candidates running for president, including barack obama, i list all the columns i've written and evaluate the statements. i take an average. i've done 23 evaluations of comments by obama, the average is two pinochios. the comment that i would have made is not entirely inaccurate, we're not saying that average pinocchio list is scientific, it's just a way to track where people stand. >> what does pinocchio have to do with this? >> well, there is a children's story, "pinocchio," he was a person when he told a lie, his nose would grow.

i don't go out of my way and say politicians are lying, i can't make a judgment about the motivation for why they say the things that they do. however, what i do, i will take a statement, say barack obama says something about the kessler bailout. i will evaluate his statement and determine what are the facts behind that statement and how accurate is the president being? then i will assign the pinocchio scale, it's kind of like mitchell guide to the comments that politicians make. at a glance, you can see, this is a whopper, now i'll find out why this person says there is problems with the statement. >> you come out of the international reporting and a book on condoleezza rice, how did you get into this and did you name this column? did you name the idea of using

pinocchio? >> well, first of all, we were using the column we had briefly during the last election campaign, the last presidential campaign. and we found a permanent feature that, origin column was focused just on the presidential campaign. i think a much broader approach, i will write about what people say in congress, about what diplomats might say, that sort of thing. the idea pinocchio, the brain child of the person who originated this column, michael dobbs, former "washington post" reporter, now a book writer, also with a career writing about foreign policy. >> how did you get into it? >> well, the editors came to me and said they wanted to revive the idea as a permanent feature with a broader focus and i had been cover iing diplomacy for

years. i had been political news correspondent for newsday, covered budget and economics and covered just about every building in washington. i had done a little pentagon stuff and covered the transportation department. after 30 years of writing with washington institutions and very many in a great deal of subjects, i was in a position to try to tackle this on and, you know, i feel like i'm taking the basic knowledge i've built up over all these years of reporting and i now apply it on a daily basis to a wide range of subjects. you name it and i will write about it. >> how often do you give a gepetto out and what is that? >> a gepetto is when the statement is true. one thing michael dobbs said to me before i took the job was

that one of his regrets was he didn't give enough gepettos and frankly after doing this a year now, i regret not giving as many gepettos as i could. the problem is, there are so many untrue statements out there that i haven't really found the opportunity to coit. i have given maybe four or five in the course of a year. >> who is gepetto? >> well, again in respect to the children's tale, gepetto was -- now i'm blanking. >> the wood carver? >> the wood carver. he told the truth, i guess. the idea is gepetto check mark means the statement is correct. >> you have been around this game now for how long total? journalism? >> journalism 32 years. >> you say you don't like to say when people are lying.

do you often say to yourself, that person is lying. or how often do you say that? >> well, i guess i've always joked to friends that if i ever write an autobiography, it would be entitled "waiting for people to lie to me," and that is because of covering politics and washington and before that wall street. it's human nature to embellish or exaggerate or, particularly on wall street or in politics, you want to spin things your own way. whether or not they are deliberately lying, i do think that if a politician says the same thing over and over again, even when it has been pointed out as untrue, they know they are saying something untrue, and they're going to say it anyway. >> how do you -- what do you think of this job so far?

>> you know, some people say i have the best job in journalism. i enjoy it. i get up in the morning and i kind of decide what i want to write about, i look for things to write about and try to write columns that are of broad interest to people, that deal with weighty subjects. i feel i provide a compliment to the day-to-day reporting that we have because i can focus closely on a particular statement. whereas, a reporter writing about the day to day news will only have a paragraph to address the facts behind it. i can write as much as i want. >> what kind of help do you have? >> i have an assistant now. the column has become very popular, they found money to get me an assistant. >> somebody far away from washington that doesn't read the "washington post" want to check on on your fact checking, how do they find it?

