The Fact-Checker, by Michael Dobbs

Wow. How fake can they be - am not all that surprised, they are all the same.

not sure as to why the dodd commercial is even up for issue as there was nothing stating that it was his barbershop and any living in a closet wouldn't of known that they were actors...so why bother scrutinizing this commercial? and who the heck cares if they were actors?

geeze, looks like you are scraping the bucket for something to report on...
what a waste of time and energy.

In your readership survey, using Al Gore as a multiple choice answer was foolish, nonsensical and reflects badly on the writer and the WaPo. How infantile!

This is the best you got? Come on buddy, get some policy comments and check the facts. Wow wee, did we or did we not spend Russia into submission. Who cares. This whole thing is a joke. No wonder no one shows up to read it.

I suspected The Fact Checker wants to be taken seriously. Oops, my error. Al Gore? Al Gore? That's maybe cute, but hardly serious. Is Tony Kornheiser ghosting this stuff?
How about this cuteness - Dick Cheney is in the closet. That cute enough for ya? I can't take you seriously anymore.

Instead of ghosts what about this; how many Pinnochio's is this worth for Shays, R from CT:
"Fourteen months ago, the Connecticut Republican, in a pitched battle to keep his seat in the House, announced that most U.S. troops should be removed from Iraq in 2007, saying that "the only way we are able to encourage some political will on the part of the Iraqis is to have a timeline for troop withdrawal." That position helped Shays squeeze out a 51 percent victory in his antiwar home state.

But yesterday, Shays sat opposite Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in a hearing in the Rayburn House Office Building -- while ferociously defending the war and condemning Democrats for supporting a troop withdrawal."

This was also on today's news.

It doesn't surprise me that Huckabee would botch the facts on the signing of the Declaration. He is a follower of the David Barton camp of Christian historical revisionists who have been distorting our history for the purposes of perpetuating the Christian Founders/Christian Nation mythology. Unfortunately, 55% of the country has bought this stuff because we are mostly ignorant of facts of our founding. For those who are interested in this issue and want to know how pervasive this religious distortion is and how much this had intruded into our government, read Liars for Jesus by Chris Rodda and/or visit the website Talk to Action.

Mr. Dobbs,

You are taking another tawdry and cheap shot at Al Gore in your ridiculous survey. The only thing you proved in your columns recently on Mr. Gore is that a British judge thinks he is 99% correct, which I might add is the inverse percentage of the veracity of anything that is printed in the WP lately. Why Gore is a reoccurring topic for you to flog is probably only explainable by a psychiatrist. Based on the sophistication of the style format and factual content of this newspaper lately it could be reasonably construed that you have been bought out by Rupert Murdoch or the old black and white tabloid Weekly World News. In the spirit of the new sleaziness of the WP and Halloween a more constructive survey would be out of all those running which one of these presidential candidates Republican or Democrat would scare you the most if you found them in your closet! Rather than trying to knife him in the back why don't you give Al Gore a rest for awhile? After all he and other Nobel winners are some of the few Americans who have brought any international recognition, credibility or credit to the country lately.

Honestly Mr. Dobbs. You have enough material to cover Rudy Guiliani and Mitt Romney's habitual flip-flopping/lying to keep you busy up until pigs fly. Why bother with nonsense like Al Gore in a closet? No wonder Americans are uninformed when you pander to the lowest common denominator among us. Raise the bar instead of lowering it. This is the "Fact Checker" after all.

Mr Dobbs, you seem to be under the impression there is a niche for a "fact check" column heavily imbued with your personality. I assure you, you are mistaken. If you are going to do this, either take it seriously or change the title.

Wow, fact checker. You sure do have some crazies in your audience. Don't worry. They are only a few of your hundreds of readers and if they weren't whinning about this they'd be whining about something else. Look at all the other blogs on Washpost and elsewhere. The whiners are out in full.
I enjoy what you're writing. I like it that you lighten it up sometimes, and pay attention to the serious stuff as well. This is the best thing the Post has.

Having given it some thought, a suggestion for a more appropriate title:
"What Michael Dobbs Thinks About Stuff"

I dunno, maybe call it - Facts Lite?

Poll Answer:
b) The Fact Chucker

At this point Fact Checker even refuses to pretend that he is HEAVILY biased against Democratic candidates.

Republicans are softballed and Democrats are put on the rack. Really, Giuliani and Huckabee make unverifiable statements that don't stand up to even the slightest scrutiny, yet YOU give them three pinocchios. Our democratic friend on the other hand, runs a 60 second play and he is immediately condemned to four pinocchios. You did not even so much as mention what these 'barbers' were even discussing. Unless that doesn't matter; all we really care about is making Democrats LOOK like liars.

Let's even go so far as to compare apples to apples. During the 06 congressional campaign, the race in Tennessee featured and ad showing a "supposedly" naked woman endorsing Harold Ford, Jr., along with others who believed that Canada was a sufficient buffer that stood between us and North Korea.

Did you bother to look into whether North Korea was even a real threat, or whether the Canadians were that inattentive?

Better yet, did you look into whether the woman was truly naked?

