next, q&a with a fact checker columnist from washington post. then, at david cameron but the british house of commons. then another chance to see rick santorum at a town hall meeting in south carolina. >> this week on "q&a" glenn kessler discusses his current job as "the fact checker" columnist. >> you have a web site. i want to read you what one of the comments that came from the public at large and then to explain.

this average pinocchio list strikes me as absurd and meaningless. if anything exists to be manipulated by partisans, if not the grind, it acts as itself. the writer does not evaluate every statement. to do so is impossible. instead, it glenn kessler picks which statements to evaluate. we could go on. what is he talking about? >> we recently introduced to my column, the pinocchio tracker where i rate a different comments by politicians on the one-four scale. if you say something really outrageous that is inaccurate, you get four pinocchio's. if it is slightly misleading, you make it one pinocchio. all the candidates running for president including barack

obama, i list all the columns i have written where i evaluate their statements. there is an average. obama averages about two pinocchios. he has had a lot of wind. it comes out as an average of 2. we are not saying it is anything scientific. it is just a way to kind of track where people stand. >> what does pinocchio have to do with this? >> when he told a lie, his nose would grow. i do not go out of my way and say that politicians are lying.

i cannot make a judgment about the motivation for why they say the things they do. however, i will take a statement, barack obama says something about the chrysler bailout. i will evaluate the statement and determined what the facts are behind it and how accurate he is being. it is like a michelin guide to the comments politicians make. at a glance, you can see this is a whopper and now i will find out why this person says this. >> you come out of an international reporting, a book on condoleezza rice and a lot of stuff at "the washington post." how did you get in this and did you come up with the pinocchio idea? >> we revived it. it is during the last presidential campaign, 2008.

we have a permanent feature. that original column was focused just on the campaign. i take a much broader approach. i will write about congress. i will write about what diplomats may say, that sort of thing. the idea was that it was the brainchild of the person who originated this column, michael dobbs who is a former "the washington post" writer. >> how did you get into it? >> they said they wanted to revive the idea as a permanent feature with a broader focus. i had been covering diplomacy for nine years. before that, i had covered congress.

i had covered the white house. i have been a cheap political correspondent for newsday. i had budget and economics. i basically covered every building in washington. i got a little bit the pentagon stuff. i cover the transportation department. after 30 years of writing about washington institutions and a great deal of subjects, i was in a position to tackle this on. i feel like i am taking the base of knowledge that was built up and i now apply it on a daily basis to a wide range of subjects. you name it, i will write about it. >> how often do you give geppettos out? >> that is when a statement is true. one thing michael dobbs said was one of his regrets was he did not give enough geppettos.

i regret that giving as many as i could. there are so many countries statements out there that i have not really found the opportunity to do it. i think i have maybe four or five in the course of a year. >> who is geppetto? >> he was the woodcarver. he told the truth. the idea is that he means the statement is correct. >> you have been around this game for how long total, in journalism?

>> i have always told friends that if i ever write an autobiography it will be titled "waiting for people to lie to me." it is human nature to embellish or exaggerate, particularly in politics or wall street. you want to spend things your own way. whether or not they are deliberately lying, i think that if a politician says the same thing over and over again even when it has been pointed out that it is untrue, that they know they are saying something untrue. they will just say it anyway. >> what you think of this job so far? >> some say i have the best job in journalism. i enjoy it. i get up in the morning and decide what i want to write

about. i tried to write columns that are a broad interest to people, that deal with weighty subjects. i feel it provides a complement to the day to day reporting. a reporter writing about the day-to-day news will only right the facts behind it. i have an assistant now. the column became very popular. >> if someone from washington was to find out on your fact checking, where did they go?