>> go to washingtonpost.com/factchecker. it will take you right there. >> what is politifact? >> it is another fact-checking organization. it is run by the poynter institute, the tampa bay times and it started around the same time we started the column during the 2008 election. it was organized by a guy i know pretty well, bill adair, and he's created a fact-checking empire. he's contracted with different fact-checking newspapers to fact check local politicians. >> then what's the outfit up at pennsylvania? >> that is the original fact-checking organization called factcheck.org, and that's run by brooks jackson, who was with "washington post" and cnn. i wouldn't say we are

competitors, i think we view each other as part of the same peer group. we sometimes get a little ruffled when we come to different conclusions, which happens on an occasional basis. but generally we see eye to eye on things. he does very good work. my column is a bit more -- it's mostly me and my assistant and i edit his things and it has a bit more of a personal edge and a bit more of personality than i think what they do. on the other end, they may have 2000 people around the country doing this. they produce much more than what i can do, which is at least one column a day. i want to show a video that bill adair credited politifacts. they have a "pants on fire"

thing is that the same thing as pinocchio's? >> roughly equivalent. >> let's watch a one-minute piece, this was done by the crossroads group. carl rogue group concluding bill nelson will run this and get -- tell us what this is all about. >> okay. >> the first thing i'm going to promise is that i'm going to be a voice in the room on behalf of middle class families. >> really? congress will oversee how your tax dollars were spent, bailing out the banks that caused the financial meltdown. banks that paid out while middle class lost out. she went on a charm effective with the banks that got bailed out. tell professor warren we need jobs, not more bailouts and bigger government. >> one vote will decide it. fight for nebraska. >> that critical vote, ben nelson.

>> ben nelson. >> ben nelson. >> he demanded a payoff, accused of selling his vote. what is wrong with washington? look at the damage he did, higher taxes, cutting medicare spending, embarrassing nebraska. ben nelson sold out to obama when it counted most. senator, it's time to make it right. >> you know, at the bottom of the screen, both sides do this, they tell you where it is coming from. what do most people do when they see something like this and what did we just watch? >> these are both hard-hitting ads. the warren one, i put that on my list as one of the worst ads of the year because it's really -- it turns something completely upside down. elizabeth warren, who everyone believes was a consumer advocate fighting the banks and it turns you into a tool of the banks, which is just plain silly. you can see little clips there

and i actually asked crossroads gps for their evidence of that, how were they going to testify those statements? it adds up to absolutely nothing. >> do they have any responsibility to be accurate or do the people that are running them on different television stations have any responsibility if they are not accurate? >> i don't know what the fcc regulations are about that. you know, i being the feeling is if it is a political ad, anything is fair game. i would think that if i were running a t.v. station, i would want to be sure that the ads are at least in the ballpark. just the one ad is just really out of control. >> had you seen the ben nelson ad? >> i had not seen the ben nelson ad. you know, you can always count, you can say any senator, when it

is 60 votes, any senator is "the" deciding vote that is ahead, that is a bit of a stretch. >> there may be things like $500 billion in cuts in medicare, i've written about that. that is a debatable statement. i forget exactly what else was in there, the latest ads are quick little clips, little statements and yet they dig deep beneath where that is coming from to understand whether or not it's accurate. and both sides do this. you pick the carl rove thing, but the democrats have really run a number on him. >> i have stuff on him. what would you recommend to a citizen watching an ad like this, you know the fine print says this ad paid for by crossroads gps, how do you find out who crossroads gps is and who funds them? >> well, this is one of those

super packs, so it was created as a result of supreme court ruling a couple years ago. you can't find out much about who is backing them. and that particular group is going to spend tens of millions of dollars in the coming election. >> it's carl rove and others behind it or lead it? >> help put it together. yeah. >> help raise the money? >> help raise the money. >> and this wouldn't have happened without that supreme court decision? >> yes, that's correct. >> what do you think of it? what do you think of this development in politics? >> well, you know, it's another outlet for misleading advertising. you know, i look at it, at the prism, as somebody who tries to check the facts, just trying to keep up with the ads from the super packs is going to be very difficult. one of my columns i wrote that

readers should simply turn off the t.v. or mute the t.v. whenever there is an ad involving medicare because both sides are going to demogogue that and be inaccurate. the gps ads, i forget the name of the barack obama super pack, those things, they're really, i think, you know tearing up the fabric of our political system. >> here is another ad on the other side that was picked by another organization as kind of the ad of the year, not a positive designation. >> uh-huh. >> let's watch this and tell me what you see here. ♪ ♪

