Parsing what's factual from the rest of the chatter

It's really really hard to get a handle on what is fact and what is a twisted version of the facts in the political landscape. And I get angry at the careless way assertions are made without a solid base which then calls into question the credibility of everything that person or party says. I'm a proponent of factcheck.org which works to sort out the facts from the dross. An example is the recent assertion I heard that Sarah Palin supported teaching creationism in Alaska's schools. In that creationism has no scientific basis I would be dead against a candidate who advocated teaching creationism in public schools. Factcheck notes that Palin didn't advocate making creationism part of the curriculum but danced around the edges advocating at one point that they ought to both be talked about and debated. While that's dangerous turf in my book, it's not up to the level of making creationism part of the curriculum. If we're not careful about what we claim, we risk being disregarded completely.