DAHLIN: Verify, then trust

By Amber Dahlin, Special to the Rocky

Published September 27, 2008 at 12:05 a.m.

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Every day of this election season seems to bring a vicious new TV advertisement or dubious e-mail. The pundits blather on at Fox and CNN and MSNBC. Those of us who are struggling to get by economically see millions of dollars spent on campaigns designed to deceive and manipulate. It's discouraging.

Let's be smarter, stronger, better than the people churning out campaign lies. How? By doing at least some basic fact-checking for ourselves. I find a couple of sources really useful:

Factcheck.org is an independent organization that looks at the sources of news and rumors. "We are a nonpartisan, nonprofit, 'consumer advocate' for voters that aims to reduce the level of deception and confusion in U.S. politics," the organization claims on its Web site. "We monitor the factual accuracy of what is said by major U.S. political players in the form of TV ads, debates, speeches, interviews and news releases. Our goal is to apply the best practices of both journalism and scholarship, and to increase public knowledge and understanding."

If we glanced through www.factcheck.org, we'd find reliable responses to some current claims, like these:

* Did Sarah Palin submit a list of books she wanted banned from the Wasilla library? No. Palin asked the librarian what the response would be if Palin wanted some books removed.

* Did Joseph Biden refuse to pay a $150,000 camaign debt? "Contrary to a claim in a chain e-mail, public records show Biden paid his debt to an air charter company in full, well before Obama tapped him for vice president. The accountant who wrote the e-mail now says it's 'no longer true.' "

* Will Barack Obama's tax plan bring tax increases on working American families? No. "In fact, Obama's economic plan would produce a tax cut for the majority of American households, with middle-income earners benefiting most."

* Would the Social Security plan supported by John McCain in 2005 have meant that elderly women lost all their money in the stock market last week? No. "All current retirees would be covered by the same benefits they are now."

I recommend reading the www.factcheck.org Web site any time a new ad appears.

Snopes.com is a great resource for examining urban legends and all kinds of e-mail stories.

Barbara and David Mikkelson are the sole operators of this site, making no claim to be the final arbiters of anything. They include citations to source materials so readers can follow through on their own. This kind of transparency is crucial.

If we wanted to track down some of the claims made about the candidates, we could find these:

* Is Obama a Muslim? No, he's a Christian.

* Is McCain ineligible to be president because he was born in Panama? Clearly, he is a citizen, but he might not be considered a "natural-born citizen," as the Constitution requires. Amazingly, there might actually be a point of law involved.

* Is that really Sarah Palin posing in a bikini while holding a rifle? No. That photo is a forgery.

If you see an attack ad on TV, don't believe it. As far as I can tell, they all lie, every single one. If you receive an e-mail about either candidate, will you fact-check it before passing it along? If it's unsubstantiated, vicious, deceptive or just plain dumb, let's say so. At this point, I think that's a huge service to our democracy.

Let's vote based on the facts.

Amber Dahlin is a resident of Idaho Springs.

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