Watching the Detectives

Annenberg's FactCheck.org has an interesting new item. Interesting in that it's a perfect case-study in how not to "fact check" a claim.

Before we get started: the subject matter of Annenberg's FactCheck is, in a nutshell, whether or not President Bush skipped out on his National Guard duty. The media, no doubt prompted by outraged Republicans, has worked itself into a lather condemning such suggestions. More on that later. For now, my take on it: I don't know where George W. Bush was in 1972-73, and neither does Peter Jennings or Annenberg or the guy who ran Bush's base, or even, it seems, Bush's staff. "Deserter" is a pretty strong word, but there's pretty strong evidence Bush didn't show up for duty. At least not when he was supposed to.

Now, on to what I really want to talk about: Annenberg's feeble attempt at a "FactCheck." Annenberg begins with a "summary," which is really a layout of the situation. Basically, the fine folks at Annenberg tell us, some people say Bush didn't show up for Guard duty; others say he did; Bush was honorably discharged.

So far, so good.

Next, Annenberg gets to its "analysis."

First subsection: irrelevant.

Second subsection highlight (Annenberg is lifting this from a Boston Globe story):

"Bush was supposed to report for duty at the 187th Tactical Recon Group in Montgomery Alabama. But the unit’s commander at the time, retired Gen. William Turnipseed, was quoted by several news organizations as saying he had no recollection of Bush showing up. 'I had been in Texas, done my flight training there. If we had had a first lieutenant from Texas, I would have remembered,' the Globe quoted him saying."

Third subsection: Annenberg quotes Bush acknowledging he missed some weekends; refers to two friends and an ex-girlfriend who say he attended Guard drills in Alabama.

Fourth subsection: Here, Annenberg distills three news accounts of Bush's guard record and says "other news organizations dug in and came to much milder conclusions" than those who say Bush was AWOL. Annenberg presents exculpatory language from articles that appeared in George Magazine, the NYT, and the WaPo. We're going to spend some time on this.

Annenberg offers a quote from George that is, largely, irrelevant. Here's what Annenberg quotes from George:

"It's time to set the record straight. ... Bush may have received favorable treatment to get into the Guard, served irregularly after the spring of 1972 and got an expedited discharge, but he did accumulate the days of service required of him for his ultimate honorable discharge."

Now, the only part of that that's relevant to the question of whether Bush skipped assigned Guard duty is the part that says he "served irregularly after the spring of 1972." Annenberg, though, is presenting this quote to show Bush's innocence. Ok; what else does that George article say? If Annenberg thinks the article is accurate enough to present as evidence in a FactCheck, surely other things in the article carry some weight? Well, here are some other excerpts from George:

"[T]he Alabama Guard ordered Bush to report to then-Lieutenant Colonel William Turnipseed at Dannelly Air Force Base in Montgomery on October 7th and 8th. ... Bush's records contain no evidence that he reported to Dannelly in October. And in telephone interviews with Georgemag.com, neither Turnipseed, Bush's commanding officer, nor Kenneth Lott, then chief personnel officer of the 187th, remembered Bush serving with their unit. 'I don't think he showed up,' Turnipseed said."

...

"On May 2, 1973, Bush's squadron leader in the 147th, Lieutenant Colonel William Harris, Jr. wrote: 'Lt. Bush has not been observed at this unit' for the past year. Harris incorrectly assumed that Bush had been reporting for duty in Alabama all along."

Huh. Doesn't sound quite as exculpatory as Annenberg's selective quoting made it appear, does it?

How about the Washington Post article Annenberg relies on? Here's what Annenberg quotes:

"It is safe to say that Bush did very light duty in his last two years in the Guard and that his superiors made it easy for him."

Call this one "praising with faint damn." But what else does the actual WaPo article say?

"Bush says he fulfilled all his obligations as a pilot in the Air National Guard, but he has had difficulty rebutting charges that he played hooky for a year."

...

"Bush campaign officials say their evidence shows that he did his duty in 1972-73, when he worked for six months on the Senate race in Alabama and then returned to his home base outside Houston. But other documents in his Guard record contradict that claim, and critics who have examined that record contend that he also skimped on his obligations in 1973-74." [This section, which seems pretty damning, is immediately before the sentence Annenberg quotes, so we know they saw it.]

...

"In September [1972], Bush was assigned to another Alabama unit, the 187th Tactical Reconnaissance Group. Since 'Lieutenant Bush will not be able to satisfy his flight requirements with our group,' the unit told him to report for 'equivalent training' -- such as debriefing pilots -- on the weekends of Oct. 7-8 and Nov. 4-5, 1972.

"There is no evidence in his record that he showed up on either weekend. Friends on the Alabama campaign say he told them of having to do Guard duty, but the retired general who commanded the 187th, William Turnipseed, and his personnel chief, Kenneth K. Lott, say they do not remember Bush ever reporting."

Again, the articles Annenberg cites makes a much more damning case than the single line Annenberg chooses to present.

Annenberg ends with a wrap-up of recent news on this front: irrelevant weirdo Michael Moore called Bush a "deserter;" Peter Jennings asked nearly-irrelevant likely-weirdo Wesley Clark why he didn't rebuke Moore.

Now, Annenberg, as you've likely noticed, didn't spend much time on the actual facts. They simply quoted broad conclusions drawn by news organizations (omitting the damning details contained in those same articles.) There's a ton of original documentation available on this subject, but Annenberg doesn't even mention it.

What kind of "FactCheck" is this? Not only do they ignore the original record, they simply present broad generalizations from other news sources, rather than the facts those news sources reported.

If this is the kind of "FactCheck" Annenberg is going to give us, what's the point? FactCheck.org's web sites says "Our goal is to apply the best practices of both journalism and scholarship..." Does anyone think they've reached that standard here? How can you present a "FactCheck" based not on facts, but on the opinions of others?

As I said earlier: I don't know if Bush showed up for duty when he was supposed to. And neither do you. Unfortunately, Annenberg hasn't brought us any closer to the truth. So, absent their help, what do we know?

We know there's fairly compelling evidence Bush didn't show up to serve when he was supposed to. The words "deserter" and "AWOL" may be too strong, but simply saying "Bush didn't show up for duty" wouldn't seem to be out of bounds, and doesn't seem to be a stretch.

Comments

[John W]

Question: Have you confronted FactCheck.org with your comments? I looked for a way to post an immediate response after reading their coverage a couple of days ago but couldn't find a way to reach them.

John

[Verities]

You can email FactCheck.org at this address: Editor@FactCheck.org

I've done so, I got an autoreply saying, basically, that they read every email, though they may not be able to respond to each one.

Other ways of contacting them are listed here:
http://www.factcheck.org/MiscReports.aspx?docID=9

And, if you'd like to contact ABC's Political Unit to point out what they wrote in The Note in 2002, you can use this email address: politicalunit@abcnews.com

Thanks for reading.

[js]

Fact Check is part of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania (http://www.appcpenn.org/)

They have a reputation to defend. Write to Dean Kathleen Hall Jamieson (http://www.asc.upenn.edu/asc/Application/Faculty/Bios.asp)

Copy journalism watchdogs such as Columbia Journalism Review, American Journalism Review, Editor and Publisher, FAIR and so on. This is not a question of ideology. It's a question of basic journalistic standards.