As Townhall reported last week, PolitiFact was up to its usual tricks trying to provide cover for Democrats, specifically Georgia Democrat Stacey Abrams. The self-proclaimed "independent" arbiters of truth decided to go after Republican officials in Georgia for criticizing Abrams — who is now the nominated Democrat candidate for governor of the Peach State — for her support of boycotts over Georgia's 2021 election integrity bill.
That bill, of course, did the opposite of what Democrats and woke corporations said it would — as Townhall also reported here — and 2022 primary turnout beat the levels seen four years ago in 2018. Still, PolitiFact didn't check the claims made by Abrams, President Joe Biden, woke CEOs, and others who claimed the election security bill was "Jim Crow 2.0." Instead, they went after Republicans to defend Abrams.
But, as Townhall reported, PolitiFact relied on a 2021 USA Today op-ed by Abrams in their denial that Abrams supported boycotts by companies, business leaders, and Major League Baseball. That op-ed had been stealth-edited to significantly change Abrams' stated position on boycotts, an update that came only after MLB announced that they would boycott Georgia and withdraw the All-Star Game from Atlanta.
Not over the fact that Stacey Abrams published an op-Ed about the Georgia law saying “boycotts work,” and she wouldn’t blame anyone for boycotting..
— Matt Whitlock (@mattdizwhitlock) April 24, 2021
Then AFTER the MLB move, STEALTH EDITED the op-Ed with stronger language opposing boycotts, and media have used it to defend her. https://t.co/A284wksh2c
In the original op-ed under her name, Abrams supported boycotts. After MLB pulled the game and millions of dollars from the Georgia economy, she changed her tune to oppose them and urged people to keep their presence in the Peach State and not hurt residents of the state she hopes to lead — and has recently called the worst place to live. She went from being unable to argue against boycotts of Georgia and its companies to asking for people to stay in Georgia and speak out against the election integrity measure.
PolitiFact, of course, did not mention that the op-ed they cited had been changed, nor what had been changed in her stated position. Some could say PolitiFact's check lacked context.
After Townhall — and our sister site Twitchy — ran reports on Abrams' flip-flop regarding boycotts of Georgia over trumped up and now-debunked fears about election integrity and how PolitiFact was exposing its partisan bias to attack Republicans, PolitiFact again chimed in...to criticize the criticism of its fact check. You can't make it up.
Now, stories calling out PolitiFact for its in-kind contribution to Stacey Abrams are flagged on Facebook, ironically, as "Missing Context" — even though it was PolitiFact's initial fact check that was missing the important context that Abrams' position on boycotts had changed. A link offering users the chance to "see why" simply redirects to PolitiFact's original fact check. Apparently, when debunking PolitiFact for botching a fact-check, one must parrot the biased conclusion of said fact check or be slapped with a PolitiFact label for "missing context."
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