>> now that's put out by something called the agenda project, run by a woman named erica payne. do you know anything about this? >> no, i don't. >> what is your reaction? >> they literally flew granny off the cliff, pretty amazing. and the person pushing the wheelchair looked suspiciously like paul ryan, the congressman from wisconsin, who is the primary author of "the house republican plan for medicare." >> po lititact call third degree their "lie of 2011." >> i put that on my list of the worst eight pinocchio's of the year. it's extreme rhetoric and i think it is just not helpful in

our political system. you can have a disagreement about how paul ryan would want to restructure healthcare and i should note they want to restructure it for people -- the republicans want to restructure it for people under 55. that granny in the ad would not be affected by the republican plan for medicare. so right there you have an image, granny being thrown off the cliff, which is completely inaccurate because their plan would not affect a woman over age 55. and then secondly, i mean actually in the last couple weeks, congressman ryan has come together with a democratic senator, ron widen of oregon to adjust the plan and begin discussion as to how you can take things that are important to democrats and do things republicans want to do, which is how the political process should work.

this kind of ad, which will demonize the one side, are really not helpful. >> you folks, meaning that fact checker types 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 people, including fellow named steve n bennin, from washington monthly. he talked about, politifacts have chosen for the lie of the year. this is simply indefensible claims and shouldn't be eligible for lie of the year designation. washington monthly comes at things from the left. again, i have all this stuff, i'm drowning and saying, how do i keep track of it? how do you keep track of who is doing what to whom? >> well, two things there. t the -- obviously the designation

of "lie of the year," it should be noted that the last two "lies of the year," that politifact named were republican attacks on obama's healthcare law and then i believe the left was quite happy with the designations. here they have chosen something and like i said, something that i -- i don't do a lot, that is not my style, i depict worst statements of the year and republicans killing medicare was one of them. fact search put that on their list. >> i think it is a very defensible designation because to say that the republicans killed medicare is just not accurate. when you look at -- if you look at the particular statements democrats have put out and why they justify that designation that this needs medicare, it

just doesn't add up. it's just an extreme statement. now in terms of trying to keep track of it, you know, i get up everything morning and i look around and see what people have been saying and then i try to evaluate it. >> on your wikipedia site, you have nothing to say or write about, it says the conservative meaning powerful blog devoted three articles to critiquing kessler's article calling him a "liberal" reporter and noting "the fact checkers nearly always turn out to be liberal apologists who dawn a false mantel of objectivity in order to advance the cause of the democratic party." >> yes, we are criticized from the left and the right. and in that particular -- those particular series of columns had to do with fact check i had done regarding statements by rick perry concerning israel.

you know, i actually have a very thick skin, so i don't pay much attention to -- i mean, well, these kind of attacks from the left to the right, it's going to roll like water off my back. i pay attention to the critiques they make and i had a long conversation with the guy who wrote those particular articles and actually since then he's written a few things where he's praised things i've written. for instance, when i wrote about the attack ad on mitt romney, he said the article i wrote was imminently fair. so i mean, i pay attention to the factual things that they question about and if necessary, you know, points out points of view and helped me inform my thinking. if you are going to attack me always from the left, there are people who write that what is

this radical conservative doing writing a fact check column for the "washington post." and then there are things like power line or weekly standard that say i'm part of some liberal agenda to dominate political discourse. that kind of claims, i don't take them seriously. >> you said this, you wrote a letter to powerline. ex-governor uh-huh. >> i want to ask you if you have gotten feedback on those. you said, i have no political conviction but to the truth. don't assume my politics because either from the left or 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 it and did you get any feedback from it? >> i don't think it was pervasive to the people at powerline. i think they responded and said,

