Fact-Checking Only the Left Cheek

Instapundit more-or-less recognized the work performed by Spinsanity, Salon, TAPPED, and The New Republic in pointing out that Bush's frequently-repeated comments that, during the 2000 campaign, he acknowledged his budget plan might not produce billions in surplus but instead might cause deficits in the event of a recession, war, or national emergency--and he got all three (the "trifecta"). (What a laugh riot, that guy!) Well, nobody can find any evidence of Bush saying that during the campaign, no matter how hard they've tried. Bush is simply saying something that isn't true, but to Mr. Reynolds, it apparently doesn't matter much:

I think the "trifecta" thing has had so little resonance with me because (as I've mentioned before) I sure thought I remembered Bush saying that. Apparently I'm wrong, though.

So that's what "the power of the blogosphere" means. "I sure thought I remembered Bush saying that," but nobody ever bothered to check, and now that someone else has checked, "[a]pparently I'm wrong." That's it. "We'll fact-check your ass--provided it's to the left of ours."

Imagine if Al Gore was going around the country saying something both demonstrably untrue and substantively important.