So the NY Times and the Washington Post have decided to go all in on fact checking the Democratic National Convention. It’s going as well as you might imagine:

Given the phrae Biden used (“in four years”), it’s clear his speechwriters specifically wrote the text that way so as to not fall foul of nitpicking fact checkers… and then the fact checker just outright misrepresented what Biden said. How this informs the reader is unclear (hint: it misinforms them).

Meanwhile, at the Washington Post, Glenn Kessler, who has tried to debunk the testimony of a raped ten year-old, complains that Trump is being taken out of context. As Greg Greene noted, “Trump’s remarks confound the very notion of “context.” Trump uses words like everyday folks use a leafblower: to send ideas flying around, at best vaguely toward some semblance of a direction.”

Also, the idea that Trump, an adjudicated rapist who will not admit to the crime and who also is a convicted fraudster (and… who has been found legally liable for multiple frauds), should be given the benefit of the doubt, without a lengthy disavowal of his previous comments, also confounds the notion of context. When one’s word have no meaning, there is no context, only cynical utility.

There is a role for fact checking–and it’s absolutely critical before publication–but this is just nitpicking and ignoring context*.

*Apparently, another gotcha claim is that Walz, when talking about IVF and how many Republicans want to outlaw it, refers to using IVF to have kids, when they actually used IUI (which it seems Republicans don’t want to ban. Maybe). Is that factually correct? Yes. Does it have any bearing on the reality of which party would restrict access (or ban) IVF and which party would not? Absolutely not.