Barack Obama is no longer the “presumptive Democratic candidate for president.”

It’s more official than that, now that delegates to the Democratic National Conven-tion in Denver this week have acted to name Obama the nominee.
Next week in St. Paul, Republicans will do the same for John McCain.

The race is clearly on its home stretch — and in the weeks ahead the barrage of ads and other information about the candidates will be running hot and heavy.

So, we urge you to do this: Pay very close attention to what candidates are saying — both about their views and about their opponent’s views and character.

But take the allegations with a grain of salt. The more lurid and shocking the charges are, the more your natural skepticism should kick in.

That skepticism should be in high gear when it comes to the Internet. While there is lots of good and valid information on the Internet, it also can be the misinformation highway — and also can pass along outright lies.

Again, the more breathless and scandalous the message, the more your skepticism antenna should be raised.

There are two good Internet sites for checking information. One is the Urban Legends site (Snopes.com), on which you can check out all sorts of rumors, including political information.

Our favorite political fact-checking site is run by the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania. It can be found at (appropriately enough) FactCheck.org.

If you look at it today, you’ll see many detailed accounts of various ads, with many details that will help you make up your own mind rather than relying on 30-second spots that often are deliberately misleading and sometimes are untrue.

One article on the site, about e-mail political claims, said, “If there was ever a case where readers should apply a guilty-until-proven-innocent standard, this is it. We at FactCheck.org ask the public to be skeptical about politicians’ claims. With these e-mails, outright cynicism is justified. Assume all such messages are wrong, and you’ll be right most of the time.”

But you won’t have to guess. Either FactCheck.org or Snopes.com will fill in many details on those frightening and maddening e-mail claims.

Pay attention to the political debate, but don’t let anyone bamboozle you.

Advertisement