we still think he's liberal. i figured it would -- when i write something in the public forum like that, i know it will be picked up. i did think very seriously about it. i do look at each of these statements in a very holistic fashion and 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 and these things don't bother you. where did you develop that? >> many years of reporting. >> can you remember the first time you got stung and you said, you know, this didn't feel good, but i don't care. >> well, i've always had -- no, i can't think of a first time like that. i don't know, my brother said, when i took this job, said it was the perfect job for me because he grew up at the dinner table always listening to me say

how right i was. maybe i was born with that thick skin. you know, family members will sometimes disagree with -- you know, when i hit some targets that they feel close to, they're not happy with me, but it really does -- >> if somebody is attacking you, it doesn't bother you? >> if they ponent out i made a factual error, yes, that would bother me f. they point out there is a weakness in the logic that i made or that i gave short shift to a particular argument, that is bothersome and i will act quickly to correct that. i'm only human and i don't want people to think that i'm bestowing on mount olympus bestowing four pinocchios on people.

there are judgments about the pinocchios, particularly if i'm trying to decide between two pinocchios or three. it's a judgment call. >> do you do it all yourself? >> yes. yes. >> all right. you have done videos for the "washington post" website. and here is one where you're talking about rick perry and climate change and i want to ask you how you do this. >> uh-huh. ♪ ♪ >> in this episode of fact check video, take a look at rick perry's comments on climate change and the science behind the research. >> i think there are substantial number of sciences who have manipulated data so that they will have dollars rolling in to their projects and i think we're seeing it almost weekly or even daily, scientists coming forward

and questioning the original idea that manmade global warming is what is causing the climate to change. >> the fact of the matter is the science 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. >> governor perry is wrong to suggest this growing skepticism among scientists. to the contrary, various surveys show that as many as 98% of climate researchers believe in the concept of manmade climate change. governor perry is wrong to claim that substantial number of these scientists were found to have manipulated data. only a handleful face charge and were found to be falsely accused. that is four pinocchios for you, governor perry. >> why the video? >> it's just 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. i mean, the statements are made there were from particularly long article that i had written examining perry's statement on climate change and you know this is actually an interesting exercise. after i wrote that there were a number of people who are not fans of the science behind climate change who said, how can you defend this? what i was looking at, that is the date -- i'm not a scientist and i'm not going to say whether or not there is manmade climate change or not, but the particular assumptions perry was making are a, a substantial number of scientists were coming forward day-by-day to question it. and b, lots of scientists, you know, were manipulating data to get dollars and there were, you

know, they had been predicting or brought up on charges on this. those are facts that can be checked. i did go to the perry campaign and say, give me evidence of substantial number of scientists and they could only provide me with a really old petition with little growth over the last number of years and many people signing the petition, it was not a very credible universe. >> what kind of reaction have you gotten out of doing the videos and how long have you done them? >> we started doing them around the time i guess it was in october, i started doing them in october. >> take you a long time? >> well, you know, there are lots of takes involved and you have to get the language exactly right. t.v. and video is a different medium. >> the reason i'm asking, newspapers didn't used to do any of this stuff. >> right. right. >> how is it working for the

post behind the scenes on the video? do folks like it over there? are you and other folks doing more of this? >> yeah. i think it's a different way to reach people. the word "internalism" is multiple platforms. you write for the mobile device, you write for the t.v. or the print edition. you write for the web. it's just a different way of appealing to people, different way of presenting information and the advantage of a video is you can actually see the candidate say something and t n then -- we actually got the idea, there was a news organization in texas that had done this during some of the texas campaigns, where they had people pop up or things pop up saying that -- one of the candidates would be saying something and a popup would say, "not really, here is what is

going on." we thought it was a clever idea and a way to bring it to people. the one thing we haven't done, which i want to do, is to take a look at the president statements. we have been focused on the republican race, of course president obama, like any politician has his share of bloopers and i would like to do a video about him. >> here is another one that you did can on governor romney, and the obama apology tour. >> uh-huh. ♪ ♪ >> it's candidates week on fact check video and everyday this week we'll look at the statements that earn the candidates their biggest pinocchios. starting it off, governor mitt romney. >> the president went about this all wrong. he went around the world and apologized for america. i will not and i will never apologize for america. [ cheers and applause ]

