely justified in the statement, "George Bush doesn't care about black people." If he did, if they weren't essentially invisible to him, he would have acted differently at that time and countless other times. Anybody who says, "Well, they've got emergency rooms," doesn't care enough to take a look at the problems of the poor and uninsured. Anybody who passes a Medicare bill that chiefly benefits Big Pharma doesn't care about old people. I guess you have a different opinion, but that's the way a majority of Americans react to Bush and to conservatism. Guess you just can't take criticism, I guess.
Sorry man, I'm not a conservative. I'm somebody who likes to focus on honesty. There were any number of places to lay blame following Katrina. The president certainly received his fair share of justifiable criticism, but one must be reasoned when they're drawing conclusions based on poor performance. It's not a reasoned thought process that leads Kanye to state that because the president hadn't done nearly enough, and a lot of the people suffering were black that the only possible conclusion was that the president doesn't care about black people. It was an emotional one. It's what he believes. But it's not a fact. That's the important distinction. He didn't make that distinction. Nor has Senator Clinton.
It's Kanye West's opinion.
It's Hillary Clinton's opinion.
Therefore, there's no facts to check! There's no accuracy to verify or inaccuracy to point out.
It's an opinion. Opinions can't be fact checked in the same way that facts can.
If they were framed as opinions, then I would absolutely agree with you. The problem is that they were framed as facts. So I cannot agree with you. Because you're wrong.
No, you're wrong because they weren't framed as facts.
They were her opinions. She echoed that same sentiment last night, in this comment.
"The White House just attacked me a few minutes ago, saying how dare I say that Americans weren't visible to the president," Clinton told a crowd of more than 800 in Dubuque. "Not only have I said it, I'm saying it now and I will keep saying it, because I happen to believe it."
http://desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070815/NEWS09/708150367/-1/BUSINESS04
Man oh man. Because she says after the fact that this is her belief, that somehow implants a context into her ad? Sorry, not really. All it does is further underscore why the ad is at best sloppy and at worst nefarious.
Please, hold your candidates for president to a higher standard. She is not framing them as opinions. She is framing them as facts. In order to frame an opinion one would have to qualify it. Absent such a qualification, you're stating an opinion as you would a fact.
"New York Times reporter Patrick Healy asserted in a section titled 'Accuracy' that President Bush 'would certainly disagree with Mrs. Clinton's accusation that he does not pay attention to single mothers, veterans or people who lack health care.'"
Is Healy dense? Does he really expect any politician to come out and say "I pay no attention to single mothers, veterans or people who lack health care." You would have to look at a politician's voting record and their proposals to determine something like that. The number of uninsured Americans has increased significantly under Bush and nothing is being done about it. AFAICT, the ad is accurate.
Is Healy dense? Does he really expect any politician to come out and say "I pay no attention to single mothers, veterans or people who lack health care."
Do you misunderstand the purpose of a fact-check? If so, it's quite simple. It's to verify the verifiable, and identify what can either not be verified as accurate or can be shown to be inaccurate.
In this case, the claims Senator Clinton is making with regard to the president cannot be verified. In fact, the only person capable of verifying such accusations would be the president himself, and he's likely to rebuke all such accusations.
Therefore, any half-way ethical journalist assigned with fact-checking this ad would make the same conclusion Healy's made: that the accusations are misleading. You may not like it, but you know it to be true.
"In this case, the claims Senator Clinton is making with regard to the president cannot be verified. In fact, the only person capable of verifying such accusations would be the president himself, and he's likely to rebuke all such accusations."
That info can be verified by looking at voting records and proposals. Nothing the president has purposed helps people without healthcare especially the poor. And the president has consistently been underfunding the VA for years now.
Bush can rebuke anything; it doesn't mean a thing.
That info can be verified by looking at voting records and proposals.
No it cannot. The statement that any of these groups are 'invisible' to the president are unverifiable by anyone other than the president. If you kept walking into a pole, I could say it seems like you don't see that thing, but I could not say unequivocally that you absolutely couldn't see it.
But you could have that opinion, and you could rightfully say "You don't even see that pole." It would be your opinion. There would be no way to fact-check your opinion that someone else was totally missing that pole, and that's why they keep walking into it.
