I think what I've become most frustrated with in American politics is that you just can't take most politicians at their word. More often than not their words are half-truths, flat out lies, stretches of the truth or twisting the truth to fit their agenda.
That is especially true during debates when both sides are throwing out numbers and facts and dates and voting records and attributions. The average American doesn't have time to go line by line and seek out the truth. So where does that leave us?
Unfortunately, it leaves us skeptical and cynical and before long we don't care if our candidate was telling the truth because we don't even know what the truth is anymore. We just want them to say what we want to hear.
Thankfully, there are some sites you can go to that have all the resources to follow-up on the promises and assertions of our candidates. For a very comprehensive look at just about every fact given last night, The Washington Post's Fact Checker is a good place to start. If you continue to scroll down, you'll also see their fact checking from the first presidential debate.
Another reliable site is FactChecker.com, a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania. You'll find the check of the debate as well as many other checks on each candidate's proposed policies.
Don't just assume what you heard is fact. Do your homework and become informed.
That is especially true during debates when both sides are throwing out numbers and facts and dates and voting records and attributions. The average American doesn't have time to go line by line and seek out the truth. So where does that leave us?
Unfortunately, it leaves us skeptical and cynical and before long we don't care if our candidate was telling the truth because we don't even know what the truth is anymore. We just want them to say what we want to hear.
Thankfully, there are some sites you can go to that have all the resources to follow-up on the promises and assertions of our candidates. For a very comprehensive look at just about every fact given last night, The Washington Post's Fact Checker is a good place to start. If you continue to scroll down, you'll also see their fact checking from the first presidential debate.
Another reliable site is FactChecker.com, a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania. You'll find the check of the debate as well as many other checks on each candidate's proposed policies.
Don't just assume what you heard is fact. Do your homework and become informed.
3 comments:
I think Sarah did well to consider all the interviews she's done so poorly in. However, I believe she was taught what to say by the McCain staff. This was not what was asked of her, which was a V.P. DEBATE. In my opinion it appeared she was doing a commercial for the McCain camp, than a debate.
Clever when she said she wasn't going to speak like what the moderator nor Biden wanted to hear. Which was a way of saying I'm not here to do a debate. I'm here to lay out the things I learned to say for this debate. To not stick to the questions asked by the moderator because I didn't learn that far ahead yet.
I believe Palin is just a puppet that McCain camp is using for votes. She has no substance. Biden at least got into specifics of what was wrong and how to fix things. Palin was way to general and only mentioned things we already knew (people are loosing jobs, everybody's hurting, the economy is bad, etc. etc.) Please tell me Sarah, what do we do, and how to get out of this mess? Please don't blame the media, we heard the answers coming out of your own mouth.
Hopefully your not like you try to present yourself as a "everyday person" or "hockey mom" And if you are, I would be frightened if you got into the V.P. position, because most normal everyday people wouldn't be able to do the job.
Once again, in the midst of my busy schedule, I can peruse your site and gain a whole host of perspective - in just 10 minutes!
I have even read some entries to a Dad - is that OK?? :) We both appreciate the info, insight and sense of humor woven together!
Thanks!
Prayerfully,
AMS
PS Have a great weekend!
Amy
A couple of thoughts: Factcheck.org, while officially non-partisan, is affiliated with the Annenberg project, which has longstanding financial ties to Obama. I have found that they tend to be less forgiving with McCain "errors" than Obama's, so I take any blurbs there with a grain of salt. Another good resource is www.politifact.com, I like the fact that they rule true-false and partially-true, partially-false, etc.
I would note for any skeptics that Gov Palin has an 80-90% approval rating in her home state, which to my knowledge, is the highest of any Governor in the U.S. Whatever she's doing in Alaska is working for the vast majority of its people. That's a pretty hard leadership test to pass, and much more revealing than 90 minutes of questions from any source.
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