One of the favorite propaganda organs of the left is self-appointed "fact checkers" which exist to damage conservative spokesmen and talking points. One of several such institutions is Politifact.  In order to maintain some shred of credibility, however, these purported fact checkers must occasionally engage in a bit of friendly fire, debunking something from the home team, so as to be able to frustrate those who impugn their impartiality. Avik Roy busts Politifact on their widely-publicized naming of "If you like your health care plan you can keep it" as the lie of the year:

...in its article detailing why the President's promise was a lie, PolitiFact neglected to mention an essential detail. In 2008, at a critical point in the presidential campaign, PolitiFact rated the "keep your plan" promise as "True." The whole episode, and PolitiFact's misleading behavior throughout, tells us a lot about the troubled state of "fact-checking" journalism.

2008 PolitiFact: 'We rate his statement True'

On October 9, 2008, Angie Drobnic Holan of PolitiFact published an article using the site's "Truth-O-Meter" to evaluate this claim: "Under Barack Obama's health care proposal, 'if you've got a health care plan that you like, you can keep it.'" The article assures us in its headline that "Obama's plan expands [the] existing system," and continues that "Obama is accurately describing his health care plan here...It remains to be seen whether Obama's plan will actually be able to achieve the cost savings it promises for the health care system. But people who want to keep their current insurance should be able to do that under Obama's plan. His description of his plan is accurate, and we rate his statement True." (snip)

As per PolitiFact's usual M.O., Holan didn't seek out any skeptical health-policy experts to suss out the veracity of Senator Obama's signature claim. Instead, its sources included Jonathan Cohn, a passionate Obamacare supporter at The New Republic, and various interviews and statements of Mr. Obama. Holan simply took the "keep your plan" promise at face value, dismissing as dishonest anyone who dared suggest that Obama's claim would be impossible to keep. "His opponents have attacked his plan as 'government-run' health care," she wrote, the scare-quotes around "government-run" being visible to all.

If Politifact likes its credibility, it can't keep it.

Hat tip: Cliff Thier