>> my website. it takes you right there. this other website is run by the "tampa bay times" and started around the same time we started the column during the 2008 election. it was started by a guy i know pretty well. he created a little fact checking empire. localontacted by a newspapers. >> what is the outfit at pennsylvania? >> that is the original fact checking organization. i would not say we are competitors. we are in the same peer group. we sometimes get a little ruffled will me come to

different conclusions. it happens on an occasional basis. we tend to see eye to eye on things. i did do very good work. my column is mostly me and my insistent. i will edit his things. it is a bit more personality than what they do. it may have 2000 people around the country doing this. they produce much more than what i could do. >> i want to show a video. they have a "pants on fire" thing. is that the same as four pinocchios? >> roughly equivalent. >> this was done by the crossroads group. run this.

we will run this and you can tell us what it is all about. >> the first thing i am going to promise is that i will be a voice in the room on behalf of middle-class families. >> you are bailing out the same banks that helped cause the financial meltdown that gave big bonuses to bankers. she went on a defense that was some of the banks that got bailed out. we need jobs not more bailout. >> that critical 60th vote. >> he was accused of selling his vote. what is wrong with washington? look at the damage he did. cutting medicare spending, and there is in nebraska.

bill nelson sold out to obama. it is time to make it right. >> you know at the bottom of the screen, both sides tell you where it is coming from. what do most people do when they see something like this? what did we just what? >> these are both hard-hitting ads. the warren one i put on my list as one of the worst ads of the year to return something completely upside down. elizabeth warren who everyone believes was a consumer advocate fighting the banks, it turned into a tool of the banks. that is silly.

you can see little clips there. i asked them for their evidence of that. how would they justify those statements? >> do they have any responsibility to be accurate? >> i do not know what the regulations are about that. i think the feeling seems to be if it is a political ad anything is fair game. i would think that if i were running a television station i would want to be sure that the ads are at least in the ballpark. that one ad is just really out of control. >> you have seen ben nelson ad? >> i had not. even always say that any senator when it is 60 votes, any senator is the deciding vote.

that is a stretch. these things like $500 billion in cuts, i have written about that. it is a debatable statement. you have these quick clips, these little statements. you have to really dig deep where that is coming from to understand whether or not it is accurate. both sides do this. the democrats have a number on romney. >> what would you recommend it to a citizen watching an

advertisement like this? the fine print says it is paid for by crossroads gps. how can you find out who they are and to fund them? >> this is a super pac. you cannot find out much about his backing them. they will spend tens of millions of dollars in the coming election. >> karl rove and the others behind it? >> he helped raise the money. >> this would not have happened without the supreme court decision? >> that is correct. >> what do you think of this development in politics? >> it is another outlet for misleading advertising. my narrow prism as someone tries to check the facts, just trying to keep up with the advertisements is going to be difficult. i wrote that readers should just turn off the television whenever there's any

advertisement involving medicare. both sides of a demagogue it as much as they can. they are going to be factually inaccurate. these gps ads are tearing at the fabric of our political system. >> here's another advertisement was them. it was the advertisement of the year, not a positive one. let's watch this. tell me what you see. >> [playing "american the beautiful"]

[playing "america the beautiful"] >> that is put out by something called the agenda project run by a woman.

do you know anything about this? >> i do not. >> they literally threw a granny off the cliff. that is amazing. did the person pushing the chair looks like a congressman from wisconsin that is a primary author of the house republican plan for medicare. >> the "tampa bay times" called it the lie of the year 2011. >> i put that on my list. it is extreme rhetoric. i think it is not helpful in our political system. you can have a disagreement about how paul ryan would want

to restructure health care. they want to restructure it for people who are under 55. the granny in the advertisement would not have been affected. you have an image of her being thrown off the cliff which is completely inaccurate. the plan would not affect the woman over age 55. secondly, in the last couple of weeks, congressman ryan has come together with a democratic senator from oregon to discuss the plan to discuss how you can take things that are important to democrats and combine it with what republicans want to do. that is how the process should work. these advertises that demonize one side are not helpful. >> you are getting criticized

from the left and the right big time. this particular decision on the part of the "tampa bay times" was criticized by a couple of times including some from "washington monthly." he said they have chosen the democrats' claim as the 2011 lie of the year. he said it is an indefensible claim. >> i have all of this stuff. i am drowning. how do i keep track of it all? >> how do you? >> there are two things there. obviously, the designation of lie of the year, it should be noted that the last two lies of

