For much of the last year, Fred Kaplan at Slate has been the go-to guy for debunking misleading GOP attacks on John Kerry’s voting record on defense. He’s partisan, but does the hard work other reporters often don’t to get to the bottom of some complicated legislative issues.

That’s why his article Friday on Bush’s “Wolves” ad is such a puzzle. He didn’t bother to find out which proposal of Kerry’s the ad refers to when it claims “John Kerry and the liberals in Congress voted to slash America’s intelligence operations. By six billion dollars.” Instead, he says Bush may have been referring to one of two different proposals that would have cut intelligence funding. But the ad facts document posted on Bush’s site, which are usually released along with any new ad, explains quite clearly that the ad refers to Kerry’s 1994 omnibus deficit-reduction bill, not a 1995 amendment. Why didn’t Kaplan go look it up?

[Note: The ad is misleading, as Factcheck.org explains.]