>> a few minutes in office and he traveled around the globe to apologize for america. [booing] >> governor romney likes to claim president obama apologized for america overseas. he even titled his book "no apology," and this claim started with a column by karl ros ve in the "wall street journal." we tracked down every statement partisan say constituted an apology and concluded every single one had been misquoted or taken out of context. take it from us, the apology tour never happened. four pinocchios. >> how much of that would be a judgment call? >> well, that is an interesting question. you know, there have been people that have criticized my analysis on this saying the president never "apologized." he never said the word "apology," and that is what you

are hanging your hat on. that is really not the case. i went back to the original karl rove column. he took the quotes out of context. i went back and looked at the original speechs and looked at the way the president made the remarks. then there was a list done by the heritage foundation and they gave 10 examples of obama apologizing. again, i went through all of those. a lot of those were misstatements or taken out of context. finally, i then looked at how obama's comments that these people claimed were apologys and compared them to the way other presidents talked about things overseas, particularly george bush. now there was really no difference. they were looking at it in a partisan lens to create a myth or image that obama had been apologizing. so i feel as a fact checker,

someone who tries to cut through the muck for americans that don't have the time to do that, that you cannot make the case that this -- any of this constituted an apology. sorry. i did grant -- someone might be able to argue he had an apologetic tone. okay. >> question, though, why didn't you use video of barack obama in there to show what he actually said? not that -- you can do whatever you want to, but how far do you go with editing? >> no, that's -- this particular video was to accompany us in a series of articles we had and at the beginning i said, it's candidates week. there was a thing that run on sunday about romney and tuesday it was perry and i produced a video to go along with both of those. it was really a focus on those candidates.

i mean, i hadn't thought about the idea of taking obama -- i mean, there was an instance where romney really misquoted something obama did. i guess one thing we could have done was taken how romney took that quote and showed the full obama statement. there is a new thing called flackcheck.org. they look at t.v. ads and how they are constructed. it's actually very clever. they will take that little snippit that you see in an ad, and they will say, well, here is what the person actually said. it's very effective. >> how many people do you have involved in doing the videos at the post? you do them inhouse? >> yes, we do them inhouse. it's me and another guy. >> here is a different kind of criticism coming from a conservative website about media

research, which is bret boozel. >> uh-huh. >> they spend their time criticizing what they call the main-stream media. watch this and tell me what you see and whether or not this ever comes to your mind when you are watching television. >> okay. >> we thought we'd bring you up to date on the protesters that occupy wall street movement. as of tonight, it has spread to 250 american cities, more than a thousand countries. every continent butta antan anb. >> it starts here and behind that, this area back here, this is the media area filled with bloggers and others getting the word out and it is powered by donated generators. this is a food station tis free and donated, including cookies that came in from a grandmother

in idaho. >> good evening, we begin tonight with what has become by any measure a pretty massive protest movement, while it goes by the official name "occupy wall street," it has spread far beyond wall street and could well turn out to be prot test of this current era. >> their point is it is hype. when the "occupy wall street," the different groups around the country, i think diane sawyer ed a thousand cities and the demonstration of the century and their point was it wasn't. >> what i would be interested to see and this is where they might have been more effective in making their point, is to compare what the same people said about the tea party protests. my recollection was there was a fair amount of coverage of the

tea party protest, particularly during the summer when they started arriving at town halls and members of congress were doing without the healthcare legislation. if those talking heads had kind of downplayed it or had not said that it was spread to every part of the world except antartica, or was prot test movement of the year, then that would have been an interesting comparison. >> the group said the mainstream media accused the tea party of being racist. >> well, i have recollection that there were elements of that. i mean, you know, was it in every program? i don't know, but i have a recollection that was a storyline that merged at some point. so they certainly have a point there, but it's the kind of hype