the year were republican attacks on obama's health-care law. then i believe that the left was very happy with the designations. here they have chosen -- i do not do a lie of the year. i pick the worst eight statement of the year. i think it is a very defensible resignation. to say that the republicans killed medicare is just not accurate. when you look at the statements that republicans put out and why they justify that

designation, killing medicare, it does not add up. it is an extreme statement. in terms of trying to keep track of it, i get up every morning. i look around and see what people have been saying. i try to evaluate it. >> on your wikipedia side, it says the conservative leaning power lines of voted three articles to critiquing one of kessler's articles. it says they nearly always turn out to be liberal apologists who don a false mantle of objectivity to advance the cause of the democratic party. >> we are criticized from both the left and the right. in those particular columns, it had to do with statements concerning rick perry and

israel. i have a very thick skin. i do not pay very much attention. these kind of attacks, it is water off my back. i do pay attention to the critiques they make. i had a long conversation with the guy that wrote the particular articles. since then he has written a few things were he has praised things that were written. he said the article i wrote was eminently fair. i mean, i pay attention to the factual things that a question about. it brings in point of view. it tells and for my thinking.

if you're just plan to attack me always from the left, there are people from the right that think what does this radical conservative doing? then there are things like weekly standard does say i am part of some liberal agenda. that kind of claim i do not take seriously. >> you wrote a letter. have you gotten any feedback that you said i have no political convictions but to the truth. the do not assume my politics. either from the left or the right, no one really has any

clue. i am strictly nonpartisan, which to some people appears to be the most irritating thing of all. how much did you think about that before you wrote that? did you get any feedback? >> i think they still said he is a liberal. i figured there'd what to rise and then on a public forum. i do look at each of these statements in a very holistic fashion. i try not to think about the politics of the person saying it but just look at it very factually. >> you said you had a thick skin. where did you develop that? >> many years of reporting. >> can you remember the first time you said this does not feel good but i don't care? >> i cannot think of a first time like that. i do not know. my brother said this is the perfect job for me is eager up at the dinner table.

maybe i was born with that fix again. family members will sometimes disagree when i hit some targets. >> if someone attacks you it does not bother you? >> if they point out that i made a factual error, yes. that would bother me. if they point out that there is a weakness in the logic that i made or that i gave short sticks to a particular argument? that bothers me. i would correct that. i'm only human. i do not want people to think i am bestowing four pinocchio's from mount olympus on people.

it is a judgment call. >> did you do it all yourself? >> yes. >> you have done some videos for "the washington post" website. here you're talking about rick perry and climate change. i want to ask you how you do this. >> in this episode, we will take a look at rick perry posted a surprising comments on climate change. >> there are substantial number of scientists who have manipulated data so that they will have dollars rolling in to their projects.

i think we're seeing almost weekly and daily sciences to are coming forward in questioning the original idea that man-made global warming is what is causing the climate to change. >> climate is not settled on whether or not the climate change is being impacted by man to the point where we're going to put america's economics in jeopardy. >> there is growing skepticism among scientists. to the contrary, a survey showed that as many as 98% of climate researchers believe in the concept of man-made climate change. gov. perry is wrong for claiming that a substantial number of these scientists were found dead manipulated that. only a handful faced charges. >> why the video? >> it is another way to reach out to people. >> who are you trying to reach with that video? >> people that prefer to watch videos rather than read a long

article. the statement i made there were from particularly long articles i have written examining various statements on climate change. this is actually an interesting exercise. after i wrote that, there were a number people who are not fans of the science behind climate change who said, "how can you defend this?" i am not a scientist. i cannot say if there is a man made climate change or not. a substantial number of scientists are coming forward day-by-day to question it. lots of scientist or manipulating data and that they were had been convicted and brought up on charges. those are facts that can be checked. i went to the very campaign that said give me the potential

number of sciences. they could only provide me one with there have been very little growth over the last number of years. many people signing the petition, it is not a very credible universe. >> what kind of reaction have you gotten? how long have you been doing it? >> we started around the time in october. >> did it take a long time? >> there is lot it takes involved. it is a different media. >> newspapers did news to any of this stuff. how is it working for the post? are you doing more on the?

