After President Trump withdrew from Obama's executive agreement with Iran, Twitter Moments harped on Iranian politicians burning an American flag and saying "Death to America." As if Trump re-started this routine? On The Daily Show Wednesday night, Trevor Noah cracked "these guys are extreme in Iran's parliament. They're basically the Ted Cruzes of Iran."
This offered a reminder of how PolitiFact displayed its typical fact-mangling in 2015 when Sen. Ted Cruz told Hugh Hewitt that in Iran they celebrated "Death to America Day" on November 4, for the day in 1979 when the radical Islamists took American hostages.
W. Gardner Selby somehow ruled this was "Mostly False," despite the facts that the Cruz team sent along:
To our inquiry, Cruz spokesman Phil Novack emailed that every November, Iranians celebrate the 1979 takeover of the U.S. Embassy. He pointed out a November 1987 Associated Press news story stating Iran’s leaders had just declared a national holiday to mark the 1979 seizure of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran "and called on their people to take to the streets and make ‘America tremble in fear.’" Tehran Radio had dubbed the special date, Nov. 4, 1987, ''Death to America Day,'' the story said.
...More recently, according to an October 2013 New York Times news story also noted by Novack, "hard-liners" in Iran planned to mark Nov. 4, 2013, as a ‘Grand Day of Death to America.’" The same story said, though, the chant "Death to America" was falling out of routine use; Iran’s newly elected president, Hassan Rouhani, was saying the country no longer needed slogans.
Somehow, it counted against Cruz that former Jimmy Carter aide Gary Sick told PolitiFact that "Death to America" is utterly routine and not special in Iran:
Gary Sick, a scholar at Columbia University’s Middle East Institute, said by email "Death to America" is an Iranian revolutionary slogan shouted or chanted "at most events related to the revolution. I am sure that it would be heard at the Nov. 4 demonstrations, but I am unaware that it is the formal name of the day or event. This slogan is shouted every Friday at the weekly prayer services held across Iran."
Selby ruled that since Cruz wise-cracked that in Iran, this day is like Christmas and Thanksgiving, he could declare it False. Nobody got the day off or looked for Santa or killed a turkey to proclaim Death to America:
Every year, demonstrations in Tehran mark the Nov. 4 anniversary of students taking over the U.S. embassy in 1979 and taking hostages. But that date doesn’t appear to be akin to the special American days Cruz singled out. In fact, it’s not a holiday on the calendar at all nor is it formally designated Death to America Day.
We rate this claim, which has a strand of truth but ignores critical facts, Mostly False.
Or PolitiFact found a pile of truth clips, which they ignored when they found a strand they could brand "Mostly False." This is how PolitiFact overall has found Cruz to be "True" or "Mostly True" in just 21 percent of their evaluations, but "False," "Mostly False," or "Pants on Fire" in 64 percent of their "fact checks."
When informed of Selby's liberal verdict, the Cruz team again attempted a rebuttal:
Cruz spokeswoman Amanda Carpenter replied by email that the annual marking of Nov. 4 "fits the working definition of a holiday. St. Patrick’s Day is an upcoming event that most Americans recognize as a holiday, although it is not considered a federal holiday. Just because Iran has not similarly designated 'Death to America Day' as a formalized holiday does not mean Sen. Cruz's characterization was wrong or the occurrence of these routine celebrations is any less disturbing."
