WaPo fact-checker: Ocasio-Cortez team's lies about the Green New Deal FAQ earn ... zero Pinocchios

If you missed it Saturday, read this to see just how far her advisors went in BSing about the infamous line on the GND fact sheet about “economic security” for those who are “unwilling to work.” It takes stones to go on the other party’s favorite cable news network and insist to their faces that that document was a fabrication rather than something that was posted on Ocasio-Cortez’s congressional website.

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And it takes elephant-sized stones to amplify that lie to your three million Twitter followers, which is what AOC herself did when she retweeted the clip without comment.

WaPo can’t muster a single “Pinocchio” for this out-and-out falsehood.

“Point is, the real one is our submitted resolution, H.Res. 109,” she tweeted. Ocasio-Cortez also said: “There are multiple doctored GND resolutions and FAQs floating around. There was also a draft version that got uploaded + taken down. There’s also draft versions floating out there.”

The statements and FAQs at issue were not doctored. They were all produced by her staff. Now, Ocasio-Cortez is saying they were “draft” versions not ready for prime time…

There’s a case to be made that the criticism about ending airplanes and cows was a stretch to begin with, since the resolution didn’t mention any of that and the FAQs were not definitive on those points. But Ocasio-Cortez has now disowned the FAQs and the statements that went beyond the resolution. The line about providing for people “unwilling to work” has been walked back completely. So we won’t be awarding any Pinocchios in this kerfuffle.

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My pal Karl translates that final paragraph: “She said it, but then ran away from criticism, therefore she didn’t say it.” Or, in Ben Shapiro’s words, “so long as you withdraw your originally controversial claim, and then lie about it, we will pretend the originally controversial claim didn’t exist.”

WaPo went on to ding Trump too in the same piece for “misrepresenting the Green New Deal as the plan is currently written.” Why toss what he said into a fact-check about Ocasio-Cortez’s people misleading the public? Eh, to keep her rabid fans out of their hair, I assume. There’s history here, after all: WaPo’s fact-checkers blew her up in December over her inane claim about the Pentagon’s $21 trillion(!) budget, then blew her up again last month for claims she made about the minimum wage. Ocasio-Cortez attacked them for that on Twitter — and made another careless mistake in so doing, causing WaPo to fact-check her tweets.

Obviously, her membership on The Team doesn’t mean that they won’t call her out when she screws up in a big spot, which is often. But the fact that she’s punched back before has made them an enemy to her supporters and, by extension, to progressivism. So when a controversy like today’s arose, handing the paper another easy opportunity to dunk on her, they looked for a reason to pass and came up with a “she walked it back, so whatever” ruling. They don’t want to be in a constant state of war with the left’s new superstar, especially one who likes to whine about her media coverage. There might have to be a “one four-Pinocchio ruling for AOC per month” limit going forward, assuming one isn’t already in place de facto.

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Victor Joecks 12:30 PM | December 14, 2024
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