Why Didn’t Reporters Call Romney a Liar?

One of the enormous changes in political journalism over the past decade has been the rise of an aggressive culture of online fact-checking. It started with amateur bloggers but has become professionalized, with full-time fact-checkers like PolitiFact, FactCheck.org, and the Washington Post’s Fact Checker column. While any fact-checking regime will be tested by the subjective nature of many political statements, the overall effect has been to strengthen the idea that reporters should be in the business of testing claims for accuracy and finding out the truth, rather than allowing politicians to make outrageous statements as long as they are “balanced” by quotes from their political opponents.

I was reminded of this notion while reading the coverage of Mitt Romney’s first paid advertisement. The ad, now running in New Hampshire, includes video of Barack Obama making an amazing statement: “If we keep talking about the economy, we’re going to lose.” Zing! It’s a nice gotcha quote for Romney. One could hardly believe Obama would ever say it. And, in fact, Obama did not say that. He quoted a John McCain adviser saying it in 2008. Here’s the full quote: “Senator McCain’s campaign actually said, and I quote, ‘If we keep talking about the economy, we’re going to lose.’ ” Big difference, huh?

This is one of those cases where a candidate has put out something that is demonstrably false. If a journalist or writer quoted someone in such an intellectually dishonest way, you would never trust the person’s writing again. And yet this episode is being reported by some as a clever tactic by the Romney camp to spark a debate about the ad’s accuracy that will serve to highlight its overall message that Obama has been a failure. (See, it worked!)

Here’s one example, from a very fine reporter at Politico whom I do not mean to pick on:

JUJITSU—USING OBAMA’S WORDS AGAINST HIM: The buzziest part of the ad is a clip from Obama’s 2008 speech when he faulted a John McCain advisor for telling a reporter on background that “if we keep talking about the economy, we’re going to lose.” The McCain context is NOT included in the ad itself.

The president’s campaign spokesman says this makes it “a deceitful and dishonest attack” meant to distract from Romney’s own record in Massachusetts. Think Progress calls it “too cute by half.” The Democratic National Committee says “it continues a pattern of dishonesty and a lack of credibility on issues that matter to the American people.

In Romney’s eyes, though, the president is now doing exactly what he attacked McCain for doing four years ago. “Every single day, like millions of Americans, we are going to talk about President Obama’s historic failure, and the need to get America back on track,” Romney communications director Gail Gitcho writes on the campaign blog. “President Obama will have to confront the promises made by candidate Obama.” http://mi.tt/tHA89l

BOSTON MINDMELD: The Romney campaign is delighted to fight with Democrats over whether the ad should have included the McCain context. Campaign officials fully anticipated the way the attacks would unfold last night (almost to the word…) and preempted them in the hours before the candidate unveiled the spot on Sean Hannity’s show. Today’s impending back-and-forth will only elevate Romney and rally conservatives to his side. Most important, by the end of the day, the high command in Boston is confident they will win the argument with voters (especially independents).

While it’s always interesting and useful to report on how a campaign believes something is going to play out, it seems to me in this case the news that the quote in the ad is falsely attributed to Obama outweighs the news of the Romney campaign’s predictable spin.