PolitiFact did a fact-check of last Thursday's "debate" for both Donald Trump and Joe Biden. What I did was develop a "five-point system" (similar to a five-star rating) for each of PolitiFact’s six ratings on its “Truth-O-Meter.” The points values for each rating are as follows:
RATING |
NUMBER OF POINTS |
True |
5 |
Mostly True |
4 |
Half True |
3 |
Mostly False |
2 |
False |
1 |
Pants on Fire! |
0 |
Next, I counted the number of statements that were fact-checked for each candidate, tallied them up, and calculated their average “truth scores.”
RATINGS OF TRUMP’S FACT-CHECKED STATEMENTS (16 TOTAL):
RATING |
NUMBER OF STATEMENTS |
True |
0 |
Mostly True |
0 |
Half True |
0 |
Mostly False |
3 |
False |
12 |
Pants on Fire! |
1 |
Average Score for Trump = [(0 x 5) + (0 x 4) + (0 x 3) + (3 x 2) + (12 x 1) + (1 x 0)]/16 = 1.125 points
RATINGS OF BIDEN’S FACT-CHECKED STATEMENTS (11 TOTAL):
RATING |
NUMBER OF STATEMENTS |
True |
1 |
Mostly True |
4 |
Half True |
3 |
Mostly False |
1 |
False |
2 |
Pants on Fire! |
0 |
Average Score for Biden = [(1 x 5) + (4 x 4) + (3 x 3) + (1 x 2) + (2 x 1) + (0 x 0)]/11 = 3.091 points
Essentially, this means that President Biden told nearly three times as many truths as the other dude. An average “truth score” of 3.091 points is quite good for someone who was tired that night with a cold. So, I wouldn't necessarily call Biden's performance anywhere near as much of a failure like the narrative the mainstream media is pushing right now about how he’s old, stumbling, tired, etc. For me, being more truthful is more important than being a good communicator in good health. And, speaking of health, there is almost nothing anywhere in the media about Trump's physical, cognitive, and mental decline.
It's time to stop listening to the corporate media once and for all. They have been right-wing all along for the past several decades, but in the past eight years alone they have sunk to a brand new low...perhaps even a propaganda machine for the Former Dude (e.g., “Russian State TV Lite”). I used to follow HuffPost quite frequently, but not anymore. They appear to have jumped on the anti-Biden bandwagon also.