The joke always goes like this:  how can you tell when a politician is lying?  His lips move.

Exaggeration, nuance and outright lies go hand in hand with politics.

So there is a thriving market to take the stump speeches and campaign promises and debunk them for obvious mistakes or even outright bullshit.

One of the main sites is factcheck.org, and they love to take the debates apart.  I personally think they are a bit left leaning as they give some democrats a walk on some whoppers, but that is mostly my own bias I think.

So in the debate yesterday, Fact Check took apart Fred and gave him a detailed and comprehensive thumbs up for his factual statements.

And that is frankly a first.  It seems like they were dying to catch him, seeing as it was his first foray into the debate scene.  Well he stumped them by sticking to the truth.

Fred’s Facts Check Out; Rudy’s Don’t

Analysis

The Oct. 9 debate in Detroit was the first in which former Sen. Fred Thompson appeared with the full array of Republican rivals. That led Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney to quip that the long string of GOP debates had become like the NBC television program “Law & Order”: “It has a huge cast, the series seems to go on forever, and Fred Thompson shows up at the end.”

But Thompson made it through his first debate without making any false or misleading factual claims that we could detect, while former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani committed multiple factual gaffes, adding to a growing list of misstatements. 

I am ignoring the Giuliani errors, this is about Fred.

Thompson: Just the Facts

Thompson stuck to the facts in his rookie outing. A number of his statements attracted our interest, but they all checked out.

Those who read here often know I like Ann Coulter.  She is frank and harsh but more often then not, right on the mark when she goes after the liberals in America.

But not infallible, as this piece shows.  In this article she attacks people who dislike the front runners (Guliani and Romney) for not being conservative enough and are gravitating to Mike Huckabee and Fred Thompson.

I admit that neither of these two are flashy and they are certainly not neo cons, but they are often solid and sensible, and do reflect conservative values.  I think that she is missing that in her desire to promote a hardline conservative candidate. 

And in Thompson’s case, her dislike of him is centrally based on his vote in the Clinton impeachment, and in my opinion, she is cutting off her nose to spite her face.

Fred Sawyer and Huckabee Finn

Conservatives unhappy with our Republican presidential candidates seem to be drifting aimlessly toward Fred Thompson and Mike Huckabee in the misguided belief that these candidates are more conservative than Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney. This is like breaking up with Bobby Brown so you can date Phil Spector.

On illegal immigration, Huckabee makes George Bush sound like Tom Tancredo. He has compared illegal aliens to slaves brought here in chains from Africa, saying, “I think frankly the Lord is giving us a second chance to do better than we did before.”

…

Huckabee also joined with impeached president Bill Clinton in a campaign against childhood obesity. What, O.J. wasn’t available?

Question:  Was childhood obesity a valid issue or not?

Bill and Mike’s excellent adventure lasted about one week in May 2005 — or just long enough to burnish the image of the president who committed perjury and obstruction of justice in a civil rights suit against him, molested the help and was credibly accused of rape by Juanita Broaddrick.

Here comes her agenda.