The Truth-o-Meter Exists

As I was sitting on the bus taking the delegate bus to Invesco Field at Mile High on Thursday afternoon, I was stuffing down a sandwich, listening to the conversation and thinking ahead to the Republican convention. I was thinking about how tremendous and inspiring the Democratic convention had been so far, and realizing that my reaction to the negative rhetoric and mischaracterizations and misrepresentations that will be coming out of the Republican convention would end up leaving me with a completely different feeling and most likely an unsettled reaction that would make me wish that I had a way to discern the difference between what’s true and what is a lie.

And then it suddenly hit me! There should be a little bubble in the right-hand corner of the screen, a kind of truth or lie register that would turn red for a lie, perhaps orange for a half truth and maybe green for the truth and even a place to go online to check out why it was not true or what the real story was. It got some good reaction on the bus and in the huge line waiting to get into the stadium, but the logistics and infrastructure that is necessary to create such a service seemed just too difficult too throw together in such a short time, since I would have loved it to be available for this upcoming Republican convention.

And then I came across something that is almost exactly that. It only proves to me once again that almost all good ideas have already been thought of, and this is no exception. It is called PolitiFact.com sponsored by the St. PetersburgTimes of Florida, and it is exactly what I envisioned. A website with a truth-o-meter to verify whether the statements and assertions of each candidate is the truth, a half-truth, a partial truth or a bald-faced lie. I am absolutely thrilled that this service is available to all of us, and we should all take advantage of it and support all of this newspaper’s hard work.

So go to www.politifact.com and check it out. And the great and equitable thing is that both sides, Democrats and Republicans alike, get the same treatment. But just between you and me, I think that the Republicans will get just a little more partial truths and outright lies and the Democrats will come out clean as a whistle more often, which makes me feel very good.