I’m puzzled about fact checkers.
These are the folks and organizations that check the accuracy of declarations that politicians make.
They were at it again after Donald J. Trump’s fiery immigration speech. They sought to parse many of Trump’s contentions about illegal immigration.
Why the puzzlement?
Well, many observers contend the fact checkers are as biased as the politicians, or the “liberal media,” or the print and broadcast pundits.
Hillary Clinton’s speeches get examined, too. The fact checkers “check the facts” relating to her declarations. She once proclaimed that she worked well across the aisle with Republicans to approve legislation that benefited the country. A fact checker determined that Clinton clearly overstated her bipartisan approach to legislating. Biased?
Trump’s “facts” get “checked” constantly. Indeed, there’s so much to verify, given the Republican presidential nominee’s penchant for saying that are demonstrably untrue. My favorite untruth is Trump’s assertion that he witnessed “thousands” of Muslims cheering the collapse of the World Trade Center. It didn’t happen, man.
I’m still trying to process this fact checking thing, though, to determine if the fact checkers are looking for holes in candidates’ statements because they disagree in principle with the politician they’re examining.
The ranks of the totally trustworthy are shrinking all around us.