WashPost Fact-Checker Scorched for Spinning Biden's Gaffe on Black Thought

August 10th, 2020 12:07 PM

It's bad enough that Washington Post "fact checker" Glenn Kessler is now touting he's found 20,000 "false or misleading statements" by President Trump -- and even wrote a Trump-bashing book this year to expand his attacks. Kessler's also making embarrassing attempts to spin Joseph Biden out of his gaffes, like Biden saying "Unlike the African American community, with notable exceptions, the Latino community is an incredibly diverse community with incredibly different attitudes about different things.” It can be summed up as basically saying all blacks think alike. 

On Friday, Fox News Channel media reporter Brian Flood noted Biden walked it back: 

 The comment was widely considered an inadvertent dig at the African-American community. Biden eventually walked back the comments, claiming he didn’t mean to suggest “the African-American community is a monolith.”

Nevertheless, Kessler hopped on Twitter on August 6 to rebut the Team Trump Twitter account, which shared the video and summarized “Joe Biden just said that Latinos have diversity of thought, unlike black Americans...This is disgusting!” Kessler tried to argue "If you listen to the clip, he didn't actually say this.

Reporters like Kessler know that you can summarize remarks without quoting them. In the "fact checking" racket, you can always throw Pinocchio ratings when you don't like the context. As Kessler said to one critic, “As you well know, ‘literally true’ comments can be misleading without the proper context." Isn't that a convenient rationale for "fact checkers." It makes it easier to count up to 20,000 misleading statements. 

Flood noted conservative Twitter was brutal with Kessler's weak tweet. 

“Obviously, the Trump campaign will put this in the worst light possible, but I’m curious how you would paraphrase what he is saying,” freelance writer Jeryl Bier responded after another user shot back: “You need hearing aids.” The Reagan Battalion declared: “@glennkesslerwp is lying, he knows he is lying, his editors know that he is lying, but no one cares because the ends justify the means.”

Tony Leonardi added "If you listen to the clip, he actually elaborately says it. He contrasts diversity of opinions among Hispanics, citing immigration stances, with what he says is a lack of opinion differences held by those in the black community."

Meanwhile, Eddie Zipperer, a columnist for the Lifezette website and a contributor to The Hill newspaper, responded to Kessler by asserting: “If you listen to the clip, the hell he didn’t.” 

Can't the "fact checkers" actually check Biden's facts instead of act like press aides in the spin room?