you often see in my business. >> let me get back to what we talked about earlier, how much impact is the fact checking having, you think on campaigns? do you have any evidence at all it is making a difference? >> in small ways. first of all, you see those little things you mentioned in the ads, where they try to give an indication that yes, this is based on something. secondly, many of the campaigns are quite prepared to try to defend what they say. they recognize that the fact checkers, particularly the three of us, are going to vet their claims. so they are pieces that are designated to deal with the fact checkers n. fact, a guy who did it for obama in 2008 is now spokesman for the national security council.

the spokesman that deals with fact checkers, it's a career move up. and you know, the deputy campaign manager at obama's campaign is somebody i deal with on a regular basis. when i call the white house, it's pretty -- there are senior people at the white house. there are, you know, they do feel they have to deal with it and i do see if i call the president out on something, he tends not to repeat it. it depends, sometimes he will. romney keeps repeating the apologize to america thing. there are other things he dropped after i or the other fact checkers have pointed out there were problems with it. >> how did you get into this in the beginning in your life? the whole business of journalism? >> you know, i knew i wanted to be a journalist when i was a fifth grader. i always wanted to be a journalist. >> why, though? >> it's not -- it wasn't in my

family background. you know, i liked being -- i was always fascinated in history. in fact, my major in college was history. and i wanted to be a witness to history. and journalism was a way to do it and i have been privileged in my career in journalism to be in the floor of the new york stock exchange and the stock market crashed in 1987, to be in baghdad, kabul, places under -- during war. i have met and interviewed presidents. so those, it has allowed me to be a witness to history and that's why i was interested in journalism. the other thing, i guess i had a very -- interestingly when i was

a fifth grader, i produced a newsletter for my neighborhood, which i titled "the cincinatti fact," because i was interested in the facts. >> was that your city, cincinatti? >> yes, i grew up in cincinatti. it was a newsletter for a few blocks in the neighborhood, i called it the "cincinatti fact," but i've always been very fact based and in fact long before fact checking became a trend, i did -- i was political reporter and i did one of the earliest fact checking articles ever written in a newspaper in 1996 when i was covering the dole-clinton campaign. i said to my editors, i was frustrated by the fact bill clinton would make a charge or bob dole would make a charge and i never had the space to

actu actually tell leaders why these things were incorrect. so they -- for the first did debate, they gave me a huge amount of space to basically say, all right, this is a debate. it is equivalent of broadway, but they have been touring the country and testing out lines like an off broadway production. i will sit here and tell you, here is what you are going to hear and here is why it's wrong. >> and your family was what? what did your mom and dad do when you were growing up in cincinatti? >> my mother was a psychologist, my father was an executive for procter and gamble. and they had immigrated to the united states from netherlands. >> there is connection to dutch oil ancestry. what was that? >> my great grandfather was

creator of royal.shell. he built it into a major oil company and then my grandfather was actually supposed to inherit -- not inherit, but become the next executive of royal dutch. my great grandfather died very early, just one day shy of his 47th birthday and from working deep in the jungles of what is now indonesia. so my grandfather was expected to basically -- he was known as one of the crown princes of the royal dump. he would be the next executive, but he did not like working for the man who was my great grandfather's deputy. my grandmother said, either choose me or you choose the royal dump.

