It is odd that a website that fancies itself as a fact-checking organization would believe that if you repeat a falsehood enough times it eventually becomes true, but that is what PolitiFact is doing with Democrats and transgender sports. In a Thursday article, PolitiFact defended Montana Sen. Jon Tester’s vote that failed to protect the competitive integrity of women’s sports by claiming such attacks are false.

Tester is the third Democratic senator PolitiFact has defended on the issue since October 10 after Ohio’s Sherrod Brown and Nevada’s Jacky Rosen.

For the third time, PolitiFact ignored how conservatives view Title IX’s role in this issue, as Louis Jacobson wrote, "The amendments Tester voted on would have stripped federal funding from schools and colleges that allowed transgender girls and women to compete in sports matching their gender identity. They did not dictate athletic eligibility. Federal law rarely dictates who is eligible for specific sports.”

Jacobson then cites a Tester campaign statement, ‘“As a former public school teacher and school board member, Jon Tester believes these decisions should be made at the local level,’ the Tester campaign said in a statement to PolitiFact. ‘He has never voted to allow men to compete against women.’”

Eventually getting to Title IX, Jacobson added, “Some federal laws, such as Title IX, prohibit sex-based discrimination for programs receiving federal funding, which includes nearly all public schools, according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office. President Joe Biden unveiled new rules in April that cover gender identity under Title IX, though the rules did not specifically address transgender athletes in sports.”

Yes, and Tester’s inability to criticize those rules is fair game for the Senate GOP's Senate Leadership Fund.

Again, for the third time, PolitiFact tried to argue that it is unfair to condemn the Democrat because the vote was on amendments to a larger spending bill:

Both Democratic and Republican senators have introduced amendments structured to force members of the other party to support or oppose policies that could be controversial with constituents. Senators in the majority, as Tester was during both votes, need to plow through these amendments to get the larger bill passed. Sometimes, this means voting for something that could be used by a future opponent. Otherwise, a bill already passed by the House would have to be sent back to the House to resolve differences, an impractical course given funding deadlines.

As the Tester campaign’s earlier statement makes clear, Tester would not have voted for a standalone bill to protect women’s sports. The Senate Leadership Fund clearly believes liberal culture war craziness is a winning issue for them. They have the added benefit of being correct in their attacks on Democratic incumbents, but PolitiFact insists on defending them. Unfortunately for PolitiFact, in certain sports, as in fact-checking, it is three strikes and you’re out.