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That taint all. You cannot trust the Florida Times Union, Carole Fader, and particularly factcheck.org:

Factcheck.org is a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center. http://www.factcheck.org/

The Annenberg Public Policy Center is funded by an endowment from the Annenberg Foundation. http://www.annenbergpublicpolicycenter.org/About.aspx (last paragraph)

The Chairman of the Board, President and CEO of the Annenberg Foundation is one Wallis Annenberg. http://www.annenbergfoundation.org/biographies/biographies_show.htm?doc_id=670087

Wallis Annenberg donated a big $25,000 to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in 2007. http://images.nictusa.com/cgi-bin/fecimg/?28990450013 I haven’t been able to find a similar contribution to any Republican organization from this Chairman, President and CEO of factcheck.org’s primary source of funding.

Factcheck.org denied any knowledge of this contribution when I emailed to inquire about it.

I also emailed Factcheck.org about their claim that the initial “public option” (Pelosi’s version) of Obama’s health care plan was NOT taxpayer-funded. They explained to me it would not be taxpayer-funded, that the government would only serve in an administrative capacity. I wrote back to ask them who would fund the subsidies contained in the plan, but I never heard back from them. (surprise!)

Carole Fader began her “factcheck” articles late last year. Every single article has been biased in the extreme. Case in point - her article on Pelosi’s use of military aircraft: A reader asks “Is it true that Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi insists on a “big fat, 200-seat jet” to take her and her family back and forth to California at an annual cost to taxpayers of $5,760.00?” Of course, the factual answer would be simply, “No, she did request a jet capable of a non-stop flight, but not a ‘big-fat, 200-seat jet.’ “ But instead, Fader jumped at the opportunity to headline her article with “”FACT: DENNIS HASTERT USED MILITARY AIRCRAFT MORE THAN NANCY PELOSI.” (Even though the supporting evidence referenced in the article itself proves the exact opposite to be true. http://www.judicialwatch.org/documents/2009/Pelosi_Hastert_numbers.pdf

When I emailed her about it, her response was “Unfortunately, the headline writer used it as a deck head. It clearly was not the point or the focus of the piece and should not have been used as such. I cringed myself when I saw that that was pulled out, making it appear that it was a main element of the story.” In other words - an anonymous “headline writer” was responsible. (Not me!) (CYA)

Prior to this, she printed 2 stories about Obamas genius in pulling out of the European missile deterrent program, designed to protect against Iranian nukes. These were on page 3. In the same edition, there was another article: “Iran has nuclear ability, U.N. says” which was buried on page 13. When emailed about it, she replied “I don’t know why the stories were separated, first of all. They should have been run together. And the U.N. report should have had a higher profile.” (Ya think?) Further, she claimed that the “placement happened at night after she went home.” (Not me!) (CYA) Another anonymous scapegoat.

What was even more disconcerting, her reply to me also included the statement: “In fact, Obama came out with a plan that is supposed to be a better guarantee of protection against missiles from Iran.” I found this comical, since my email mentioned nothing about the merits of the stories, just the placement of them. But she obviously felt a great need to defend Obama.

And then we have today’s “Fact-Check” with the headline, “Student name was Obama; he wasn’t on a Fulbright.” Not surprising at all. It’s an established pattern. I personally don’t believe she addresses any questions sent in by actual readers. She simply peruses factcheck.org’s website to find articles that defend her hero Obama, and prints them under the guise of “readers’ questions.”

I’ve given up emailing the Times Union on such “innocent” mistakes. But I do wonder when they’ll run out of anonymous scapegoats. LOL!