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By the way, that senator was Al Gore!

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The Disproof

These are images of the transcript of North’s actual testimony, taken from the official website of the U.S. Senate, at www.senate.gov/reference/resources/pdf/ollie.pdf:

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Look instead for sources with authority. The U.S. Senate’s historian is, obviously, an excellent source with respect to the Ollie North affair. When the Senate website posts pages from the official transcript of those hearings, you can be close to 100 percent certain that what you’re reading is what North really said. North’s own website is another good source, because the information is coming from North himself, and also because he is about the last person we’d expect to lie to protect a Democrat.

Government websites have as much authority and credibility as the agencies that stand behind them. To get the latest official estimate of the U.S. population, you can now go directly to the website of the Census Bureau, where you will also find official measures of poverty, income, the number of persons with and without health insurance, and much more. The figures we cited for causes of death among women came directly from the website of the National Center for Health Statistics, where the federal government posts its official tally of death records from all fifty states. And our figures showing the tiny percentage of affluent Americans who actually pay estate tax came from the website of the Internal Revenue Service, which publishes data taken directly from the tens of millions of tax forms it processes each year. At the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s website, you can find authoritative information on what scientists know about the solar system and the universe, including the latest on the expected recovery of the earth’s protective ozone layer.

Look for a “dot-gov” extension on the website’s address. For example, www.socialsecurity.gov is the home page of the U.S. Social Security Administration, where you can find the latest statistics on the system’s financial troubles, provided by its board of trustees. There you will see that, unless Washington acts, benefits will have to be cut, or taxes increased, in 2040. You can also run down the most popular names for babies. In applications for Social Security cards, parents in 2005 chose Emily for girls and Jacob for boys more often than any other names. The dot-gov extension also can be used by state governments. For example, at www.ohio.gov you can see who’s governor or read the state constitution or laws, and at the Ohio State Highway Patrol’s site you can even get a satellite map of all the fatal car, truck, and motorcycle crashes in the state in 2005. That last may or may not be particularly useful, but since it comes from the Ohio State Highway Patrol, you can be reasonably sure it’s correct.

We would never suggest that everything you find on a dot-gov website should be believed, of course. Apply thought and common sense, as you would anywhere else.

At www.whitehouse.gov, for example, you will find the words that President Bush has spoken at his public appearances, officially transcribed and in full context. You can be reasonably confident that those are Bush’s exact words; the incidents where reporters’ tapes differ from the official transcript are rare. But it’s still up to you to decide whether you believe what Bush said. And also be careful when using House and Senate websites. For example, www.dems.gov takes you to the website of the House Democratic Caucus, made up of all the Democrats in the House, just as www.gop.gov takes you to the House Republican Conference. These partisan websites will tell you much about the current party line, but can’t be expected to give a balanced account of the facts.

Most official House and Senate committee websites have been even worse, seeming to speak for the full committee but in fact posting only talking points for the party in the majority and omitting mention of the minority party’s views. In 2006, www.waysandmeans.gov