Marsha Blackburn makes the following statement:
"In my congressional district, we have about 10,000 individuals that are employed in the medical device industry," Blackburn said. "We have estimates from the Manhattan Institute that 1,000 of those jobs will be lost if this tax stays on the books."
PolitiFact looks up the study by the Manhattan Institute and finds:
"Table 11 on page 21 of the report indicates that in Tennessee 1,023 of 9,179 jobs would be lost statewide assuming a 2.3 percent excise tax and a 10 percent shift in production offshore."
So guess what rating is applied?
Their justification? (other than the obvious, that Blackburn is a conservative woman in government) Blackburn misspoke when she said the jobs were in her district when she meant statewide, and she exaggerated when she claimed "about 10,000" instead of saying 9,000.
One thing that is obvious is that neither Bartholomew Sullivan nor Zack McMillan, the writer and editor respectively, mastered basic math skills, because if they had, they would have realized that Blackburn's rounding actually created a more favorable result than does the correct numbers.
A loss of 1000 jobs out of 10,000 is a 10% loss. 1,000/10,000*100=10%
A loss of 1023 jobs out of 9,179 is an 11% loss. 1023/9,179*100=11.145%
Here's what is ironic. Sullivan makes a big deal over Blackburn's 10% inflation of the number of jobs in the state, but doesn't even notice that her inflation of the numbers reduce the percentage of jobs lost by an identical 10%.
Apparently, 10% only matters when it's against you.
The bias is mathematically evident. Sullivan is a hack whose sole purpose is to advance a liberal agenda, and since Zack McMillan, the editor of PolitiFact Tennessee continues to publish his pieces, he is guilty as well.
In a sane universe where truth in labeling exists, any column using the word "Fact" in its title would rate Blackburn's statement as "Mostly True," down checking her for mistakenly saying her district rather than state. Only in today's media, where Orwellian doublespeak is the order of the day would a factually accurate claim be rated as false because it is politically inconvenient. Welcome to the 2012 election, where facts don't matter as much as how you can spin them.