If you want to be a trusted Urban Legends reference site, one of the things you should probably do is be more interested in the truth than partisan politics. Look partisan and people will eventually figure out you're just another paid advertiser. That's true whether the compensation is monetary or ideological.

But apparently Snopes.com is not interested in being credible. I've noticed they were extremely quick to "debunk" any popular "urban legends" which which made leftist politicians look bad, but appear uninterested in doing the same regarding the most popular slams against conservatives.

For example, at the time of Paul Wellstone's death, I noticed they had concluded, oh, so conclusively, that all the rumors of wrong doing around Clinton -- the Vince Foster affair, the "Clinton Dead" list, Whitewater, etc -- were all certainly false urban legends.

Yet an extremely popular rumor was circulating at that time that Paul Wellstone was assasinated by George Bush. The death of Missouri Governor Mel Carnahan was also blamed on Bush, mustered to give the impression of a virtual reign of terror. Yet I found no coverage on Snopes.

The evidence for these charges was much slimmer than that for the Foster affair or Whitewater -- for example, Carnahan was actually losing the election badly when he died -- his death ironically earned him a 15-20 point sympathy spike which allowed his widow to win, using the memory of her dead husband. Why would the eeevil George Bush assassinate an unpopular midwestern governor who was badly losing an election at the time?

Regarding the Foster affair, one of the Clinton's own Secret Service agents testified he saw Hillary ransacking Foster's office the night he died, and numerous Park Service officers have testified to strange things surrounding the discovery of Foster's body. Perhaps all that doesn't constitute conclusive or even substantial proof, but, if so, I found the evidence for the Wellstone and Carnahan "murders" far slimmer.

Snopes wouldn't take it on, even though I wrote to them to suggest it. I didn't even receive the courtesy of a reply.

This year we discover, without any doubt whatsoever, that there was absolutely NOTHING fishy about John Kerry receiving three purple heart medals in under four months without having even one sick day. Happens all the time apparently. (Perhaps they were handing out those medals as toy prizes in the MREs?) Interestingly enough, it's worth noting they only cite liberal authors. Again, no bias here, nothing to see, move along.

And, perhaps more amazingly, the debate at Snopes has been closed since February 2004, even while it rages in the media today, with Kerry's apologists losing ground and conceding points, and the accounts of all three of the liberal authors they rely upon being called into question for veracity and clear conflicts of interest. Clearly, Snopes either don't have time to update the status of this legend -- thought it is currently the hotest debate running -- or they exist in some alternate reality where the matter is still firmly resolved in Kerry's favor.

Maybe I'm being too hard. Perhaps they're just inclined to give any politician the benefit of the doubt? Well, then, my friends, check into the corresponding Bush-went-AWOL legend and you'll find it's ...

Inconclusive!

The only way Snopes addresses it, at all, is as a small part of the "George Bush Resume" e-mail. Unlike the "Clinton Dead" legends, which they dissect with gusto at their site (false!, false!, false!), the Snope's folks appear almost completely unwilling to take this one on, and are dragged, apparently, kicking and screaming to even acknowledging this might be a legend, not a fact:

The George W. Bush "résumé," one of the most forwarded items of 2003, is a mixed bag of entries of varying degrees of truthfulness, many of them quite complex and/or subjective in nature. We haven't had the time to properly delve into the multiplicity of claims contained in it yet.

However, because so many of our readers have asked us about this e-mail, we list here a couple of links to other sources

To the Snopes folks: You readily admit this was one of the "most forwarded items of 2003", and yet you actually had to be asked to take this one on? And the best you could do in response to an apparent deluge of requests was to put up a lousy two-paragraph "Don't look at me" response? And a year and a half later, as it still circulates, you still haven't had time to look into it?

Sorry, but I find that excuse incredible. If an urban lengend site can't take the time to look into one of top urban legends of the year, it's reasonable to ask: What good is it? Why should people to take you seriously as a unbiased discreditor of urban lengends?

Oh, come on Barbara and David, what's so hard about saying this isn't really Bush's resume? You go into great detail disproving the rumor that Al Gore got special treatment regarding his Vietnam-era service (again, citing only Gore-sympathetic sources), but you won't address the same rumors when they swirl about Bush?

Claim: Snopes.com is a useful and credible source for resolving urban legends about politicians.

Status: False.

Further Reading

• Fact-Checking Snopes' ... - VodkaPundit