>> yes. it is a different way to reach people. it is internalizing multiple platforms. you write for the television. you're right for the printed edition. you write for the weather. it is a different way to presenting information. the difference is you can actually see the candidates say something. we actually got the idea. there was a new drama in taxes that had done this in some of the texas campaigns. they had people pop up. one of the candidates would be saying something and it would pop up.

here is what is really going on. we thought it was a very clever idea to bring it to people. the one thing we have not done which want to do is to look at some of the president's statements. there were focused on the republican race. president obama has his share of bloopers. i would like to do a video on him. >> here is another one you did on governor romney. >> it is canada's a week. every day this week with a gun to take a look at the statements that aren't the candidates their biggest pinocchios. starting off is rick perry. >> i will never apologize for america.

>> a few minutes he traveled around the globe to apologize for america. >> governor romney likes to claim that president obama apologized for america overseas. he even titled his book "no apology." it started with a column by karl rove. we track down every statement that they say. we concluded that every single one of them had been misquoted or taken out of context. take it from us. it never happened. >> how much of that would be a judgment call? >> it is an interesting question. there have been people that have criticized my analysis on this. they say the president never

"apologized." that is not the case. i went back to the original column. he cited three examples. he took those quotes of context. i went back and looked at all of the original speeches. i looked at the way in which the president made those remarks. then there was a list done by the heritage foundation. they get 10 examples of obama apologizing. a lot of those are taken out of context. i then looked at how obama's comments that they claim for apologies and compared them to the way other presidents talked about things overseas. particularly george bush. there was really no difference. there are looking at it in a very positive lens to create this image that obama had been apologizing. i feel as a fact checker that economic the case that any of this constituted an apology. >> why didn't you use video of barack obama interspersing in there that's how far do you go? >> this particular video was a company in a series of articles

we had. i said it is candidate's week. on sunday it was romney and tuesday perry. i produce a video to go with each one. there is a focus on those candidates. i haven't thought about the idea of taking obama. there was an instance where romney really misquoted something that obama did. what think you could have done is take and how romney took the " and shown the full obama statement. they have a new thing where

they look at television ads and how they are constructed. it is very clever. they take that little clip and they say here is what the person actually said. it is very effective. >> how many people do you have involved in doing the baby is? >> we do them in house. it is me and one other guy. >> here is a different kind of criticism coming from a

conservative website, media research. they spend their time criticizing what they call me as coming from the left. watch this and tell me what you see and whether or not this ever comes to your mind when you're watching it. >> we thought we would bring you up-to-date on the occupied protesters. it has spread to 250 cities and every continent but antarctica. >> this is a surprisingly functional little city. let me give you a tour. behind this, at this whole area of is the media area. it is powered by donated

generators. this is a food station. it is all donated. there are some cookies that came in from a grandmother in idaho. >> we begin tonight with what has become a pretty massive protest movement. it goes by the name "occupy wall street." it could well turn out to be the protest of this current era. >> their point is it is heightened, that when the occupy wall street organizations -- some said it was 1000 cities and a demonstration of the city. the point is that it was not. >> what i would be interested to see is to compare what the same people said about the tea party protests. my recollection is that there is a fair amount of recollection. it is arriving at town halls.

if the talking heads could have downplayed or had not said that it was spread to every part of the world except antarctica, that would have been a very interesting comparison. >> the concern is that the mainstream media accused the tea party of being racist. >> there were elements of that. was it in every program? i do not know. that was a story line that emerge. they have a point that it is the kind of hype they often see

in my business. >> how much impact as the fact checking has on the campaign? do you have any evidence it is making a difference? >> in small ways. they tried to give an indication that this is based on something. many of the campaigns are quite prepared to try to defend what they say. they recognize the fact checkers are going to vet their claims. they're people that are designated to deal with them. a guy who did it for obama in 2008 is now a spokesman for the national security council.

