Here’s an example of some appropriate fact-checking. Samuel Bodman, the current Secretary of Energy, is quoted in today’s New York Times making the absurd claim that the United States is “a small contributor” to the overall global warming problem. But as Elizabeth Rosenthal and Andrew C. Revkin point out, we actually account for a quarter of all greenhouse gas emissions:

At the same time, Secretary of Energy Samuel Bodman rejected the idea of unilateral limits on emissions. “We are a small contributor to the overall, when you look at the rest of the world, so it’s really got to be a global solution,” he said.

The United States, with about 5 percent of the world’s population, contributes about a quarter of greenhouse gas emissions, more than any other country.

That’s, um, not “a small contributor to the overall.”