Why is the fact-checking operation PolitiFact.com carrying water for the radical left-wing activist group ACORN and attacking Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) for trying to warn the public about the group?

A project of the St. Petersburg Times, the website's "Truth-O-Meter" purports to check and rate "the accuracy of statements by candidates, elected officials, political parties, interest groups, pundits, talk show hosts." After PolitiFact writers research a statement, it then receives one of six ratings on a continuum of truthfulness: True, Mostly True, Half True, Barely True, False and Pants on Fire.

It turns out that those who serve the Truth-O-Meter often have strange ideas about what constitutes truth.

A case in point is how PolitiFact handled Rep. Bachmann's recent claim that the much investigated activist group ACORN was eligible for up to $8.5 billion in federal funding this year.

Like everything having to do with ACORN, it's very complicated.