In a presidential campaign, the truth is the first victim

[Popmartijn]

Hello,

As the debate here is already heating up about Kerry and Bush I regularly pay a visit to the FactCheck website (http://www.factcheck.org) to check up on the ads of both sides. I already noticed it earlier this week, but now the Boston Globe confirms my feeling, there's apparently not much truth in the campaigns of both candidates.
I already feel sorry for all of you who have to live through this for the coming 6 months...

Here's the article from the Boston Globe:
http://www.boston.com/news/politics.../29/in_bush_kerry_ads_truth_is_up_for_debate/

In Bush, Kerry ads, truth is up for debate

By Anne E. Kornblut, Globe Staff | April 29, 2004

WASHINGTON -- In a flurry of ads and public statements in recent weeks, the Bush campaign has painted an especially dark portrait of John F. Kerry that suggests he would ''raise taxes by $900 billion," permit off-shore drilling in Florida, impose a $657-per-family gas tax, and weaken US defenses in the fight against terrorism if he were president.

The Massachusetts senator and his Democratic allies, meanwhile, have accused Bush of hiding the true costs of continuing the war in Iraq, of policies that cost the US millions of jobs in the past four years, and of recklessly endangering Social Security.

Each charge, for both sides, is derived from a grain of truth.

[...]

Even the percentage of negative ads is in dispute. According to Bill Benoit, a communications professor at the University of Missouri who examined ads from 1952 to today, said Bush produced more negative ads than Kerry in the first weeks of the general election -- and that 52 percent of his ads have been negative, compared with 32 percent for Kerry and the 39 percent historic average.

The Bush campaign has its own figures, saying 78 percent of Kerry's ad spending in the primary was negative toward Bush.

They can't even agree on how much they are lying...

C ya!

Marty

 

[verte76]

That's right on the money. I think this is why barely half the electorate even shows up to vote. Six more months of "my opponent's a crud".

 

[nbcrusader]

You want the truth? You can't handle the truth!

Politics

 

[sue4u2]

Cute nbc!! Now I hear this morning Kerry is going to attack Cheney and Bush on the issue of their military service. He's tired of taking all the flak about his military service and he's going to hit back. We all may be running for the border before Nov.

 

[Dreadsox]

Fact Check rocks....I started a thread about it a few months ago.....it really does seem to not lean one way or another.

 

[verte76]

I think Fact Check is fair too. I wish it got more publicity.

 

[STING2]

Fact Check rocks....I started a thread about it a few months ago.....it really does seem to not lean one way or another.

The more I read from it the more I tend to disagree that it does not lean one way or the other. It often accuses Republicans of "selective use of the facts" and forgetting "context", but I find them doing exactly the same thing.