Rick Scott and Ponzi schemer Scott Rothstein a couple? Biggest whopper since Burger King declared it invented the sandwich. But PolitiFact Florida, fact-checking vehicle of the liberal Tampa Bay Times, still couldn't find the stomach to give Charlie Crist a "pants on fire."
The Crist ad that claims the governor"teamed up with a felon convicted of running a Ponzi scheme to smear Charlie Crist" is grudgingly rated "false."
What does this new Democratic Party darling have to do to show he's not only rewriting his own life as he goes along, but he's making up Rick Scott's, too?
When exactly would Rick Scott and Scott Rothstein have "teamed up"? Even PolitiFact admits the two together in the same room is an anachronism. Said the newspaper story, "Scott had the good fortune to avoid Rothstein due to his timing: He entered his first race for governor in April 2010. By that date, Rothstein was behind bars and no longer a mega-campaign donor."
Not egregious enough for a "pants on fire"? Why?
Well, becausewhen asked to justify the ad, Crist's strategist Brendan Gilfillan, an old Obama hand from D.C., flipped the newspaper off a glib answer:"Ponzi schemer's words plus Rick Scott's money equal teaming up." Huh? Go ahead, read the story. From that point on, the subtle excuses for Crist's actions when he and Rothstein were friends five years ago and the not-so-subtle, irrelevant jabs at Scott while he was at Hospital Corporation of America tell a story about PolitiFact and the newspaper.
OK, they're in the tank for Charlie Crist. I know that, the whole world knows that. But this is a bold-face lie Crist tells here. There are no gray areas. There was no Rick Scott-Ponzi schemer collusion. None.
I'm a little late in writing about this "rating" of the Crist ad, reported in the Times-Herald Aug. 17. For that, I apologize. The truth is, generally I disregard PolitiFact's pretend gravitas because, by its very name -- PolitiFact -- it sounds as if it's going to offer a fair analysis, yet so often it does anything but.
I often feel my temperature rise reading the Times-Herald because these folks never admit to bias and probably never will. But by no means am I the only one to cite PolitiFact for "ranting and rating." The Internet is alight with websites trying hard to tell the real story and keep the Tampa Bay newspaper (now the Times-Herald) honest.
Check out Politifactbias.com.It claims to be the work of "independent bloggers who share a sense of outrage that PolitiFact often peddles outrageous slant as objective news."
Then there is the website Human Events. It says this: "Once widely regarded as a unique, rigorous and reasonably independent investigator of political claims, PolitiFact now declares conservatives wrong three times more often than liberals. More pointedly, the journalism organization concludes that conservatives have flat out lied nine times more often than liberals. ...If you were a fact-checker yourself, you might reasonably conclude that PolitiFact is biased -- that it favors liberals over conservatives. But PolitiFact continues to assert its impartiality."
The website Smart Politics wants to know why statements or ads from favored politicians are often left unchallenged. "Although PolitiFact provides a blueprint as to how statements are rated," says Eric Ostermeier, "it does not detail how statements are selected.For while there is no doubt members of both political parties make numerous factual as well as inaccurate statements -- and everything in-between -- there remains a fundamental question of which statements (by which politicians) are targeted for analysis in the first place."
These comments are only examples. Google PolitiFact bias.
Call me a skeptic looking for a real ombudsman among Florida journalists. But I don't think fact-checking as it's done by the Times-Herald is a legitimate enterprise. I think it's an attempt to hide liberal bias behind a neutral fade-- particularly in the summer of 2014 when the Democratic candidate for governor needs a big boost to win.
Crist's Rick Scott-Scott Rothstein ad -- no matter how the PolitiFact writeup carefully crafted and colored it -- by anybody's standards but theirs was a "pants on fire" offense.
Reach Nancy Smith at nsmith@sunshinestatenews.com or at 228-282-2423. Twitter: @NancyLBSmith
