I really recommend FactCheck.org
to anyone interested in the mud-slinging in the current campaign. And I do
mean anyone. Because during a recent browse there myself, I was
surprised, not once but twice, in ways that I'm a little embarrassed about.
It goes a little like this:
- Embarrassing Surprise #1
- FactCheck.org is not
MoveOn.org. By this, I mean that it isn't
focused on just one side or the other of the issues. I had presumed that,
since my introduction to the site was in the context of the
Swift Boat Veterans for Revenge, the
sight was pro-Kerry, or at least pro-Democrat. That was Embarrassing Mistake
Number 1: assuming that any voice in the conversation must be
absolutely on one side or the other. In fact, this site covers more than
just the vets story, and covers misleading ads and statements from both
sides of the campaign. Which leads me to...
- Embarrassing Surprise #2
- The Bush campaign does not have a monopoly on distortion of facts. This
is by and far the more embarrassing of the two surprises. I'm not actually
naïve-enough to think that the Kerry campaign wouldn't lie or at least
exaggerate– really, I'm not. Or at least, I'm not usually. But I was in
fact surprised to see
bullet
points
on the site that addressed either cases where the GOP statements had
been true, or where pro-Kerry ads were just as misleading as anything the
pro-Bush camp had produced. And believe me when I say that I am
at least as bothered by this as I am when the
Bush camp does it. And not because I have some silly notion of the GOP being
less-honest than
the Dems.
Simply-put, I don't like it when either side does it, but when I've chosen
a side, I like to think that they're a little more above-board than the
other guy. And I realize that such is more than a little hopeful, to say
the least. But it's like my complaint with so-called historical dramas like
Titanic or
Pearl Harbor
(which is a whole separate journal entry for another day) that are themselves
misleading: there is more than
enough truth for them to avail themselves of, it seems incongruous to me that
they would instead play fast and loose. But then, I know people who continue
to support the swift-boat guys, even though the counter-arguments to their
ads are all over the net.
So, if you've thus far dismissed the FactCheck guys out of a presumption
that they're just a tool of the evil blame-America-first commie lib'rals,
give them a look. You may be just as surprised as I was.