SoundCheks are better than fact checking because fact checkers check logical validity only implicitly. Consequently, they get mixed up about what a fact is, confuse their readers, and make overly subjective rulings (and, as we'll see, overly subjective choices about what to rule on). Earlier today, Glenn Kessler, the Fact Checker at the Washington Post, inadvertently demonstrated the weaknesses of his profession.
Kessler's recent article explains why his team did not fact check a pair of statements made by Obama and Boehner, respectively. Let's focus on the Obama statement, which was about the "transparency" of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, and which he made in an interview with Charlie Rose about recent controversies concerning foreign and domestic intelligence gathering. Here's what Kessler had to say.
From our reading, it appears as if Obama is using the phrase “transparent” to mean there is “a system of checks and balances.” In other words, this is a sensitive area and records are available to a select group of trustworthy people.
“While the details of the day-to-day work of the FISC is necessarily classified, it operates pursuant to public statute,” a senior administration official explained. “The FISC also receives regular reports on the conduct of both disclosed programs, providing more rigorous oversight than was in place before. Congress also receives these reports, and we have also increased the briefings we do for the Hill on our activities and have given them access to information about the FISC’s activities. And the DNI [Director of National Intelligence] has recently released lots of information in recent weeks on how the data is collected and can be used.”
Why did Kessler's team decide against fact checking Obama's claim that FISA is transparent? Here's what he says:
We certainly could have used the quote to write a column to explore the inner workings of the court. But in the end we thought the exchange was too confusing to warrant the Four-Pinocchio treatment, even after PolitiFact made its ruling. That’s because Obama appeared to be avoiding the question rather than directly answering it. It is not even quite clear whether Obama is saying the court itself is transparent, or something else.
Well here's the kicker. Purposive ambiguity is a logical fallacy!
Now a soundness checker (we'll call them SoundChekrs because we're uber-kewl) would call Obama out on his ambiguity fallacy, which is--according to yourlogicalfallacyis.com, most logicians, most members of junior high school debate teams, and actually most people I've had an intelligent argument with over drinks--"...a double meaning or ambiguity of language to mislead or misrepresent the truth."
I'm fairly confident that almost all politicians commit the ambiguity fallacy almost all of the time. But you wouldn't know it from the way some people fact check.
Listen, I am a Democrat and a bleeding heart liberal. I voted for Obama twice. If those elections happened again with the same candidates, I'd still vote for him. But I will not accept unchecked falsehood or fallacies in any politician in any party, nor will I accept its tacit approval by any fact checker. That I give to you as a preemptive SoundCheks guarantee. Stay tuned.