Washington Post columnist Glenn Kessler this week defended his article criticizing Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., who said he used a paper that was from “a Walmart-funded think tank.”
In an article released Thursday, Kessler criticized Ocasio-Cortez for saying that “a vast majority of the country doesn’t make a living wage.”
“Ocasio-Cortez would have been fine if she had said ‘more than a third’ or even ‘almost half.’ Instead, she said ‘a vast majority,’” Kessler wrote. “Ocasio-Cortez deserves credit for using her high profile to bring attention to income inequality. However, she undermines her message when she plays fast and loose with statistics.”
Kessler later wrote that the congresswoman “earns Three Pinocchios” for making a false statement.
Ocasio-Cortez tweeted about the article, asking, “If the point of fact-checking is to enforce some objective standard, why would [Kessler] use a Walmart-funded think tank as reference material for wage fairness? That’s like citing the foxes to fact-check the hens. Here’s 4 Geppettos for your contested Pinocchios”
“Since [Ocasio-Cortez] accused The Fact Checker of relying on a Walmart-funded think tank paper when we fact-checked her, we need to set the record straight. She's wrong. Don't always believe what you see on Twitter,” Kessler wrote on Twitter Thursday night. “The article has been updated with a note explaining the provenance.”
Kessler notes that the paper was written by the former economic adviser to former President Barack Obama and “produced for a forum hosted by the Center for American Progress,” which was founded by former Obama adviser and Hillary Clinton’s former campaign chairman John Podesta and which Walmart and many other companies have donated money to, according to The Nation.
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