Sometimes it's how the question is framed. Sometimes it's timing. And sometimes it's paying attention to what's going on nationally. They add up to ineptitude.
Today's PolitiFact in the Journal Sentinel certainly had a problem with timing and attention on the question of whether the federal health care bill requires the hiring of thousands of IRS agents.
Assembly Speaker Jeff Fitzgerald takes the rap today for something that Sen. Ron Johnson said rpeatedly, without being challenged, when he was running for office.
The sequence of events:
The national PolitiFact, which franchises the Milwaukee version, found the claim barely true on March 29, 2010. Subsequently, Senate candidate Ron Johnson repeatedly made the same claim:
"We didn’t have to put on 16,000 additional IRS agents. What does that have to do with healthcare? ” [Wausau debate, 10/11/10]
"We don’t need 16,000 additional IRS agents.” [Wausau post debate press conference, 10/11/10]
"I mean, is there any reason why- why are we hiring 16,000 new IRS agents in the healthcare bill.” [Green Bay Press Gazette Ed Board, 10/15/10]
“I mean jus- just ask yourself, I mean, this health care bill. Why-why does it include 16,000 new IRS agents.” [UWM candidate forum, 10/20/10]
"We’re putting on 16,000 additional IRS agents.[UpFront town hall debate, 10/22/10]
Not a peep from the Journal Sentinel. Now that Johnson's safely in office, Fitzgerald has the misfortune to make essentially the same claim RoJo made all across the state, and he gets slapped.
You may also recall that RoJo told what the national PolitiFact called the lie of the year but never got noticed by the Journal Sentinel for that, either.
The paper's team of investigative reporters was too busy checking to see whether Russ Feingold really had practiced law, and whether his TV commercial really was filmed in front of his house. (Both true, by the way.)