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My fact-checking is falling apart.

Published by Allison September 20th, 2006 in Amuse Me, Annoy Me, Culture, Politics

I recently wrote a post, Our nation is falling apart. As commenter Stevo has pointed out, there’s very little factual truth in the email I received as a forward (what, am I supposed to be surprised, or something?) and grumbled about in this space.

I still agree with my assessment of (and agreement with) the first portion of the spammail, but that’s something I can’t defend with any academic precision. As for the second portion, I do vaguely recall thinking it odd that some quite conservative-leaning commentary would be coming from a professor in liberal St. Paul, NM. Turns out, it wasn’t:

DISCLAIMER: There is an e-mail floating around the internet dealing with the 2000 Bush/Gore election, remarks of a Scotish philosopher named Alexander Tyler, etc. Part of it is attributed to me. It is entirely BOGUS as to my authorship. I’ve been trying to kill it for 3 years. For details see: http://www.snopes.com/politics/quotes/tyler.asp.

The rest of the snopes article is worth a look, including their evaluation of the accuracy of the demographic data for the counties voting for Bush and for Gore.

For what it’s worth (and to my eternal embarassment), I voted for Bush in 2000. Of course, voting in El Paso County, Colorado, that meant…nothing. Bush would have won here (in both elections) regardless of my ballot. Anyway, I’m just one of the millions of dupes who thought that “compassionate conservatism” might actually mean something.

For more embarassment, I can’t believe I didn’t at least poke through Snopes before responding — this is the sort of mistake a newbie would make! I know better, people. Argh!

5 Responses to “My fact-checking is falling apart.”  

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  1. 1 Fred Sep 20th, 2006 at 3:36 pm

    Don’t sweat it Allison. I was one of those people who passed on to all of my friends and family the email about people stealing kidneys and leaving victims in bathtubs full of ice. Luckily, I didn’t have a blog at the time. But regarding your comment about voting in Colorado, there was an article by John Judis in The New Republic ($$) about several states turning Democratic in the near future, and Colorado was one of them. A summary of the article is posted at the Emerging Democratic Majority blog. While I seriously doubt that El Paso county will turn blue or even purple any time soon, there is even a mention in the article that the (Colorado Springs) House seat being vacated by Republican Joel Hefly might go to Democrats this fall. Anyway, for Presidential elections, it’s the state vote, not the county vote that matters, and it looks like Colorado may very soon be a Democratic state, for better or worse.

  2. 2 Allison Sep 20th, 2006 at 3:52 pm

    And THAT is why I made sure to vote in the 2004 elections. And cried in my beer afterward.

    At least if I’m moving, NM tends to be a swing(ish) state, too.

  3. 3 The Zero Boss Sep 20th, 2006 at 4:28 pm

    Don’t feel bad about voting for bush in 2000. I voted for him in 2004.

    In 2000, I opted for Ralph Nader instead.

    What can I say? I’m a playa.

  4. 4 dorsey Sep 22nd, 2006 at 5:52 am

    I voted for Bush both times, only because I didn’t see anything in the way of alternatives.

  5. 5 Mike Sep 22nd, 2006 at 12:13 pm

    I’m Canadian, which means politically I am:

    a. Entertained
    b. Regretful of everyone I have voted for.
    c. Paying a lot of taxes.

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