One might have reasonably suspected, in 2008 and certainly in 2009 and 2012, that Obama was lying. But one could not prove it, because it was not yet a factual assertion. In 2008 it was but a promise, which Obama might or might not have intended and might or might not have been able to keep. By 2012, we now know, it was a full-fledged fraud, but exposing it conclusively as such would have required a degree of expertise few journalists have.

In other words, it’s not that PolitiFact was wrong to withhold its jejune “pants on fire” designation from the Obama statement in 2008, 2009 and 2012. It was wrong even to make a pretense of “fact checking” a statement that was, at the time, not a factual claim. Its past evaluations of the statement were not “fact checks” at all, merely opinion pieces endorsing ObamaCare.

Lots of people wrote opinion pieces endorsing ObamaCare, and some are still at it. Apart from the substance of the arguments, there’s nothing wrong with that. But selling opinion pieces by labeling them “fact checks” is fundamentally dishonest. In this case, it was in the service of the most massive consumer fraud in American history.