Check your source. Then check again.

I like Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show. I saw his segment on the “Tree Fighting Ceremony” and enjoyed it. I did think it a bit odd that Congress would be in session on Christmas during the early history of the US, but stranger things have happened.

This provides us with a fine illustration of how sources that we trust can lead us astray. I consider the History Channel, the ACLU website, and an actual published book to be reliable sources; as an individual I wouldn’t go any farther in checking out the “fact”. Perhaps we should hold national TV shows to a higher standard, but I’m afraid that if I had been the fact checker for The Daily Show I would have missed this one.

PolitiFact Rhode Island didn’t miss it. They awarded Stewart, the ACLU and the History channel a collective Pants On Fire after doing additional research and discovering that the claim was completely bogus.

Oops.