Yeah, Cheney didn't do himself any favors by trying to direct people to factcheck.org either.
Quote:
.....The address Cheney meant to cite, http://www.factcheck.org, is a website run by the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania. So many people took his suggestion to visit FactCheck that the site repeatedly crashed on Wednesday.
The website displays two articles that rebut certain Democratic claims about the Bush administration's connections to Halliburton. Cheney's ties to the company have become an issue in the campaign as critics question the firm's role as a government contractor — and a no-bid deal it was given for war-related work in Iraq.
But the FactCheck website is also replete with articles that shoot holes through many of the strongest claims Republicans have made this year against Democratic presidential nominee John F. Kerry.
"Bush mischaracterizes Kerry's health plan," says one recent article. "Bush ad twists Kerry's words on Iraq," says another.
Hours after the debate, FactCheck posted an analysis faulting Cheney and Edwards for various inaccurate or misleading statements.
The analysis, written by veteran Washington journalist Brooks Jackson and overseen by Annenberg director Kathleen Hall Jamieson, faulted Cheney in particular for implying that FactCheck had defended his tenure as Halliburton CEO. Instead, FactCheck's earlier articles had focused on Halliburton-related matters during the Bush presidency.
FactCheck is funded, Jamieson said, by an Annenberg Foundation endowment. Launched last year, the website has posted more than 100 articles on campaign-related charges and claims. Many journalists have cited FactCheck's work.
Frequently, FactCheck has accused Democrats and Kerry of overstatements, distortions or puffery. But a large number of its articles have skewered claims made by the Bush campaign, for instance, about Kerry's record on taxes, defense and Iraq.
