Gimme Some Truth Redux

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Nearly 1½ years ago, I wrote on this blog about the need for truth from the next occupant of the Oval Office.

At the time, of course, no one knew who that would be. It was all but certain that John McCain would be the next Republican presidential nominee, and Barack Obama had been reeling off an impressive string of primary victories but neither he nor Hillary Clinton had emerged as the favorite for the Democratic nomination.

Today is the six–month mark of Obama's presidency. Over at Facebook, a group that is glad George W. Bush isn't president anymore was urging people a few months ago to throw parties on this date celebrating the fact that he has been out of office for six months.

PolitiFact.com is doing something a little more constructive. Unlike some of Obama's defenders, PolitiFact.com refuses to treat the president — or anyone, really — with kid gloves.

PolitiFact.com has been taking up Obama on his request for people to "hold me accountable." It reminds me of a couple of decades ago when Gary Hart, then the front–runner for the Democratic presidential nomination, challenged the reporters who were covering his campaign to follow him in an effort to verify the rumors of his womanizing.

"They'll be very bored," he promised. They weren't. Within a few days, Hart's relationship with Donna Rice was revealed and his support evaporated.

In fact, Hart made it ridiculously easy for the reporters who followed him. Today, the assignment is much bigger, and it is more complicated. PolitiFact.com claims to be keeping track of more than 500 promises Obama made during his campaign for the White House.

Most of those promises, PolitiFact.com says, haven't been acted on. But, of the ones that have been addressed to any extent since Obama was sworn in, PolitiFact.com says that

• 32 have been kept,
• 10 have been compromised,
• 7 have been broken,
• 12 are stalled,
• and 78 are "in the works."

It isn't usually my habit to recommend websites to my readers. I often quote articles and provide links to those articles, but I do not tend to endorse the sites where they are posted — even if they are sites I visit regularly. That's a decision I leave to others to make for themselves. But, in this case, I do recommend PolitiFact.com to my readers. In today's economy, with millions of people unemployed, millions more being forced from their homes and hundreds of billions of dollars being added to the national debt, it is more important than ever to hold elected officials accountable. PolitiFact.com is performing a vital public service.