Getting the Facts Right in the Vice Presidential Debate

Cheney intended .org - says .com - hilarity ensues

[PatrickDeese]

Apparently during the Vice Presidential candidate debates Dick Cheney cited the Annenberg Foundation site as a place to go to dispute something stated by John Edwards.

Unfortunately he said FactCheck.com, when, in fact the site in question is FactCheck.org.

Well apparently the owner of the .com site is not a Republican, and is sending all traffic to millionaire George Soros' website, who is a political activist that is a well known liberal.

The George Soros site has even gone as far place a disclaimer, as it was being reported in the media that his foundation had purchased the .com version.

Now do you see why it's important to buy the .com version of a site, even if you intend on using the .net or .org?

[jcoronella]

A slip of the tongue by the vice president during Tuesday night's debate with Sen. John Edwards led Web surfers to a site run by George Soros, a billionaire who makes no secret of his opposition to the Bush administration.

... Cheney cited FactCheck.com, a for-profit advertising site based in the Cayman Islands.

The company decided to redirect traffic to the Soros site after it became inundated with hits

[cnn.com...]

DOH!

[vkaryl]

*snicker* Welcome to the new world of the 'net, boys....

[digitalghost]

Man, that 'ole Internet is a confusing place...

'scuse me while I puke after realising that NONE of the political candidates has a clue.

[vkaryl]

Um, digi-ghost, is that a surprise? Surely not.... I HATE election years, and this one's no different than any of the rest have been....

[Aside: I'm a constitutional monarchist. A monarchy provides the same sort of figurehead, without having to bother with the election crap every 4 years (because you always know what sort of "leader" you're going to have to deal with next - assuming heesh doesn't have some sort of "peccadillo" in an elevator....)

So you elect your actual representation (in the case of the US that would be senators and representatives), and "king" Harward or "queen" Annielisabet or whoever sits there in silk and fur and crown and simpers and smiles and waves, and we all get on with real life....

Oh well. So much for utopia.]

[chicagohh]

IMO - It would not have mattered if he would have said the correct site or not. Just like the VP, most people think 'COM' not 'ORG'.

[tedster]

Even some very conservative commentators were mentioning this on the air today. Lots of free publicity for the wrong domain and for Soros.

Clearly mainstream politicans are not -- yet -- very clued in to the web. It reminds me of another US president who was astounded by barcode scanners in the supermarket a decade after they were part of most people's lives.

[Leosghost]

Even us foreigners know that he should have asked Al Gore what it was called ..;)
chicagohh's point is very valid tho .

[Macro]

Even us foreigners know that he should have asked Al Gore

Is that because he invented the internet... or because he can spell? ;)

[beren]

I remember back in 1997, when people were newer to the internet. NASA had landed a vehicle on Mars and it was big news and was taking photographs. The news stories said you could see the pictures on NASA's website.

Of course, NASA's website was nasa.gov, but people were so used to putting in .com that many went to nasa.com. Which someone had purchased and put porn on.