I was going to write this long and in depth article about how Obama actually does know the difference between infanticide and abortion (and is in fact pro-infanticide), but after I did all my research, I found that the original article I read on the topic had all the facts right.
Though through the course of my research, I have found some pretty annoying debate, and some of it comes from the folks I count amongst my fans and friends. What's more is that now we're approaching the conventions, we're slouching closer to the old Red-Blue wars of four years past, and we all know what that means: everyone's a political expert.
As I've mentioned before, the problem is even worse for those of us in the tech punditry business. Because we're experts in tech, we think we're experts in everything. Truth is, though that very few people are as well read as they try to sound. People love their ideology, and they love their political party. They'll lie for their party the way they wouldn't even lie for their children.
Take for instance a Washington Post graph that showed the differences between the McCain and the Obama tax plans. I won't go into the major flaws here on how they presented the data, but I will say that I've read the tax plans on both sides as they're presented on the candidate websites. I make a well reasoned argument as to why the graph is misleading, and suddenly I've got every Obama-nut and his grandma telling me I'm wrong.
No facts. No support. Just that I'm wrong.
I believe in religion, the word for that is Zealotry.
The problem comes in here: I like most of these folks, as they're generally reasonable and intelligent people when they're not talking about politics. Do I just avoid them entirely for the next three months? Do I risk royally pissing them off and letting them know exactly what sort of retards they are?
I don't know. You tell me.