The world’s gone dark. Democracy is dead. The haunting sound of Pinocchio’s (facial) castration, the shears of Satan snapping shut, the skirl of fascist glee, will echo in eternity.
Glenn Kessler, the world’s preeminent expert on truth, is leaving the Washington Post, the once reputable publication where he labored tirelessly to expose Republican politicians and their allies for lying about Democrats. The paper’s new leadership, which has been trying to eliminate partisan hackery at the Post, said there are no plans to replace him or his beloved Pinocchio rating system.
“After more than 27 years at The Washington Post, including almost 15 as The Fact Checker, I will be leaving on July 31, having taken a buyout,” Kessler announced on Monday. “Much as I would have liked to keep scrutinizing politicians in Washington, especially in this era, the financial considerations were impossible to dismiss.”
This is terrible news for Democratic politicians and their mentally unstable fans. Kessler helped combat the spread of misinformation, a problem that only exists because Republicans are constantly lying or falsely accusing Democrats of lying, which they never do.
Proof of prowess: In 2022, the Society of Professional Journalists gave Kessler an award for reporting “the truth about Hunter Biden” and his “alleged laptop.” Earlier this year, the Museum of Political Corruption gave him the Nellie Bly Award for Investigative Journalism, hailing Kessler’s work as “a testament to the power of fact-based reporting.” He never would have won these awards (among others) by attacking Democrats and defending Republicans.
Crucial context: Kessler is the great-grandson of two Dutch oil magnates, Jean Baptiste August Kessler and Adriaan Stoop, whose lucrative fossil fuel empires—forged in the fires of colonial exploitation—eventually merged to become what is now Shell. His grandfather, Geldolph Adriaan Kessler, founded the Dutch steel conglomerate Hoogovens, which was ultimately absorbed by Tata Steel, one of the world’s largest steel producers.
Greatest hits: Kessler’s departure from the Post means the American people will no longer have the expert guidance they require to understand that Republicans lie and Democrats tell the truth. In recent years, Kessler utilized his mastery of the truth to expose some of the most vile GOP falsehoods ever concocted. Readers will be lost without him.
• Biden “cheap fakes” — Days before the infamous debate in June 2024, Kessler denounced the “deceptive framing” of video clips of Joe Biden behaving like a senile old man. The cheap fake videos were “misleading,” he concluded, citing a 2009 interview in which Biden said he doesn’t dance, as well as a statement from Andrew Bates, the discredited former White House press aide, who accused Republicans of using misinformation to distract from Biden’s historic accomplishments. Kessler was hardly alone in promoting the absurd White House spin. A senior Biden aide told reporter Alex Thompson after the election that they “could not believe we got those stories placed,” referring to articles such as Kessler’s that advanced the “cheap fake” narrative.
• The “lab leak” conspiracy — In May 2020, Kessler posted a video from his fact-checking colleagues at the Post, which he claimed was proof that COVID-19 did not leak from a lab in Wuhan. Months earlier, a Post article accused Republicans who entertained the possibility of a lab leak of promoting a “debunked conspiracy theory.” When Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas) accused him of promoting Chinese propaganda, Kessler scolded the GOP lawmaker for failing to appreciate the “scientific animation in the video that shows how it is virtually impossible for this virus [to] jump from the lab.” Most experts now agree that COVID-19 almost certainly did leak from a Chinese lab.
• Tim Scott’s racial privilege — In April 2021, Kessler humiliated Sen. Tim Scott (R., S.C.), the first black senator to represent a southern state since Reconstruction, by exposing the truth about his allegedly humble family origins. Kessler, with the help of two university professors who just happened to be Democratic donors, published an extensive investigation into Scott’s lineage to “fact check” the senator’s claim that his grandfather was illiterate and dropped out of school to pick cotton during the Great Depression. For example, Scott claimed his grandfather dropped out of school in the third grade, but Kessler uncovered evidence suggesting he may have actually dropped out in the fourth grade. He also accused Scott, who was raised by a single mother in poverty, of downplaying the “success” of his relatives, who apparently owned farm land and lived in a house worth $10,000 in today’s dollars.
• The “brilliant and talented” Taylor Lorenz — In June 2022, shortly after Taylor Lorenz joined the Washington Post, Kessler pushed back on right-wing falsehood by praising Lorenz as a “brilliant and talented” journalist who was a “terrific addition” to the paper’s staff. He also posted a selfie with Lorenz; they were both wearing masks for some reason. Since “voluntarily” leaving the Post in 2024, Lorenz has showcased her brilliance and talent by gushing about Luigi Mangione, the madman who gunned down UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, describing the killer as a “morally good man, which is hard to find.”
• Putting the “fun” in “Soros-funded” — Kessler pounced and seized in April 2023 after Donald Trump accused Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney who prosecuted the Stormy Daniels “hush money” case, of being “funded” by liberal billionaire George Soros. The fact-checker awarded three Pinocchios to this claim, arguing that Soros never gave money to Bragg “directly,” he had merely funneled $1 million through a left-wing nonprofit, Color of Change, just days after the group announced it was funding a large ad campaign on Bragg’s behalf. “While that appears like careful coordination, both Soros and Color of Change say the two events are unrelated,” Kessler wrote with remarkable credulity. He also accused Republicans of dabbling in anti-Semitism for criticizing Soros.
• The Trump dossier — Kessler repeatedly promoted the so-called Steele dossier, which included salacious claims about Trump’s ties to Russia. Even the New York Times admits that the dossier’s claims have been “discredited.”
• Exposing the Free Beacon’s “lies” — Kessler has routinely scolded our disreputable publication for tainting the national discourse with misinformation. In 2022, he dismissed our report on the Biden administration funding the distribution of crack pipes to advance “racial equity.” The administration claimed this wasn’t true, and Kessler demonstrated his knack for “speaking truth to power” by taking them at their word. (Fact check: They were lying.) That same year, Kessler trashed us again when we reported that the Biden administration was releasing oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and selling it to China. The fact-checker conceded that our report was accurate, but had “been turned into something nefarious” by others making “suggestions” that the Biden administration had done something wrong, as opposed to “following the rules.”
Thanks for always keeping us honest, Glenn. We admire your passion, and envy your courage. No one is going to miss you, obviously, but we’ll cherish the memories.
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