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Jewish World Review March 3, 2014 / 1 Adar II, 5774 Harry Reid's claim that the 'vast majority' of AFP’s Obamacare ads are 'lies' By Glenn Kessler
–Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), remarks on the floor of the Senate, Feb. 26, 2014 “I can’t say that every one of the Koch brothers’ ads are a lie, but I’ll say this: Mr. President, the vast, vast majority of them are.” –Reid, a few hours later By popular demand from readers, we will take a look at these statements by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) He made his comments as part of a harsh attack on the billionaire Koch brothers, who have backed Americans for Prosperity, a political group that has spent $30 million in the past six months, virtually all on ads attacking Democrats who support the Affordable Care Act, a.k.a. Obamacare. At one point, he even declared, the brothers had “no conscience” and were “un-American” — political rhetoric that some might argue goes too far, given Reid’s office. Taken by itself, as a blanket comment that all tales of woe under the new law are false, Reid’s first statement appears ridiculous. But we don’t like to play gotcha here at The Fact Checker. From the context — the focus on the Koch brothers — Reid appeared to be focusing on the tales told in the ads sponsored by AFP. After an eruption on Twitter and other social media, Reid returned to the floor to amend his statement: “I can’t say that every one of the Koch brothers’ ads are a lie, but I’ll say this: Mr. President, the vast, vast majority of them are.” “Senator Reid wanted to be accurate so he went back to the floor to correct the record,” said his spokesman Adam Jentleson. “Senator Reid’s argument is with the shadowy, secretive billionaires behind the ads who are spending millions to rig the system to benefit themselves and the corporations they control, not the people in the ads.” In other words, it appears Reid misspoke the first time, so we will evaluate his second statement. For the record, The Fact Checker awards Pinocchios but shies away from the word “lie” because it is such a harsh, personal judgment. The Pinocchio scale is based on the idea that there are various types of misstatements, some worse than others. The FactsBy our count on You Tube, Americans for Prosperity has run about 50 anti-Obamacare ads since July. Many are repetitive or on the same theme, frequently citing PolitiFact’s designation of an Obama statement on the law as “Lie of the Year.” Some of the Obamacare ads even feature actors, not real people, which some people might argue crosses a line. But many of these ads have never been vetted by fact checkers. However, those that have faced scrutiny generally have not fared well. The Fact Checker, for instance, has examined five of these ads, and has given four of them Two Pinocchios. However, one received just a single Pinocchio, and we praised it for sticking relatively close to the facts for an attack ad.
One ad The Fact Checker evaluated starred a women in Michigan named Julia Boonstra. We raised serious questions about her allegations in this ad—as did our colleagues at PolitiFact—and our analysis was cited by Paul Krugman in the New York Times. Reid, in turn, cited Krugman in his floor speech. PolitiFact, meanwhile, has looked at six of these ads. In two cases, it said it did not have enough facts for its Truth-O-Meter, but otherwise it awarded one “half true,” two “mostly false,” and one “false” for these ads. Our colleagues at FactCheck.org do not use a rating system, but have faulted two of the ads for lacking context or being wrong. We should note that AFP is very aggressive with its ads. In the past, it has earned Four Pinocchios from The Fact Checker, and more than 80 percent of its PolitiFact ratings have been Pants on Fire, False or Mostly False. (The percentage declines if you include ads that did not yield a rating.) It has never earned a True or Mostly True rating, which for some political organizations might be a badge of honor. The Pinocchio TestReid claimed that a “vast, vast majority” of AFP’s Obamacare ads are lies. Vast majority is an imprecise and hackneyed phrase, but presumably it is above 75 percent. We’re not sure what a “vast, vast majority” would be. We also are not sure what would qualify as a “lie” though on balance we might reserve that for Four Pinocchio or Pants on Fire and/or False statements. (Others might add “mostly false” and Three Pinocchio statements to the “lie” pile, but personally that seems to go too far.) But only one of the Obamacare ads vetted by the Fact Checker or PolitiFact achieved such ratings, though all had various problems and statements that went too far. Meanwhile, our colleague Greg Sargent has noted that two recent AFP ads, released after controversial Boonstra ad, appeared to go out of their way not to make statements that could be called into question. In this case, even Reid’s revised rhetoric went too far. He would have been on safer ground if he dropped the harsh rhetoric and had simply said that many of the ads have serious problems and even rely on actors, not real people.
