If Their Lips Move

Michael Dobbs of The Washington Post has written an article on sorting campaign truth and fiction. He calls it The Fact Checker and he wastes a lot of time and energy writing down some of the things the candidates say and his explanations on why they are not true. Hey, Mikey, we could have saved you some trouble. If a candidate's lips are moving, you can be fairly sure that what you are hearing is fiction. Like Grandpa was so fond of saying, "Don't believe everything you hear and only half of what you see. Unless it's a politician. Then believe nothing you hear from them."

With just four days until the Iowa caucuses, the art of embellishment and downright fibbing is alive and well in American politics. But the popularity of blogs, YouTube and information databases such as LexisNexis, along with the 24-hour news cycle, has made it easier than ever for the media and rival campaigns to spot the mistakes and exaggerations of presidential candidates.

"The rules of the game are changing," said Kathleen Hall Jamieson, a University of Pennsylvania professor and veteran observer of political campaigns. "A claim that something is inaccurate is being vetted more quickly and moving into the media more quickly."

On Friday, when former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee attempted to link the chaos in Pakistan after the assassination of Benazir Bhutto with the issue of illegal immigration, skeptical reporters immediately questioned the claim. The Huckabee campaign was unable to provide convincing backup for his assertion that "we have more Pakistani illegals coming across our border than all other nationalities except those immediately south of the border," a statement at odds with U.S. Border Patrol data.