it is a move up. a deputy campaign manager someone i do with on a regular basis. they do feel they have to deal with it. i do see if i called the president out on something, he tends not to repeat it. it depends. romney keeps repeating the "apologize for america" thing. there other things see dropped after i or others pointed out their problems. >> how did you get into this in beginning? >> i wanted to be a journalist from when i was a fifth grader. i always wanted to be a journalist.

>> why? >> it was not in my family background. i liked being fascinated with history. my major in college was history. i wanted to be witness to history. journalism was a way to do it. i have been privileged in my career to be on the floor of the new york stock exchange wednesday for crashed to be in baghdad and kabul. i met and interviewed presidents. it has allowed me to be a witness to history. interestingly, i produced a newsletter in fifth grade for my neighborhood which i titled "the cincinnati fact."

i grew up not the cincinnati. i've always been very fact based. long before fact checking became a trend, when i was a political reporter. one of the early as articles ever written in a newspaper in 1996 when i was covering the dole/clinton campaign, i said as very frustrated by the fact that they would make a charge and i never had the space to actually tell readers why these things are incorrect. for the first debate they gave

me a huge amount of space to basically say it is the equivalent of broadway. they have been touring the company and testing out lines. now i'm going to sit here and tell you here is what you're going to hear. here is why it is wrong. >> your family was what? what did your mom and dad do when you're growing up in cincinnati? >> my mother is a psychologist. my father was an executive for procter and gamble. they had immigrated to the united states from the netherlands. >> on wikipedia, there is a connection to your dutch oil ancestry. what is that? >> my great-grandfather was the creature of what is now shell. he built it into a major oil company.

then my grandfather was actually supposed to inherit or become the next executive of royal dutch. my great-grandfatherdied early. he was working deep in the jungles of indonesia. my grandfather was expected to basically, he was known of the crown prince of the royal dutch. he did not like working for the man who was my great- grandfather's deputy.

my grandmother said, "either choose me or the royal dutch." it talks about she put his life to the test. he left royal dutch and founded the equivalent of u.s. steel in netherlands. he did not do badly. his younger brother ended up becoming the chief. >> why did he come here? >> in that upper echelon a society, the netherlands is a small country. everybody knew everyone. my family was pretty well known in netherlands. they wanted to set off on a new adventure. it was after world war ii.

my father had trained as a chemical engineer. procter and gamble was looking to expand the international company. originally, they looked at canada. my father talked to one of his professors that said if you're going to leave holland and go to north america, you cannot go to canada. canada is like half way. it is partially european. if you are going to do, go to the united states. go all in. the switch from going to canada and chose the united states. >> holland is what 50 million people at most? >> at the time, i guess. all my relatives are still there. >> can you speak dutch? >> no. my parents spoke that at home but i was a very late talker. they thought i was confused. we now know that children

exposed to different languages are late talkers but they eventually learn both. but they switched to english and i was 3. >> what was the year you started the newspaper in neighborhood? >> i was in fifth grade. >> then made a comment about your brother at the dinner table who told you that you have all the answers to everything. how many children in the family? >> one brother and one sister. i was the oldest. my brother is an organic farmer in california. he produces organic flowers. they're wonderful flowers. he is very successful. the sister lives in kentucky. she does advertisement sales. >> i found this on google. i want to read it. it goes back to your time when you were involved in the scooter libby controversy. i will just read this. this will explain it.

he received a call was taking his three children to the zoo. that figure was probably from the grand jury investigation. he did call and the elephant house with his two year-old in harness the mall issuing periodic commands, he said he was talking off the record. in previous conversations, they said when he set off the record he really meant in the background. there is a lot in those two paragraphs.