in the books, it talks about she put his love to the test. so he left royal dutch and founded the equivalent of u.s. steel in the netherlands and became head of the steel industry. so he didn't do badly. his younger brother ended up becoming the chief executive of royal dutch shell. >> why did your parents come here? >> you know, the netherlands in that upper echelon of society, it's a very small country. everyone knew everyone. my family was pretty well known in the netherlands and they wanted to set off on a new adventure. it was after world war ii, and my father had trained as a chemical engineer and procter and gamble was looking to expand as an international company. originally they looked at canada

and my father had a conversation with one of his professors. he said, if you are going to leave holland and go to north america, you can't go to canada. canada is like halfway, kind of like partially european. if you are going to do it, go all in. go to the united states. so they switch friday going to canada and said, chose the united states. >> holland is 10 to 15 million people at most? >> yeah, at the time, yeah and all my relatives are still there. aunts, uncles. >> do you speak dutch? >> no, i can vaguely understand it. my parents spoke dutch at home, but they were afraid -- i was a very late talker and they thought i was confused. we now know that children exposed to different languages are late talkers, but they eventually learned both languages. they switched to english when i was three. >> go back to the statement

about first of all, born to be a journalist from age five. what was the year you started the newspaper in the neighborhood? >> i was in fifth grade. fifth grade. >> then you made a xhept about your brother at the dinner table that told you before that you have all the answers to everything. how many children in the family? >> i have one brother and one sister. i was the oldest. >> what are they doing? >> my brother is an organic farmer and produces organic flours in california. california organic flours, they are wonderful. very successful at that. my sister lives in ken tuck and he does ad sales. she lives in let the record reflects, xington, kentucky. >> i found this on google and it's really out of context of what we are talking about, but it was an interesting personal aside. i want to read it. this goes back to your time when you were involved in the scooter libby controversy.

>> uh-huh. >> i will just read this from professor kim's news notes. i have no idea who professor kim is. it doesn't matter. he received a call from scooter libby while takes his three children to the zoo. i think this is probably from the grand jury investigation. he took the call in the elephant house with his two year old in a harness and while issuing periodic commands to his older children. "scooter said to me, he was talking to me off the record. in previous conversation with kathy martin they said, when scooter said, off the record, he meant on background. there is a lot in those two paragraphs. first of all, what is this all about? >> well, the -- scooter libby was put on trial for misleading prosecutors, perjury, that sort of thing, as to whether or not he leaked to reporters the name of a cia operative, valerie

plame. and the allegation the prosecutors questioned me because they believed that scooter had told me about valerie plame when he called me while i was at the zoo. i had questions to him will about a particular story. i was with my children at the zoo and i had my youngest, who was 11, but at the time was two. my oldest is now in college. he was 10 or so. i ended uptaking his call. scooter was a busy guy, you couldn't always get ahold of him. i remember sitting in the elephant house for a half-hour interviewing him while keeping an eye out to make sure my little daughter didn't get obsconded by someone. and reason the prosecutors thought -- i told the prosecutors it was never raised, that we did not talk about

valery plame. i later found out, the prosecutors kept saying, we have a source, we know, we are very certain that he talked to you about valerie plame. the reason they thought he spoke to me about it is because that was scooter's testimony. scooter testified that he told me about valerie plame. even though he was put on on trial because he claimed he didn't talk about valerie plame with other people. however, in my case, he testified he did tell me about valerie plame. >> you say he didn't? >> write. >> go back to off the record versus on background. >> yes, for most people that is confusing. >> explain what it is and why would scooter libby be confused about those two or would he? >> well, yeah, scooter told me after my testimony what he said off the record he meant off the

record. >> so what is the difference between off the record and -- >> well, to explain, on the record means you know i could quote you. brian lamb said such and such. 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 wouldn't be any quotation marks there. officials at c-span say such and such. off the record would mean i couldn't write a thing, i might know what is going on at c-span, but i couldn't use any of that information. so i think a lot of people get confused by the off the record thing. like they think off the record means don't quote me. but if someone tells me

something off the record, i can't use it and why would scooter libby, the chief of staff to the vice president of the united states, be on the phone with me for two hours? i once had a two-hour phone call with him. why would he be on the phone call for two hours telling me about the administration's position if i couldn't use any of it. i asked kathy martin, a spokeswoman, i asked her, kathy, he keeps saying this is off the record. no, no, no. he really means background. he doesn't understand what it means. >> how often do you run into a couple things, one, the person you are talking to has no idea about the rules? and two, you say don't go off the record, i'm not going to listen to you. >> well, often people are confused. this was -- it's less of an issue with writing this fact check column.

