4A
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 2020
The Observer
OUR VIEW
Checking the
fact checkers
The Associated Press fact-checked President
Trump’s State of the Union speech the day before he
gave it. The newsgathering organization, of which
EO Media Group is a member, didn’t have an ad-
vance copy of the president’s address.
Rather, the AP was addressing topics Trump was
likely to talk about when he went before Congress.
This is reasonable enough on its face — State of
the Union speeches are nothing if not predictable.
And certainly Trump is the ripest of targets for
fact checking. In common with most politicians, the
president is prone to making statements that put
his accomplishments in the best possible light. But
Trump’s blustering style, and his preference for
simple adjectives such as “best” and “greatest,” lead
him to make claims that are easily disproved.
But the AP doesn’t limit itself to that worthwhile
endeavor.
Instead, the organization, under the guise of fact
checking, seeks to diminish the president’s record by
nit-picking claims that are the predictable fodder of
political speeches but are too general to be demon-
strably false.
For instance, in the pre-speech fact check the AP
notes that Trump has “held out his tax cut as a boon
to the economy.”
Indeed he has.
The AP’s dispute with this claim begins with a
curious passage: “While most economists credit (the
tax cuts) with putting extra money in people’s pock-
ets and fueling more consumer spending.” As if only
economists — or at least “most economists” — under-
stand that if the government takes less of workers’
earnings they’ll have more to spend, and likely will
do just that.
The AP also contends, again referring to the tax
cut law, that “its impact may already be fading.”
The AP offers no facts, or indeed anything, in sup-
port of what isn’t even a defi nitive claim — notice
the hedging word “may.”
Even when the AP acknowledges a boast Trump
was apt to make in his speech is factual, the orga-
nization, rather than simply acknowledge its accu-
racy — presumably the purpose of a fact check — or
better still leave it out, instead tries to downplay its
signifi cance.
The AP writes: “Trump plays a rather ordinary fact
for cheers at his rallies — more Americans are work-
ing than ever before. That’s mainly because there are
ever more Americans. Call it people infl ation.”
A clever line for an editorial, perhaps.
But it’s grossly misplaced in something labeled as
a fact check — a piece of journalism that ought to be
scrupulously objective.
And even as commentary fodder, it’s fl accid.
The AP proffers nothing to back its claim that
the workforce growth is “mainly” due to a grow-
ing population. The implication that the number of
people with jobs inevitably follows population growth
is not valid — the AP need only consult employment
statistics from the 2007 to 2009 recession.
The AP continued its tactics with its follow-up fact
check covering Trump’s actual State of the Union
speech.
In referencing the president’s boast about the U.S.
becoming the world’s largest producer of oil and
natural gas, the AP chastises Trump for “taking cred-
it for a U.S. oil and gas production boom that started
under Obama.”
Yet the AP acknowledges the U.S. has been the top
producer of crude oil only since 2018. And accord-
ing to federal records, America’s crude oil production
actually dropped in 2016, the last year of the Obama
administration, but rose in 2017, 2018 and 2019.
The AP’s fact-checking efforts are valid and, during
the Trump administration, more necessary than
ever. But there’s no reason for the organization to
clog its fact-checking articles with obviously political
commentary.
OTHER VIEWS
History will remember Romney, not Collins
W
hen future historians look for the
last, documented instance of Re-
publican political courage in the Trump
imperium, they’ll look to one man: Sen.
Mitt Romney.
In one extraordinary speech on the floor
of the United States Senate on Wednesday,
the Utah senator made remarks that
were both utterly moving in their absolute
humanity and totally damning in their
vivid rebuttal of GOP capitulation to a
bankrupt White House.
“I swore an oath before God to exer-
cise impartial justice,” Romney told a
nearly empty chamber around 2 p.m,
two hours before the Senate voted to
acquit President Donald Trump.
As The Washington Post’s Dana
Milbank wrote, Romney, fi ghting back
tears, paused for some 12 seconds to
collect himself before continuing.
“The grave question the Constitution
tasks senators to answer is whether the
president committed an act so extreme
and egregious that it rises to the level
of a high crime and misdemeanor. Yes,
he did,” Romney said, as the Senate gal-
lery fi lled with journalists recording his
remarks for the ages.
For me, the most profound part of
Romney’s speech was his reminder to
his GOP colleagues of the responsibili-
ties invested in them by the Constitu-
tion, the very responsibilities they
so thoroughly abdicated during the
Trump’s fi xed trial.
Dressed in a dark blue suit, white
dress shirt, and blue tie, Romney, a
devout Mormon and the GOP’s 2012
presidential standard-bearer, looked
like a throwback to a less complicated
time — when there were politicians
that most Americans would recognize
as textbook Republican.
That matters because the Republican
Party that Romney represented just
eight years ago is dead and buried,
never to return. If impeachment proved
anything, it proved the GOP is now a
wholly owned subsidiary of the Trump
Organization.
Romney’s remarks were all the more
striking when they’re placed along the
spineless surrender of fellow Republican
Sens. Marco Rubio of Florida and Ted
Cruz of Texas, who were both viciously
lashed by Trump in 2016, but who none-
theless fell into line and voted to acquit.
Maine Sen. Susan Collins, who plays a
maverick on television and who voted in
favor of calling witnesses, sided with her
Republican colleagues on acquittal, even
as she called Trump’s behavior wrong.
It was the same kind of transactional
and fl eeting courage pioneered by for-
mer Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake, who made
late-career fame out of publicly holding
up the nomination of now-Justice Brett
M. Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme
Court, but who ultimately voted to
confi rm a fl awed candidate.
Not Romney.
“I am aware that there are people
in my party and in my state who will
strenuously disapprove of my decision,
and in some quarters, I will be vehe-
mently denounced,” he said Wednesday.
“I am sure to hear abuse from the
President and his supporters. Does any-
one seriously believe I would consent
to these consequences other than from
an inescapable conviction that my oath
before God demanded it of me?”
In this space last week, I compared
the current U.S. Senate to the weak-
willed Roman Senate of antiquity that
caved to the excesses of the most tyran-
nical emperors out of sheer self-interest.
History also remembers the Emper-
or Nero ordered Seneca, his onetime
counselor, to commit suicide when he
fell out of favor. Romney might well
have committed political suicide. And
it was equally clear that, like Seneca,
there were principles more important
to Romney than mere self-preserva-
tion.
“With my vote, I will tell my children
and their children that I did my duty
to the best of my ability, believing that
my country expected it of me,” he said
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adding, “... we’re all footnotes at best in
the annals of history. But in the most
powerful nation on earth, the nation
conceived in liberty and justice, that is
distinction enough for any citizen.”
In this diminished time, it’s more
than enough.
An award-winning political journalist,
John L. Micek is editor-in-chief of The
Pennsylvania Capital-Star in Harrisburg,
Email him at jmicek@penncapital-
star.com and follow him on Twitter @
ByJohnLMicek.
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