On Wednesday, at a speech in Charlottesville, VA, President Obama made this statement:
And they were asked about it and they said — one of their campaign people said, we won’t have the fact-checkers dictate our campaign. (Laughter.) We will not let the truth get in the way. (Laughter.)
This is a reference to comments made Tuesday by Romney pollster Neil Newhouse to Buzzfeed regarding Obama’s gutting of welfare reform; more specifically, the perhaps vehement media reactions to one ad cut by Romney attacking said gutting. Newhouse stated:
“Fact checkers come to this with their own sets of thoughts and beliefs, and we’re not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact checkers,” he said. The fact-checkers — whose institutional rise has been a feature of the cycle — have “jumped the shark,” he added after the panel.