The Media Research Center’s Tim Graham hates fact-checkers so much, he’s even attacking someone simply for liking them. No, really: Graham devoted a Feb. 11 post to attacking comedian Sarah Silverman — whom he made sure to also identify as a “Bernie Sanders-endorsing activist” — for saying that people should be reading newspapers and that fact-checking operations like Snopes and PolitiFact are “helpful.”
Graham hufed in response: “When the socialists are touting PolitiFact and Snopes as “helpful,” it underlines why conservatives are right to suspect these websites are deeply biased against them.” Or, you know, that conservatives like Graham can’t deal with the fact that his favorite president lies so often and so blatantly that it’s all fact-checkers can do to keep up.
Graham, meanwhile, wasn’t done whining, adding: “Sarah Silverman can recommend these ‘fact-checking’ sites because they’ve been kind to her. PolitiFact offered only two fact-checks on Silverman, a ‘Half True’ in 2014, and a ‘True’ in 2015.” Graham seems to have overlooked the relevant fact that Silverman is a comedian, not a politician, and so maybe fact-checking her isn’t exactly a high priority.
Graham closed with a bit of trademark MRC hypocrisy: After grousing that “It’s fascinating that Snopes would wage war on the Babylon Bee and other satirical sites for slanting the truth,” he complained that “No one will do a fact check on her genius tweets.” Graham deliberately ignores the fact that the reason Snopes does fact-checks on the Babylon Bee is that too many people mistake its satire for real news, while nobody is doing that with the Silverman tweet he cites as an example of her “genius.”