Dick Cheney's dot-com bust
It seems Dick Cheney could use a fact-checker himself.
During Tuesday night's vice presidential debate, the incumbent veep took issue with a number of charges by rival John Edwards, and repeatedly accused the Kerry-Edwards camp of getting its facts wrong. When the topic turned to Halliburton, the company that he once ran, Cheney said the truth could be found "if you go, for example, to factcheck.com, an independent Web site sponsored by the University of Pennsylvania."
The problem for the Republican side is that typing "factcheck.com" takes you to a site run by financier George Soros, an avowed foe of the current administration. Visitors to that site are greeted by a bold, oversize, all-caps title declaring "Why we must not re-elect President Bush."
The site Cheney apparently intended to direct voters to is FactCheck.org, which is administered by the Annenberg Public Policy Center at Penn. That site aims to debunk outrageous political claims by both sides. On Wednesday, Slate was quick to point out that even there, the vice president wouldn't find satisfaction, at least on the point about Halliburton.
Jonathan Skillings is managing editor of CNET News, based in the Boston bureau. He's been with CNET since 2000, after a decade in tech journalism at the IDG News Service, PC Week, and an AS/400 magazine. He's also been a soldier and a schoolteacher. E-mail Jon.
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