Friday, July 3, 2009

Checking Facts


A Roanoke, Va. TV station refused to run an attack ad directed at Democratic Rep. Tom Perriello. The ad blasts Perriello's vote in favor of the climate change bill.
The National Republican Congressional Committee claims energy costs could go up nearly $1,800 a year per household. This number came from an estimate from the conservative Heritage Foundation. It had been proven to be false but the statistics were used anyway. The Congressional Budget Office puts the increase at closer to $175 per annum by 2020. Kinda reminds me of Bush's yellowcake speach.
Southern Regional Press Secretary, Jessica Santillo states "The NRCC has a track record of running ads so deceptive and misleading that local TV stations refuse to air them or have to remove from the airwaves,” “Clearly, Washington Republicans realize that the truth is not on their side so they resort to deceptive and false attack ads. Virginians deserve to hear the facts about how this bill will reduce our dependence on foreign oil, not be subject to scare tactics.”
Are we entering a new era of fact checking? I'm encouraged by the fact that more and more of these lies are being exposed.We are fed false facts from both sides and the public generally doesn’t go to the trouble to check them out. It seems like more and more political statements have been followed by a fact check afterwards. Maybe the truth will pevail in spite of our apathy.
The internet has the ability to feed us even more lies because a lot of opinions aren't well researched. The truth is in there too. We need to sift through it all. We have to be willing to look a little deeper even when the facts don’t say what we want them to. I am constantly humbled by my ignorance but I really don’t think it’s impossible to discern the truth.

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