Nobody is saying Senator Clinton is not welcome to her opinion. Nobody's saying she's not free to share her opinion. All I'm saying is that it is her obligation to frame it as an opinion. Which she did not.
But you could have that opinion, and you could rightfully say "You don't even see that pole." It would be your opinion.
You're absolutely right, it is within ones rights to state something regardless of that statement's accuracy. However, in the case given, it's not even an opinion. It's an assumption.
>>Do you misunderstand the purpose of a fact-check? If so, it's quite simple. It's to verify the verifiable, and identify what can either not be verified as accurate or can be shown to be inaccurate.
Exactly. And this so-called fact check is a joke because it tries to verify what is not verifiable. Fact checks are reserved for when politicians state facts. Hilary's belief that Bush does not care about certain groups of people is not a fact but a belief based on facts.
No where does the fact check question Hilary's use of facts, exactly what a fact check is supposed to do. That is why it is a silly fact check and a piece of misinformation.
When a politician states something as if it were a fact then it's the job of the fact check to treat it that way too.
George Bush doesn't have a clue.
Here's an interesting snippet from remarks Bush made during a discussion on social security:
THE PRESIDENT: Good. Okay, Mary, tell us about yourself.
MS. MORNIN: Okay, I'm a divorced, single mother with three grown, adult children. I have one child, Robbie, who is mentally challenged, and I have two daughters.
THE PRESIDENT: You work three jobs?
MS. MORNIN: Three jobs, yes.
THE PRESIDENT: Uniquely American, isn't it? I mean, that is fantastic that you're doing that. (Applause.) Get any sleep? (Laughter.)
MS. MORNIN: Not much. Not much.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, hopefully, this will help you get you sleep to know that when we talk about Social Security, nothing changes.
http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=109&STORY=/www/story/02-04-2005/0002951038&EDATE=
Only a clueless fool would think it's fantastic to have to work 3 jobs to survive
Now I don't know if Hillary has much more of a clue about us regular folks than Bush does...but I'm willing to bet she'd never consider working 3 jobs as being fantastic! Or at least have the good sense not to say it aloud.
While, I agree that he's a bonehead, I think you're misidentifying what he's calling fantastic. It's not her situation. It's her ability to cope with her situation. Fantastic is certainly a poor choice of words. Extraordinary may have been better.
Breaker,
I don't have much faith in any politician & this includes the current crop running for President. Their words ring hollow to me. I don't buy Hillary's concern, & I've seen no evidence that Bush gives a crap about any of us.
Now whether or not Bush meant it was fantastic that she was coping with her situation or not, it still cleary shows the guy is out of touch. No American should have to work 3 jobs to get by.
Bush has almost singlehandedly destroyed the Republican party, & if a Democrat ends up in the White House I put the blame on his shoulders.
Personally, I don't care about the Republican or Democratic Parties. I'd prefer a Democrat over a Republican at least six days a week, but I will never again be a registered member of the Democratic Party.
Talk about sophistry. So if a sociopath kills 3 people in cold blood and then says "That felt fantastic!" And then if the newspapers said the murderer thought it was fantastic to kill people, you would say "No, he thought the experience was fantastic, not the actual killing."
(By the way, how the heck do you know that Bush didn't think it was "fantastic" for the woman to have 3 jobs, and not just her ability to cope? Are you a mind reader? Or are you making an unfactual statement that can't be backed up?)
To make over fine distinctions is not a sign of good of an intelligent argument, but a very weak one, a last resort when you can't straightforwardly.
Because he said he thought it was fantastic that she was doing that. Not that she had to do that.
Also, my argument is completely straightforward. You may not agree with it. That's fine. But it's not complicated. And it's fairly sound.
No, your argument is build on a specious argument that falls apart on examination.
It was her opinion that she was expressing. She didn't state anything as fact. That's your wrong characterization of her behavior.
I know it was her opinion. She simply didn't express it as her opinion in the ad. By not expressing it as an opinion, she implicitly expressed it as fact. Read the words. Find the assertion that this is, in fact, only opinion. You must search within the ad since the ad is the point of discussion.
I know a mother who has a husband on disability, and she works three jobs. It's not that unusual. Just look outside the country club.
