Trump and Iraq What’s wrong with “fact checking”? Here’s a case study. James Taranto
This column has long argued that the journalistic genre known as “fact checking” is a corruption of journalism. “The ‘fact check’ is opinion journalism or criticism, masquerading as straight news,” we wrote in 2008. “The object is not merely to report facts but to pass a judgment.”
Eight years later, we’d amend that slightly. “Fact checking” doesn’t pretend to be straight news exactly, but something more authoritative. The conceit of the “fact checker” is that he has some sort of heightened level of objectivity qualifying him to render verdicts in matters of public controversy.
Lately the “fact checkers” have been waging a campaign to portray Donald Trump as a contemporaneous supporter of the Iraq war, contrary to his assertions that he was an opponent. In Monday’s debate, Hillary Clinton pleaded for their help: “I hope the fact checkers are turning up the volume and really working hard. Donald supported the invasion of Iraq.” Moderator Lester Holt obliged, basing a question to Trump on the premise that the matter was settled: “You supported the war in Iraq before the invasion.”
Trump somewhat inarticulately rebutted the claim: “The record shows that I’m right. When I did an interview with Howard Stern, very lightly, the first time anybody’s asked me that, I said, very lightly, I don’t know, maybe, who knows.”
What Trump actually said on Sept. 11, 2002, when Stern asked him if he favored an invasion, was: “Yeah, I guess so.” That was an affirmative statement, but a highly equivocal one. Is it fair or accurate to characterize it as sufficient to establish that Trump was a “supporter”? In our opinion, no. He might well have had second thoughts immediately after getting off the air with Stern.
He certainly had second thoughts in the ensuing months, and he came to oppose the invasion long before Mrs. Clinton did. Even FactCheck.org was unable to come up with any other Trump statement supportive of the decision to go to war. By December 2003, according to the site’s timeline, Trump was observing (in an interview with Fox News Channel’s Neil Cavuto) that “a lot of people” were “questioning the whole concept of going in, in the first place.” Five years later, according to PolitiFact.com, Trump was calling for President Bush’s impeachment because, as he told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, “he got us into the war with lies.” CONTINUE AT SITE
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