i'm not necessarily quoting people unless i'm getting their particular perspective, but a lot is my analysis of the facts. when i was covering diplomacy or the white house, there was often confusion. and -- except at higher levels. no one in the state department is ever quoted on the record, except for the secretary of state generally. that's just the way of diplomacy. but it's just -- people are confused about it. >> speaking of that, you did a book on condoleezza rice called "the confidante," did you have a lot of people talking to you off the record or on deep background? >> that book was written essentially on deep background and in fact, i had five hours of interviews with condoleezza rice

herself. >> on deep background? >> yes, on deep background. i mean, that book was written to be, you know, a year there, a fly on the wall. i recreated things that happened behind closed doors. part of it was my frustration as day to day journalist. i would write about things in the here and now. she said, he said. i want to know what was going on behind closed doors. set insight into the policymaking of the bush administration. >> you were on a call-in show and talked about the book a couple of years ago. >> what i was hoping to do with this book was to give people insight into the behind the scenes conversations between secretary rice and president with her aides and other foreign leaders and i wanted to give general leaders, even those who didn't know about foreign policy, insight how it is like

to be at -- on the stage at the center of foreign policy making to -- if you were curious about what happened over the last several years, it was intended to be very readable and easily accessible guide to foreign policy. >> how would you compare -- >> consistency. how do you compare what you wrote with what she's written in her book since then? >> that's interesting. i think it's relatively consistent. there are -- it was very difficult -- recreating scenes is a very difficult journalist enterprise. i would interview six or seven people that were in the room and sometimes they would have different memories about what happened. i tended to find, people

remember best what they said, as opposed to what other people said. so i tend to stick mostly with that. >> how valuable did you find her book? >> well, i gave her book a period review for the post. i thought that what was interesting to me was that i think the true character of condoleezza rice came out in terms of -- she was, you know, she is not a politician, but a political animal working at very high levels of government. and when she was in obvious, at least publicly, she was -- didn't really look back and indicate any regrets about things. now 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're making. now she put it on record in a way people can see. of course she's going to defend their policies, but she delivers a more open look back in a way i hadn't seen her did do before. >> the political rumors started near 2011 she would get picked up as vice presidential candidate for the republican ticket. what are the chances based on what you know about her that you would say yes if she got asked to do that? >> you know, i think increasingly less and less. i think she's moved beyond that. i think that -- she talks about how wonderful it is to be able to look at headlines in the newspaper and not have to worry about that problem. >> people want to again go find the fact checking work that you're doing, what is the easiest way to get to it on the website?

>> type in washingtonpost.com,/factchecker. you can go to the front of the "washington post" website, there is a bar at the top. if you go to politics, a thing will pop up and one option will be fact checker. >> we talked about cincinatti and you have three kids. >> uh-huh. >> their age? >> my oldest is about to turn 19. my middle one is about to turn 15 and my youngest just turned 11. i always joke, my wife only got pregnant in election years. >> you went to brown undergrad and columbia for your master's degree. >> that's right. >> mr. kessler, thank you for joining us. >> you're welcome.

>> i believe that it's important to emphasize that while it's great to have this memorial to his memory and it's great to have a national holiday and it's great to have streets and schools and hospitals named in his honor all over our nation and world, it is also important to not place too much emphasis on martin luther king, the idol, but not enough on the ideals of martin luther king jr. >> take a look at the life and legacy of dr. martin luther king

jr. and race relations today online at the c-span video series. it is what you want, when you want. >> the national action network hosts annual martin luther king day breakfast to honor those who work to continue the legacy of dr. king. participants include record executive barry gorde, epa administrator, lisa jackson. we'll have live coverage beginning at 8 a.m. eastern on c-span 3. >> this morning the hill managing editor bob cu sack and jake sherman look at the week ahead for congress. and we will discuss martin luther king day, recognized as national day of service. and later, the low income housing energy assistance program, we'll talk to mark wolf, executive director