PolitiFact: Just as Useless in Virginia as it is in Florida

Commenter snarkout alerts us to this more recent gem. At issue is the following claim in campaign ad by Terry MacAuliffe:

2008. Ken Cuccinelli writes a bill to give Virginia among the most extreme divorce laws in America.

If Cuccinelli had it his way, a mom trying to get out of a bad marriage, over her husband’s objections, could only get divorced if she could prove adultery or physical abuse or her spouse had abandoned her or was sentenced to jail.

Why is Ken Cuccinelli interfering in our private lives?

He’s focused on his own agenda. Not us.

This is a very easy fact check. As PolitiFact helpfully explains, the claim that Cuccinelli opposes no-fault divorce is unambiguously accurate:

Cuccinelli, as a state senator in 2008, introduced legislation that would have eliminated the ability for a spouse in a couple with minor children to unilaterally file for divorce under the separation ground. The bill would have allowed the other spouse to block the process by filing a written objection. The legislation died in the Senate Courts of Justice Committee.

Any serious fact-checking inquiry ends here. Cuccinelli introduced legislation under which a mother of minor children “could only get divorced if she could prove adultery or physical abuse or her spouse had abandoned her or was sentenced to jail.” The claim by the ad is simply true, period.

PolitiFact’s rating of MacAuliffe’s accurate ad? Why, “mostly false” of course. How can they justify this transparently indefensible conclusion?

McAuliffe’s ad says Cuccinelli introduced legislation in 2008 that would have made it more difficult for mothers to obtain divorces.

Cuccinelli’s unsuccessful bill would have eliminated the ability for a spouse in a couple with minor children to unilaterally file for a no-fault divorce. The legislation would have allowed the other spouse to block the process by filing a written objection.

No doubt, the bill would have it harder for moms to obtain divorces. But McAuliffe, in trying to portray it as an attack on women, omits that the legislation would have made it equally more difficult for dads to get divorces.

So McAuliffe’s claim contains an element of truth but ignores critical facts that would give voters a different impression. We rate it Mostly False.

Keep chuckin’ those facts!

• The core of the response is just a classic PolitiFact non-sequitur.  Nothing in the MacAuliffe ad says that the law would apply only to women.  The fact that the law would also apply to men is completely irrelevant.  In the context of an ad noting the many ways in which  Cuccinelli’s policies burden women, there’s nothing remotely wrong with noting that his opposition to no-fault divorce would place burdens on women.  Nothing in the ad claims that these burdens are exclusive.

• This is not really relevant to whether the claim of the ad is “true” per se, but note also that PolitiFact simply accepts as truth the highly contestable conservative principle that if the law is formally equal it’s somehow illegitimate to note that it affects different classes of people differently.   But in fact, as PolitiFact acknowledges not only feminist groups but anti-feminist MRA groups believe that women are more likely to take advantage of laws permitting unilateral no-fault divorce laws, and hence repealing them would also disproportionately burden women.  MacAullife’s claim, therefore, is not merely literally true but also represents a view of the effects of Cuccinelli’s policy preferences that is, at the very least, plausible,  and is certainly much easier to defend than the PolitiFact/Cuccinelli position that all formally gender neutral laws must affect men and women equally and to say otherwise is actually lying.

• I especially like the assertion that MacAullife “ignores critical facts that would give voters a different impression.”  Leaving aside the assumption that the ommitted facts are “critical” when in fact they’re trivial, this is just a ridiculous critique of a political advertisement.  Political ads aren’t journalism; they’re under no obligation to make the case equally for each side.  This standard, in addition to not being relevant to whether claims made by ads are factual, is howlingly inappropriate in this context; it misunderstands  the purpose of political rhetoric.  It’s reasonable to say that political candidates shouldn’t say things that aren’t true.  It’s not reasonable to suggest that political candidate have a responsibility to make an opponent’s case for them.

In short, a typical performance by America’s most useless collection of websites.