Guest Post: The Currency Lad – Fact-checking glib political windbags.

This post can be considered the first cab off the rank in response to Malcolm Turnbull’s request for Australian websites to fact-check glib political windbags.

Malcolm Turnbull’s speech at the Woodford Folk Festival railing against glibness, spin and dishonesty in politics is making news. Guess which politician he decries about half way through as having provided one of the worst examples anywhere in the world in 2012. Mitt Romney. With Obama as the victim. Yes, really. Turnbull tells the story of Romney campaign pollster Neil Newhouse saying “we’re not going to let our campaign be dictated to by fact-checkers.” Of course the lefties at the Woodford Folk Festival all laugh – just as they later cheer when Turnbull says Romney got what he deserved by losing to the innocent, scrupuously honest and beloved Obama.

Here is what Neil Newhouse actually said, abridged and doctored by Turnbull.

He was criticising phony “fact-checkers” who are in fact fronts for the Democrat Party:

Newhouse brushed off the fact check as par for the course in political campaigns.

“People are always going to get Pinocchios for this stuff,” Newhouse said. “We stand behind those ads and behind the facts in those ads.” Newhouse suggested the problem was with the fact-checkers, not the facts themselves:

“Fact-checkers come to this with their own sets of thoughts and beliefs and you know what? We’re not going let our campaign be dictated by fact-checkers.”

So in a speech against glibness, spin and dishonesty in politics, Turnbull dumbs-down, distorts and lies.

Turnbull’s speech can be seen here.