PolitiFact seemed fair in its judgment of Paul’s claim:
Says a new national poll shows "the majority of the American people believe we should have a gold standard" for U.S. currency.
What a bunch of Establishment bullshit PolitiFact is spewing. While the bare statement "a majority of Americans support a return to the gold standard" may not be true as far as that goes, when you restrict the audience to upcoming, Republican elections which are the audience which Ron Paul is addressing, it is true. This "claim" was not made in a speech televised to a national audience, so PolitiFact is the one guilty of distortion here. Furthemore, the real story here is momentum. There has been a dramatic increase in support for a "gold standard" since the 2008 economic collapse and that's what's behind Ron Paul's statement. Sure, the solid majority is only among likely Republican voters at this point but the trend has been rapidly rising across the ideological spectrum over the last three years.
They need to rename their site to PolitiBullshit.
Clayton -
Come on you're totally reaching. That was a fair assessment. Paul misspoke and said "national poll" and they pointed out that he was mistaken on the scope of the poll he was citing. It was a simple mistake and they were honest in presenting the true facts. I honestly can't believe the lengths you go to in that post. "the crowd he was addressing"? "what's important is the momentum"? Who the hell do you think you're kidding? Paul said "national poll" and he was mistaken. And they could have easily just said "end of story"...but they even went a step farther and found a national poll and honestly reported those results...as being close to half, but now quite. So Paul's statement was false.
@JJ: The point is that the gold-standard is always panned and pooh-pooh'd by the punditry. They simply don't want to confront the fact that a rapidly growing segment of the American public (44% by their own admission... they even try to discredit the Rasmussen poll by calling it "Republican-leaning") is losing faith in the make-believe money issued by central banks.
I agree that Ron Paul made a mistake but the real question is so what? His advisors had better make sure he doesn't keep repeating it but, beyond that, it's an inconsequential mistake. If he has been touring the country making national speeches repeating this over and over, then it would be a serious problem. One slip of the tongue doesn't merit this kind of bullshit.
This particular article had nothing to do with Ron Paul per se except that he's a nationally visible, pro-gold figure at this point in time. It has everything to do with seizing the opportunity to make the pro-gold position out to be "still marginal" despite the groundswell of support for gold since 2008.
Clayton:The point is that the gold-standard is always panned and pooh-pooh'd by the punditry. They simply don't want to confront the fact that a rapidly growing segment of the American public (44% by their own admission... they even try to discredit the Rasmussen poll by calling it "Republican-leaning") is losing faith in the make-believe money issued by central banks.
No. Their job is to assess the validity of a public figure's statement. They're not there to confront "rapidly growing segments of American population" and take a pulse on public sentiment.
I agree that Ron Paul made a mistake but the real question is so what?
Uh, no...the website is "Politifact". Again, their job is to determine the factual accuracy of something a politician said. Period. The whole point as far as Politifact goes ends at "Ron Paul made a mistake." There is no "real question" beyond that, no matter how much you want to make there be one. Yes there's more to the issue, but as far as this one article is concerned the entire point and the only purpose is to answer the question of whether Paul made a mistake or not. "So what?" So his statement is false. That's what. And that's all they said.
One slip of the tongue doesn't merit this kind of bullshit.
Your bias is getting the better of you. If this were someone you opposed and someone else tried to discredit fact checker with your "So what if his statement was false? What matters is the momentum!" irrelevance, you'd call them out for being shills.
Your paranoia is getting the better of you here.
If I had heard him say the majority of Americans in a national poll were in favor of a gold standard, I would want to know where he got that too. I'm sure I'm not the only one who would be genuinly curious and skeptical of such a claim. And that's where Politifact comes in. This is what they do. They take the time to talk to the campaign, find out where the politician is getting his stuff, then go check with that sources, get the original studies from them, and see if the study actually matches up with what was said. In this case it wasn't. Period. It is not the job of Politifact to elaborate on "oh but there's a growing movement of gold support" and go and dig up past numbers and try to show a trend so they can find any way they can to try to make Paul as right as possible.
A politician said something. Is it true or not. That's it.
The whole point as far as Politifact goes ends at "Ron Paul made a mistake."
Then why didn't they just say that and then STFU?
As for my paranoid schizo tendencies, I'm taking medication so need to concern yourself about that. It runs in my family.
Clayton:Then why didn't they just say that and then STFU?
Well because they have to offer the proof that he made the mistake. If they just said "we checked with the campaign, and they cited a study, so we checked the study and that's actually not what it said. So he's wrong. We're going to STFU now" you'd be bitching for them offering no evidence to support their claim.
The vast majority of the article was simply stating where the data came from and what they said.
Is this a joke?
No, Mr. Literal-Pants, I'm not joking.
Clayton:No, Mr. Literal-Pants, I'm not joking.
I didn't think so, but it's harder to be sure in a textual format. I didn't realize your situation was that serious.
I didn't realize your situation was that serious.
Yeah, it's pretty bad. I'm getting Lithium injections and have an ankle bracelet.
damn dude. My best to you.