Can you imagine CNN trying to “fact check” a Hitler speech? Or the NYT “fact-checking” David Duke in 1991?
Did CNN also “fact check” Saddam Hussein? Did they “fact-check” what Al Quaeda leaders said after 9/11? Are they now “fact-checking” Putin?
It is virtually impossible. When someone’s entire message is false, the ONLY way to “fact check” them is to simply present them as people with NO CREDIBILITY who should be marginalized because they are dangerous and entirely self-serving people without any morals or scruples.
By “fact checking” both Biden and Trump, CNN and the rest of the so-called liberal media simply legitimize Trump despite his lies. “Both sides need fact checking”. “Both sides lie”. Trump and the Republicans are a normal political party.
They used to know better. The media didn’t spend their time parsing Duke and Edwards’ statements for misstatements that needed to be corrected.
They presented David Duke as who he was. A Klansman/neo-Nazi whose claims to have very recently renounced every fascist white supremacist idea he spewed a short time ago because he wanted to presented himself as less extreme than he is should not be trusted, period.
But the media is now a tool of the propagandists. They are terrified of being called “biased”, so they normalize the Republican in every news article. The guy who was leader of the birthers, with a long history of dishonesty, cheating people who believed him in business, in his fake university, in his fake charity, things that happened very recently, like inciting an insurrection and being recorded pressuring Georgia officials to falsify votes for him, gets his entire past minimized as not “newsworthy.” Let’s fact check his speech! Let’s fact check Biden’s speech! They both were wrong — see how fair and balanced we are!
Fact checking a Putin speech does not inform the public of what a frightening leader he is. Fact checking a Hitler speech doesn’t inform students who study history what a frightening leader he was.