Politifact.com
By Wink
Opinions are like aardvarks, everybody should have one, but they are mostly useless.
Winkest Link is and always will be fact-based. Disagree with us if you wish (in fact, we encourage this), but please try to stick to facts.
“Obama is a commie who is trying to ruin the country” is fact-free sentiment, and therefore idiotic. Functionally, it serves the exact same purpose as saying “Bush was a fascist dictator.”
All heat, no light.
Well, to rescue comes PolitiFact.com.
This is a website dedicated to skewering those (on the left and on the right) who tend to exaggerate or just plain make stuff up. (Winkest Link hates liars. We hate them.)
It rates statements on a scale of true, mostly true, half true, barely true, false and (our favorite) ‘Pants-on-Fire.’
“Pants-on-Fire” is reserved for statements that are intentionally and outrageously misleading. They don’t just fling out the “Pants-on-Fire” rating willy-nilly. You need to REALLY earn it.
“Pants-on-Fire” ratings have ‘awarded’ to statements by Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Bill & Hillary Clinton and to Planned Parenthood. Our brief review shows this rating was deserved in each case.
But far and away the most “Pants-on-Fire” ratings have been awarded to an unending onslaught of borderline-insane statements by conservatives. Losing political power has really ratcheted up the frequency and intensity of ‘sky-is-falling’ statements.
A recent example: In response to the announcement that the president will address school children on self-reliance and the importance of education, Florida Republican Party Chairman Jim Greer issued a statement saying….
“President Obama has turned to American’s children to spread his liberal lies, indoctrinating American’s youngest children before they have a chance to decide for themselves, schoolchildren across our nation will be forced to watch the president justify his plans for government-run health care, banks, and automobile companies,” etc, etc…
(Reminder, the speech will be about self-reliance and the importance of education, not government takeover of auto companies. Ugh.)
This is not simple hyperbole on Greer’s part. He is not just ‘stretching the truth’. It is all made-up and it is intentionally inflammatory, so it easily fell into the “Pants-on-Fire” category.
Do yourself a favor and check out PolitiFact.com once in a while.
Other Winkest Link web favorites…
FactCheck.org – More political facts checked
Snopes.com – Again, to debunk rumors, although more oriented toward urban legends
Awkwardfamilyphotos.com – Funny family photos and stories, NOT photoshopped
Rottentomatoes.com – Great for movie ratings & reviews
TheOnion.com – All the gnus that’s print to fit. A ‘must’….
1atwinkler1@cox.net
wrote on 21 September 2009 at 20:54
So obama claims he was not to aware of the latest acorn scandel….of course not..he is in bed with acorn..and now funding will be cut off to this crooked group of thugs..he has decided to look the other way…and palosi his behind him..birds of a feather…..and obama will have to sign off on cutting funding…..7 former heads of the cia have voiced their concern to obama ..so as not to cripple Americas ability to stop possible acts against the US……obamas health care plan would involve fines for people who cannot pay…whats next jail…sieze their property…so a person works most of his life to pay his mortgage..send the kids of to school…has just enough to survive…and obamas plan would take what he has left..because he lives on a shoestring budget..obama we already have a national health care plan..its called wellfare…the poor and minority neighborhoods have been having lots of children for decades ….and most have no health insurance for these countless birth outside a family enviroment …the tax payers have been footing the bills for these kids with non exisitent dads…which is also the root of the high rate of crime in poorer parts of town where unwed births are out of control,,,and these kids have only gangs as role models…so which way do you want it obama..we have been footing health care by the billions for decades…this wont fix anything except robbing the middle and lower middle class,,with your plan …the only people that wont have to worry are the rich and the poor…all the rest in the middle will pay through the nose….click your heals all together now..does anyone on the left even get it…not at all….not at all..it is all a fog…oh yes now its time to play the race card..well that does not fly…why..only 10% of the poplulation is black..and what percent of that are voters..so it was the white vote that got him in office…..so much for the race card…its not his race its his socialist..stick it to the people with money agenda,…