factcheck.org has been an awesome resource. They have meticulous picked apart both right wing and left wing misleading statements and ads. And frankly they have been a refreshing sort of reality check on my own recent run away partisanship.

However I started to get annoyed with them during the 2004 presidential election. It seemed to me that they would find a HUGE lie in an ad by the bushies and then to show they weren’t bias they would spotlight a slight exaggeration by the Kerry side [the mainstream media's standard MO]. I thought, at the time, I was too engaged in the pro-Kerry effort to see things clearly.

Well the last 2 notices from factcheck.org have just been too ridiculous or detached from reality for me to endure. They are either intentionally going after the progressives to silence right wing critics are they are no longer the bastions of objectivism they once were or prehaps some third thing which is far less interesting.

Atrios is right, this is such a bogess thing to “fact check” they’ve got to be kidding.

Most recent factcheck.org Notice:

"A Fictional View of the Filibuster

Liberal group’s ad features movie hero Jimmy Stewart. But historic reality was often ugly.

Summary

A $5-million TV ad campaign by People for the American Way portrays the Senate filibuster as a noble tool of American democracy. The ad uses footage from Frank Capra's classic 1939 movie "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" - a famous scene in which the hero, played by James Stewart, engages in a 23-hour filibuster to prevent his expulsion from the US Senate on trumped-up corruption charges.

Real-life filibusters are another matter, however. They can be used for good or evil. In fact, segregationist Southern senators used filibusters to preserve the poll tax and block civil rights and anti-lynching legislation for generations. Among the real-life practitioners were the late
Senators Strom Thurmond of South Carolina and Theodore Bilbo of Mississippi."

Click here for the full article:

So let me get this straight, it’s misleading to say that the filibuster, a traditional tool of the minority voice in congress, is a noble tool of America democracy because it has been used in the past by racist senators. So I assume that we can no longer refer to the office of presidency as a "noble office of a democratic government" because it has been occupied by bush.. not to mention Reagan, Nixon, Bush sr, etc.

This is Factcheck.orgs Previous Notice about AARP's anti-privitization ads:

“The group's latest TV ad passes off Social Security's problems as minor; claims Bush's solution would demolish the program.

Summary

AARP's latest TV ad shows a suburban home being flattened to repair a clogged kitchen sink, and claims that the creation of individual accounts would "dismantle Social Security" and "lead to huge benefit cuts."

The ad is intended to be humorous but presents a distorted picture. It both understates Social Security's financial problems and misrepresents the effect that individual accounts would have.

Social Security's problems are more serious than a stopped-up drain. And the system isn't about to sink like the Titanic, either, as an earlier ad by Bush supporters says. Social Security is more like a home being eaten slowly by termites."


Click here for the full article:

NO the ad doesn’t underestimate the problems of social security. IF we do nothing in 2052 seniors will get 80% of promised benefits. THAT’S IF WE DO NOTHING!!!

And I don’t think it underestimates personal accounts either. But I guess a card board box and canned cat food is objectively better than a demolished house. I mean, the ad didn’t say whether or not you owned the land the house was on.

The credibility of factcheck.org is “more like a home being eaten slowly by termites.”