checking facts

when i wrote the below post last night, i was under the impression that neither side made a major screw-up during the debates. not so, it turns out as josh marshall points out.

throughout the debate cheney took the line that edwards simply had his facts wrong.* personally, i think such lines of arguments usually create a rhetorical cul-de-sac, with one side saying "your facts are wrong" and the other saying "no, your facts are wrong." in theory, the press is supposed to pick apart the facts in subsequent news reports and inform the public who, in fact, had their facts more right. but the press, these days, is a lot more consumed with pithy one-liners and campaign spin than in fact checking. so when cheney and edwards accuse each other of being factually incorrect, the viewer comes away with a hazy view of what, in fact, is right.

so during last night's debate, edwards slammed cheney for his ties to halliburton, and cheney responded by claiming again that edwards had his facts wrong. cheney added that factcheck.com had cleared him of having any improper ties to the company. but instead of "factcheck.com", cheney probably meant to say factcheck.org. factcheck.com redirects the visitor to george soros' website--not exactly a venue that will back up cheney's claims. indeed, if you click there now the large print that immediately greets you says: "President Bush is endangering our safety, hurting our vital interests, and undermining American values."

but even factcheck.org is not exactly pro-cheney territory. the top article this morning on the site is entitled: Cheney & Edwards Mangle Facts and the abstract of the article states as follows:

Cheney wrongly implied that FactCheck had defended his tenure as CEO of Halliburton Co., and the vice president even got our name wrong. He overstated matters when he said Edwards voted "for the war" and "to commit the troops, to send them to war." He exaggerated the number of times Kerry has voted to raise taxes, and puffed up the number of small business owners who would see a tax increase under Kerry's proposals.

Edwards falsely claimed the administration "lobbied the Congress" to cut the combat pay of troops in Iraq, something the White House never supported, and he used misleading numbers about jobs.

indeed, the factcheck.com article goes on to say that "Edwards was mostly right" when he talked about halliburton.

* this is part of what i call his "dad" persona which is probably the only even marginally pleasant character he is capable of playing on tv