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Comment by SpicyLemonZest | Hacker News Reader

Ted Kennedy asked the Soviets to help him defeat Reagan, explaining that Soviet-American relations would be critically important in the 1984 election and offering to fly to Moscow to help with their messaging. (Of course, like with Nixon and Trump, many people do dispute this characterization and Kennedy claimed the entire story was made up.)

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That's the first time I've gotten a real answer to this question!

Of course, the available information allows one to believe, not believe, or assign significantly differing severity to these, and I do, but I wasn't aware of this before, so thanks.

...except that it's not true [1]...

[1] https://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2017/jul/18...

See, this is the kind of response that makes people not trust Politifact. This article delivers a more detailed version of exactly what I said. There's direct evidence indicating Kennedy reached out to the KGB, and indirect evidence it was tied to his political ambitions, but there's no ironclad proof and some people believe the evidence was just a complete fabrication. The "false" rating is based entirely on the specific claim that Kennedy sat down for a meeting with them, which I think you'll find I did not make.

Just to be clear, you're saying manofstick's response is at fault here, and that an undiscriminating reader might blame Politifact by association, not that Politifact did wrong here, correct?

Manofstick incorrectly suggested that the Politifact article applied to your post, but it looks to me like Politifact itself did an exemplary job. They evaluated the specific claim that a meeting happened, which was made by a conservative pundit, and found it false, which is consistent with the evidence they present and all other evidence I found in my brief poke through google.

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