>> he was put on trial for misleading prosecutors poetry. as to whether or not he leaked to reporters the name of a cia operative, the allegation the prosecutors question me because they believed scooter had told me about any call me. i had some questions about a particular story. i was with my kids. my youngest is now 11 and my oldest is there. i had to take his call. i literally sat there for half an hour interviewing him on keeping an eye outlaw my sister of scott it was someone. the reason the prosecutors fought, i told them it was never raised that we did not talk about it. i later found dealt the they said we have a source.

we are very certain that he talked about it. the reason they thought he did it was because that was coucher's testimony. he testified that he told me about it. he was put on trial because he claimed he did not talk about it with other people. in my case, he testified he did. >> any say he did not? go back to the other part of this. off the record versus back on the record. >> it would be confusing. >> explain what it was. >> when he said off the record he meant off the record. >> on the record means i could quote you. on background means i could say

an executive at c-span told me such and such. then there is a phrase "deep background" which i would not need any quotation marks. officials at c-span say such and such. off the record would mean i could not write a thing. i might know what is going on a c-span, but i could not use any of that information. i think a lot of people get confused by the off the record thing. they think it means to not quote me.

i cannot use it. why would scooter libby, the chief of staff for the vice president of united states be on the phone with me for two hours telling me about the administration's position on various issues if i cannot use any of it? i asked kathy martin, he is saying this is off the record. she said, he really means background. he does not understand what it means. >> how often do you run into a couple of things? the person you're talking to have no idea about these kinds of roles. you say do not go off the record i'm not going to listen. >> often people are confused. it is less of an issue writing this fact check column.

i'm not necessarily quoting people. a lot of it is my analysis of the facts. when i was dealing with the white house there is a lot of confusion. no in the state department is ever quoted on the record it set for the secretary of state generally. that is just the way of diplomacy. it is just -- people are confused. >> you did a book on condoleezza rice. did you have a lot of people talking to you off the record or were they talking to you on deep background? >> that book was written especially on deep background.

i did five hours of interviews with condoleezza rice herself on deep background. that book was written to be a you are there fly on the wall. i recreated things that happened behind closed doors back. he said want to know what is going on behind closed doors. >> here is you on our call-in show when he talked about the book a couple of years ago. >> what i was hoping to do with this book was give people insight into behind-the-scenes conversations between secretary rice and the president's with their aides and other foreign leaders. i wanted to give general readers and insight into what it is like to be at the center for policy- making.

if you were just curious about what has happened over the buzz seven years, it was invented to be a very readable one. it was an accessible guide to foreign policy. >> how would you compare what you wrote to what she has written in books since then? >> i think it is relatively consistent. there are -- it was very difficult -- recreating scenes is a very difficult journalistic enterprise. i would interview six or seven people who were in the room and sometimes they would have very different memories about what would happen. i tend to find the people remember best what they said as opposed to what other people

said. i tended to stick mostly with that. >> how valuable did you find her book? >> i gave her book a positive review for "the post." what was interesting to me was that i think the true character of condoleezza rice came out in terms of that she is in many ways, is not a political animal. when she was in office, at least publicly she wouldn't look back or indicate any regrets about things. i know from having private conversations with her while she was secretary of state that she was much more open about the mistakes that we were making. now she put it on the record in way that people could see. of course she is going to defend the policies. i think there was a more

openness. >> as you know, the political rumors started near the end it 2011. issues led to get picked up at the vice-presidential candidates for the ticket. >> she is now beyond that. she talks about how wonderful it is to look at the headlines and in newspaper and not to worry about the problem. >> how can people get to work on the website? >> just type in washingtonpost.com/factchecker. there's also little bar on the home page of the washington post website.

>> you talk about cincinnati. you have three kids. >> my oldest kid is about to turn 19. my oldest is about to turn 15. my oldest just turned 11. my wife only got pregnant in of the auctioneers. >> you went to brown and colombia. >> that is right. >> thank you very much for doing that. >> for a dvd copy of this program call 1877777266. program call 1877777266.