Fantastic Example of a Straw Man Argument
1. Article claims to be an "analysis"
2. MMFA calls it a Fact Check
3. MMFA says it fails as a Fact Check!
Within the "analysis" is a section called "accuracy". That's the fact-check within the analysis that MMfA takes issue with.
What is clear is that you barely read the headlines (running late for your job as a harrasser of MMfA, so all you had time for was skimming?), and then mistakenly said that MMfA was wrong.
The fact that Hillary Clinton has been a strong advocate for welfare-reform-as-we-got-it tells us a great deal about her stand on these issues. One of the primary accomplishments of this agenda was the sudden creation of a massive, super-low-wage workforce, competing for jobs once held by the average working class American. This effectively keeps wages low while enabling companies to enjoy a years-long chain of record-breaking profits. Hundreds of thousands were laid off over time, as many of those family-supporting jobs were broken down into pt. time/no benefits/bottom wage jobs. While this is actually a very complex issue, the bottom line is that these policies have been central to the severe economic disparities that we have in the US today. As a direct result of these policies, the rate of infant mortality among our poor is the highest in the Industrialized world, and the life expectancy of America's poor has dropped down below that of most Third World nations. Hillary Clinton maintains that this is a positive achievement.
First the New York Times published our espionage secrets, now Sen. Clinton is exposing our top-secret military weapons in TV ads for her personal political gain!
However, I am quite excited to know that President Bush has developed technology to make our soldiers invisible. Much of what our government throws money at turns out to be a waste, but by being able to make our soldiers invisible, President Bush should save dozens, if not hundreds of lives in the war zone.
Hillary's ad nails it on the head.
I definitely will not be voting for George W. Bush next year.
Do you misunderstand the purpose of a fact-check? If so, it's quite simple. It's to verify the verifiable, and identify what can either not be verified as accurate or can be shown to be inaccurate.
While that is true, there is also the fact of circumstantial evidence used each and every day to lay out cases in court.
If someone is charged with armed robbery, but the clerk cannot identify the suspect, but the weapon used was found in the defendants back pocket, his fingerprints are found at the crime scene and items stolen were found in his apartment, then it could be inferred that this person is probably the one who committed the crime.
The suspect could indeed contend that the evidence is all circumstantial but in a reality based world most people would conclude he was guilty.
In the case of Mr. Bush it can be demonstrated that under his leadership low income working mothers have a more difficult time to affordable child care, the number of uninsured has risen dramatically, and with Walter Reed and other veteran related scandals Veterans are not receiving the services they were promised.
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury I admit I can’t “Fact Check” the soul of Mr. Bush, but based upon the preponderance of the evidence I would suggest to you that
“You know, if you're a family that is struggling and you don't have health care, well, you are invisible to this president. If you're a single mom trying to find affordable child care so you can go to work, well, you're invisible too. And I never thought I would see that our soldiers who served in Iraq and Afghanistan would be treated as though they were invisible as well.”
I know I’m just being silly.
George Bush has been on vacation his entire life, he has never known what its like to support himself. His cross eyed pappy (the one who was born with the 'silver foot' in his mouth) has always supported him. Hillary is correct when she says he does not see people who are disadvantaged if Bakerbreaker actually read a newspaper today they would see that Bush is going to actually veto a bill that would pay for health care for children. Maybe they are missing a part of the brain that comprehends.
Anyway it was cool for Karl Rove to make 'baseless' accusations against democrats but it's NOT okay for Clinton to make statements based on TRUTH not beliefs, this is not an opinion. People were dead laying in the streets in the aftermath of Katrina and you are going to defend this inhumane monster that allowed the United States of America to slip into a Third World Country mentality. I lived in Dallas Texas for 15 years and I NEVER once saw George Bush enter ANYBODY's church, so the idiot all of a sudden finds religion after he 'steals' the presidency.
Bush is not a chistian if he was he would care about the disadvantaged the poor Katrina proves he does not, thus Hillary can exploit his weaknesses of which there are 'many'. He's not the god you seem to think he is...
And I might like to add I would believe Hillary or Bill before I would George Bush or anybody in the Bush administration, after all the Clintons don't have a "hidden agenda"...
The only time Bush paid attention to the health care of single mothers was when they hadn't had their fetus yet ... once the child has taken its first breath ... it's off his radar ...
Sorry, meant "haven't given birth to their fetus" ...