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12/18/2007
Check your facts at the door....
These political sites are terrific – especially in this hot and heavy presidential election season. In a season that’s going to last another 11 months, a few sites work hard to make some sense of it.
FactCheck.org – Holding Politicians Accountable
If you’re a real nut about this stuff, you can sign up to receive new FactChecks as they’re completed. You can also check out the “Fact of the Day” - and the Annenberg-funded non-partisan information site has a new “Ask FactCheck” feature – where readers can send in a politics or public affairs question and it will be answered as time and resources allow.
FactCheck’s most recent postings:
Democrats debate in Iowa
Romney on Huckabee
Check it out.
PolitiFact.com
The folks at the St. Petersburg Times and Congressional Quarterly recently fired up this great site that works similar to FactCheck. More good stuff.
PolitiFact’s most recent postings:
Income gap is big, but so are its causes
Iowa nice
Another one to be sure to check out.
The FactChecker
The Washington Post says it will draw on the expertise of FactCheck.org and PoliticFact.com, but “differ from them in one important respect: the success of this project depends, to a great extent, on the involvement of you, the reader.”
The FactChecker's most recent postings:Most revealing fibs: Rudy Giuliani Most revealing fibs: Mike Huckabee
OnTheIssues
The FactChecker recommends this site – and it’s terrific. You’ll find a list of 24 issues – and in each issue category, a pretty concise collection of the position on that issue of each of the current presidential candidates. Pretty cool.
techPresident
Dean at Musings of a Thoughtful Conservative, recommends this site as one readers may find handy. It’s definitely for the internet techie, who will go ballistic at the plethora of stuff crammed in one place.
Closer to home
WISC-TV, via its TV broadcasts and its Channel3000.com web site does something similar via its “Reality CHECK” series. I don’t think Reality CHECK is a regular feature; when they do appear, the articles seem well done and pretty thorough.
A sampling of Reality CHECKs:
TV ads against ‘Home Tax’
Attack ads in supreme court race
Check it out.
I swear by FactCheck.org and PolitiFacts.com. Straight stuff. Are there other sources like these that you read regularly?
COMMENTS
I am a heavy net user myself. But I do a lot of weekly news magazine reading. Their facts are supposed to be checked for legal and ethical reasons.
The plethora of these fact checking sites rather than going to the source-- say the original journalist article-- makes me think that, like much of net news, they are untrustworthy.
Huckabee's "fibs" (as opposed to lies) in the link are interesting. And there is at least one Arkansas newspaper reporter from the Arkansas Times who has a long string of issues with this Mr. Nice Guy. My source was the Progressive Populist (PP) and that is a reprint from Salon.com. The newspaper reporter at The Arkansas Times has covered Huck's career for 15 years.
Here are a couple of the things mentioned:
Huckabee pays self as his own media adviser.
Huckabee crushes (as in stomps on) computer hard drives with records concerning his release of a convicted rapist against the advice of his own people. Talk about a Dukakis Moment.
The article title is "The Dark Side of Mike Huckabee" by Max Brantley (p. 10 of PP Dec. 15th this year.) If you have a pass you can read it at Salon. If you live in Arkansas you already know this stuff.
I don't have any preconceived notions about Mike Huckabee - but I surely trust FactCheck and PolitiFact over Salon any day. JE
Lon Ponschock (Tue Dec 18 13:57:21 2007)
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