http://blog.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker/ en-us Copyright 2007 Wed, 19 Dec 2007 06:00:00 -0500 http://www.movabletype.org/?v=3.2 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Obama in an Indonesian 'madrassa'. "I've watched the blogs try to say that you can't trust [Obama] because he spent a little bit of time in a secular madrassa. I feel quite the opposite." --Hillary Clinton supporter Bob Kerrey, CNN 'Situation Room', December 17, 2007. "Don't Mormons believe that Jesus and the devil are brothers?" --Mike Huckabee, New York Times magazine article, December 16, 2007. Sorting out truth from falsehood is the basic mission of the Fact Checker. But politics is a complicated game, and often times politicians make statements that cannot be pigeonholed so neatly. The above quotes are examples of statements that are both "true" and "false" at the same time. "True" in the sense that they are technically accurate. "False" in the sense that they create a misleading impression that can be as powerful as an outright lie. Let's analyze each of those two statements. http://blog.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker/2007/12/true_but_false_1.html http://blog.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker/2007/12/true_but_false_1.html Candidate Watch Wed, 19 Dec 2007 06:00:00 -0500