The criterion, according to Politifact, seems to be that a fact isn’t a fact if it helps a Democratic narrative.

In his State of the Union address on Jan. 24, President Obama said: “In the last 22 months, businesses have created more than three million jobs. Last year, they created the most jobs since 2005.” Which is just true. Period. But Politifact initially rated it as only “half true” because he was “essentially taking credit for job growth.” He didn’t actually take credit — and even if he had, a fact is still a fact. I do not think that word means what Politifact thinks it means.

Finding the Truth A commenter asks a good question: Where do you go to check whether a politician’s statement is actually true? The answer, unfortunately, is that it depends on what the statement is about. Most economic numbers can be fact-checked by going to official data sources like the Bureau of Labor Statistics or the Bureau of Economic Analysis, and quite a few of these official numbers are readily available at the excellent F.R.E.D.database from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. But the broader answer is that you have to know where to look.

Now, the point of Politifact and other fact-check sites is supposed to be that they do this work for readers, so that you don’t have to learn your way around labor-force or trade or crime or whatever statistics every time you have doubts about a political claim.

Unfortunately, Politifact has lost sight of what it is supposed to be doing. Instead of simply saying whether a claim is true, it’s trying to act as some kind of referee of what it imagines to be fair play: even if a politician says something completely true, it gets ruled only partly true if Politifact feels that the fact is being used to gain an unfair political advantage.

In the case of Mr. Obama’s job statement, Politifact first called it only half true, then later upgraded that to mostly true, not because Mr. Obama said anything factually incorrect, but because Politifact perceived Mr. Obama as trying to imply that he was responsible for the gains.

This is deeply wrong on two levels.

First, fact-checking should be about checking facts — not about trying to impose some sort of Marquess of Queensbury rules on how you’re allowed to use facts.

Aside from undermining the mission, this makes the whole thing subjective — notice that Politifact wasn’t even analyzing what Mr.

Obama said; they were analyzing their impression about what he might have been trying to imply.

Leave that for the talking heads! Second, in practice this turns into a partisan affair. The simple fact is that in today’s American political scene, Republicans make a lot more factual howlers than Democrats.

Sorry, but that’s just the way it is.

Yet Politifact wants to be seen as nonpartisan. If it just stuck to the facts, it could say look, we’re just reporting the facts. But having defined its role as something that goes beyond checking facts to saying whether the facts are being used in some “proper” way, it then finds itself under pressure to be “evenhanded,” which ends up meaning making excuses for Republican falsehoods and finding ways to criticize Democrats’ true statements.

It's all very sad.

Reader comments from nytimes.com

Regardless of whether Mr.Obama’s comments were deceptive or not, let’s remember that polemic, rhetoric and hyperbole are essential to political debate. Good political critique doesn’t necessarily weigh all the arguments equally.

Just look at the Declaration of Independence - how unfair and polemical were those attacks on King George! No doubt Politifact would think they were misleading, if not pants-on-fire false.

Name withheld, Arkansas

Every politician in history has either explicitly or implicitly taken credit for the good things that have happened under his watch, and every opposition politician has blamed the governing party for the bad things that have occurred.

We don't need Politifact to check this truth for us. Do you really expect Mr. Obama to be the first to break the trend? Would you, if you were in his position?

Steven Z., New Zealand

To Politifact, a statement is a fact only if the howls of protest from the hard right (also known as Republicans) and the howls of protest from the left, center and moderate right (also known as Democrats) are perfectly balanced. There can't possibly be anything wrong with that definition, can there?

Gary, Texas

Here's a dissenting opinion: A fact-checker should, of course, check whether a statement is factual or not — but he also has a duty to see that the fact is being used responsibly.

Just look at climate change deniers.

They say things like, "Hey, the average temperature of the planet clearly rose from year X to year Y.” This might be literally true, but it’s ultimately irrelevant to long-term climate trends.

Still, I agree that Politifact isn’t doing its job responsibly.

Ollie, Illinois

I'm waiting for Politifact to judge the president's claim that Osama bin Laden is dead as being only half true because Mr. Obama was "implicitly taking credit for it." — Serolf Divad, Maryland Let us not become overly cynical. During a recent Republican primary debate in Tampa, Fla., Mr. Romney turned to Newt Gingrich and said, “Under [your tax] plan, I’d have paid no taxes in the last two years.” That’s an absolute fact. Mr. Gingrich’s proposal not to tax capital gains would have meant Mr. Romney would have paid almost no taxes. We shouldn’t forget that, occasionally, politicians tell the truth.

Name withheld, Florida