AP offers straw man 'defense' for straw man Clinton fact check

The AP's senior managing editor for U.S. news, Mike Oreskes, gives as ridiculous a defense for his organization's deplorable fact check of President Clinton's speech as that original story. As a reminder, in "fact checking" whether or not Clinton told the truth about the Romney campaign's welfare lies, the AP fact checkers pulled Monica Lewinsky out of their asses.

Here's how Oreskes defends that steaming pile, responding to Huffington Post's request for a statement.

"The reference was not about that woman, Miss Lewinsky," Oreskes said. "It was about facts. Clinton challenged the Republicans for their attitude toward facts. We were simply pointing out that as president Clinton had his own challenges in this area."

Let's rewind. President Clinton's words about the Romney/Ryan welfare lies: "Their campaign pollster said, 'We're not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact checkers.'"

What the the campaign pollster said: "[...] we're not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact checkers."

So Clinton was completely accurate in quoting what was said by the Romney camp. To the word. One might say, he was "factual." A real fact-checker would confine themselves to that actual statement. They would look at those two quotes and see absolutely no problem, and maybe even acknowledge Clinton's veracity and ability to remember exactly a quote from a week ago. They might even look at the Romney/Ryan claims about Obama and welfare and conclude, rightly, that the campaign is lying.

But an asshole fact-checker, and the asshole fact-checker's editor, would decide that "facts" had nothing to do with the point they were trying to make. Which is apparently that they continue to harbor an irrational hatred of Bill Clinton. And sex.