You sir, have the objectivity of the Spanish Inquisistion, and must be summarily banished to the appropriate century.

i love this column; i especially love the readers who read everything into anything to make something out of nothing... Dick Cheney would be the worst closet partner, in so many ways, but any presidential candidate would be a too-close Halloween closet encounter.

According to Sergei Khrushchev, the Soviet Union spent their maximum on the military at all times, regardless of what the US did. Even though RR is given credit, they did not increase their spending to match the US--what we did was irrelevant to their commitment. They were crushed by their own choices and inefficiencies. RR happened to be in office at the time. Gorbachev did say that his overtures to the west forced RR become open to detente which led to Reykjavik. RR was sharper than many give him credit, but he was luckier than some admit.

Wow some people take themselves way too seriously. My poll answer: I'd be most afraid to find one of the humorless wackos posting to this thread in my closet.

I thought this was supposed to be fact checking. Looks more like an extension of Novak's talking points. Facts please , or move to op-ed.

Wow. You really are reaching to appear non-parisan with the Dodd ad post. At worst, it deserves one pinocchio --- but when "real people" are as scripted as actors in the ads of virtually every candidate (and, when the scene was so obviously scripted in the first place) the question of whether these were scripted "actors" or scripted "real people" becomes moot.

You have an obvious problem -- the GOP has to exaggerate and lie, while the Dems can tell the truth. This means that you wind up criticizing GOP candidates far more than Democrats -- opening you up for accusations of bias. But balance for the sake of balance -- to avoid false accusations of bias -- is crap journalism, period.

BTW, check out the latest Romney ad... the one in which he says "In business, you only spend what you have. In Washington Government always spend more..." This contains two lies -- businesses often take out loans, just like the Government (i.e. businesses 'spend more'), and the Federal government doesn't always 'spend more' -- Clinton had surpluses, and one needn't go back that far in history to find other examples of Federal budget surpluses.

I don't even like Dodd - but what sort of idiot even imagined these were his real barbers! Only the fact-checker.

Misleading Formatting of This Page: this post ought to more clearly differentiate the Pinocchios at the end of an entry and the heading of the next entry. Currently, the Pinocchios are often followed directly by a candidate's name, yet the Pinocchios aren't intended to apply to that candidate. Right?

I disagree with everyone who thinks the idea of Al Gore in a closet is somehow lame. I think it is noble, insightful, profound and entertaining, all wrapped up in a ball of love. How lucky we are to have you as our Fact Checker. What a wonderful world we live in!

Tell me: Who fact-checks the "Fact-Checker?"

I simply ask because it "seems" to me that the past 7 years under BushCo - an administration which "appears" to be awash in secrecy, corporatist elitism , fear-mongering and deceit - have been characterized by an unparalleled aversion to so-called "facts."

In "fact", amidst what appears to be an effort to establish one-party-totalitarian rule in America ----and global corporatization abroad thru military occupation ----- why in the world should we trust ANYONE IN THE MEDIA? After all, hasn't the so-called Forth Estate has been complicit in the Group Polarization strategies obviously used on Americans to brainwash them into supporting the Iraq debacle? (Go ahead and prove to me that neoconservative ideological media outlets do not dominate the airwaves)

Ergo, as far as facts go ----- I'll just keep using news aggregates, my own NSA and FBI "insiders" and common sense.

Please, Go "Fact" yourselves.

(Incidentally, I really like your sensorial posting guidelines: Have you thought about having some appropriate music playing softly in the background?

Perhaps something like "Deutschland uber alles?")

Michael, you should examine this claim by Giuliani (found in an article from the Post, Oct 28):

"In the radio spot, Giuliani mentions his battle with prostate cancer and notes that his chances of surviving the disease in America were 82 percent, while in England his chances would have been 44 percent."

Where does he get these numbers?

Wow, what a bunch of thin-skinned reactionaries. This column is clearly intended to provide just as much amusement as serious investigative reporting. Case in point- the "grade" of a candidates factual accuracy is respresented by cartoon character heads. And you pop on here expecting Cronkite to denounce the Vietnam War. Grow up.

If Huckabee only gets three Pinnochios for that one, I am baffled as to what could possibly be said to garner four.

Studying religion at an 18th Century college would be the practical equivalent of taking a core curriculum mathematics course.

Huckabee's assertion has to be four pinnochio's worth, deliberately distorting a clear truth to appeal to his base

Those responders who tell us to "lighten up" re. including Al Gore as a monster in the closet miss the point; Had a Republican of any stripe been a choice the bias of the question would not be nearly so blatant. And it is that bias that many are objecting to. Unbalanced ridicule is propaganda, clear and simple. Engaging in it is irresponsible for a newspaper of WP's power; dismissing it as "just fun" is to ignore the lessons taught by Dr. Goebbels.

I'm not sure how I would go about finding radical right religious Republicans who have won the Nobel Peace award, an Oscar, or written an award winning book. If such a right winger exist perhaps Fact Checker could point out that person to me. Regards, Carl W. Lundquist, JD, Colonel, Army of the United States (Retired) ...... Boston

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