Fact Checking the Fact Checkers...

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http://news.investors.com/ibd-edito...fact-checks-disguise-media-liberal-agenda.htm

Journalism: If media "fact checkers" are just impartial guardians of the truth, how come they got their own facts wrong about Paul Ryan's speech, and did so in a way that helped President Obama's re-election effort?

Case in point was the rush of "fact check" stories claiming Ryan misled when he talked about a shuttered auto plant in his home state.

Washington Post fact-checker Glenn Kessler posted a piece — "Ryan misleads on GM plant closing in hometown" — saying Ryan "appeared to suggest" that Obama was responsible for the closure of a GM plant in Janesville, Wis.

"That's not true," Kessler said. "The plant was closed in December 2008, before Obama was sworn in."

What's not true are Kessler's "facts." Ryan didn't suggest Obama was responsible for shuttering the plant. Instead, he correctly noted that Obama promised during the campaign that the troubled plant "will be here for another hundred years" if his policies were enacted.

Also, the plant didn't close in December 2008. It was still producing cars until April 2009.

An AP "fact check" also claimed that "the plant halted production in December 2008" even though the AP itself reported in April 2009 that the plant was only then "closing for good."

CNN's John King made the same claim about that plant closure. But when CNN looked more carefully at the evidence, it — to its credit — concluded that what Ryan said was "true."
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http://reason.com/blog/2012/08/30/ryans-fact-challenged-fact-checkers

What’s more, the administration actually did consider keeping the Janesville plant alive after it nationalized GM by commandeering the bankruptcy process. According to Shepardson’s story:

In June 2009, GM considered three sites to locate a small car: its Orion plant in Michigan; Janesville, Wis.; and a Spring Hill, Tenn., plant slated to close in November. GM picked Orion and later reopened Spring Hill.

Now why would Obama choose to close the only plant he had actively “suggested” he’d keep open? Could it possibly have something to do with the fact that it was in Ryan's (Republican) hometown? Just askin…
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Obviously it was not Obama that chose, but the point remains that GM could have reopened the plant in June of 2009 after having shut it in April.
 
Nobody' disputing the fact there was still operations going on at the plant. However, it was closed. According to FactCheck.org:

About 100 workers were kept on in 2009 to finish a truck order and help shut down the plant, according to the Associated Press.
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More:
Update, Aug. 30: A Ryan spokesman argues that the GM plant technically remained on “standby” status, meaning it was possible that the company might resume production there. But as a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel story noted nearly a year ago, “no one seems to be counting on that.”
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Quite honestly, that plant built the now-defunct Saturn models and then merely assembled Isuzu trucks from parts that were shipped from Japan. As the Milwaukee Journal story states, it could reopen but won't due to the need to extensively rework the plant to accomodate new vehicles.

As far as your quite silly conspiracy theory about Obama spiting Ryan, that's what it is.

We've already documented several pork barrel projects for Janesville with funds requested (begged for) directly by Ryan. Give up.
 
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