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An award-winning journalism career spanning nearly three decades, Glenn Kessler has covered foreign policy, economic policy, the White House, Congress, politics, airline safety and Wall Street. He was The Washington Post's chief State Department reporter for nine years, traveling around the world with three different Secretaries of State. Before that, he covered tax and budget policy for The Washington Post and also served as the newspaper's national business editor. Kessler has long specialized in digging beyond the conventional wisdom, such as when he earned a "laurel" from the Columbia Journalism Review
• 02/25/14: Obama's claim that 7 million got 'access to health care for the first time' because of his Medicaid expansion • 02/11/14: Durbin's claim that 10 million now have health insurance because of Obamacare • 01/29/14: Fact Checking the 2014 State of the Union address • 01/06/14: The White House's claim that 7 million enrolled in Obamacare 'was never our target number' • 01/06/14: Schumer's claims about Democratic and GOP efforts to 'fix' Obamacare • 12/12/13: Harry Reid's explanation for why not all of his staff is going on 'Obamacare' • 09/05/13: History lesson: When the United States looked the other way on chemical weapons • 07/09/13: George W. Bush returns as a uniter • 06/11/13: Obama's claim of 500,000 manufacturing jobs, month after month • 05/15/13: Prez's claim he called Benghazi an 'act of terrorism' • 02/21/13: Obama and early childhood education: a rhetorical leap of faith • 02/14/13: Fact checking the 2013 State of the Union speech • 10/23/11: Fact Checking the Final Debate • 07/10/11: Obama's misleading tweet on Romney's taxes • 02/21/11: The claim that 98 percent of Catholic women use contraception: a media foul • 12/29/11: Ron Paul and Ronald Reagan (Fact Checker biography) • 12/08/11: Romney versus Gingrich: a Super PAC's over-the-top ad • 12/08/11: Obama's Kansas speech: some suspect facts • 11/18/11: The Obama campaign's spin on the Romney tax plan • 09/27/11: Obama' strained symbolism at an Ohio River bridge • 08/25/11: Obama's claim that GOP is holding up trade deals • 08/11/11: Obama's claim that the debt problem can ‘go away’ • 06/22/11: AARP's misleading ad about balancing the budget • 05/24/11: A rare Geppetto for Paul Ryan's assertion on Obama's hidden top marginal tax rate • 05/16/11:Obama administration boasting about border security • 05/11/11: Kathleen Sebelius's outrageous claim that cancer patients would 'die sooner' under the GOP Medicare plan • 05/09/11: A gusher of oil rhetoric • 05/04/11: The Obama administration's odd claims on export growth • 04/28/11: How effective are sanctions in ‘changing behavior’? • 04/14/11: ‘Biggest cuts in U.S. history’? Well, no. • 04/08/11: Nancy Pelosi's absurd math on senior citizens losing their meals • 04/06/11: Hillary Clinton's uncredible statement on Syria • 03/25/11: Libya, Obama and the tragedy in Darfur • 03/22/11: Gifts of bogus statistics for the health-care law's birthday • 03/21/11: Mitch McConnell's not-so-happy birthday greetings for the health care law • 03/10/11: A job-loss statistic produced out of thin air • 03/10/17: A budget analogy that earns a Geppetto checkmark • 03/10/11: Four pinocchios for the American public on the budget • 03/09/11: Obama and the White House's ‘halfway’ fixation with the budget • 03/08/11: Foreign policy braggadocio on Libya and AIDS • 03/07/11: Democrats keep misleading on claimed budget ‘cuts’ • 03/01/11: Mike Huckabee is on to something here, but jumped the gun
• 02/25/11: Harry Reid's illusory $41 billion in budget cuts
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