Fact Checking when the campaigns spin out

We're in that period of the campaign where both sides, the Republicans and the Democrats are hurling great whoppers out there to see what will stick. The ladies on the View took McCain to task on some of these yesterday (the pig, the lipstick, the ad stating that Obama advocates sex educaton for Kindergartners), but the Obama camp is using similar tactics. Palin, it turns out, did not seek to ban books nor did she advocate the teaching of Creationsim in the schools of Alaska. There are enough reasons to feel unhappy with Sarah Palin as a candidate for vice president without sliming her. I am distinctly uncomfortable with the way she's been thrown into the stocks and pounded with rotten eggs. She is clearly ill-prepared and would be disastrous on a world stage (see Bob Herbert's OpEd piece today). But this fishwife-like behaviour just feels a bit uncivilized.

This organization, FactCheck.org, part of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania, is a self-subscribed "nonpartisan, nonprofit, "consumer advocate" for voters that aims to reduce the level of deception and confusion in U.S. politics." They have the facts & only the facts.