While "PolitiFact" continues to fancy itself as the arbiter of all things "fact", they also continue to get it consistently wrong. I know that it may be personally cathartic for them to bestow a "pants on fire" designation on a campaign, but they should really avoid the urge when the actual facts and simple math do not support their cause.
It seems that the subjective, incorrect, and often silly meanderings of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's project is beginning to infect other media outlets. Xoff highlighted one example over the weekend. Apparently relying solely on "PolitiFact", the Appleton Post Crescent gave Russ Feingold a "thumbs down" for an ad that doesn't even exist.
The Post Crescent has since edited the first part of their original piece but failed to edit the end which still references the nonexistent ad. Unfortunately they also left in place the overall accusation even though it is false. Apparently the Post Crescent is perfectly fine with giving someone a "thumbs down" simply because the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel said so. The facts and the actual numbers apparently don't matter.
I detailed last week, shortly after "PolitiFact" made the original charge, how their critique of the Feingold campaign simply doesn't add up. The numbers don't lie, Feingold has been outspent by his opponents in every race. For some reason "PolitiFact" chose to cherry pick the actual numbers and only counted some of them. That doesn't sound like a "PolitiFact" to me, it sounds like a PolitiFarce. Unfortunately this condition is quickly spreading to media outlets all over the state.
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