Snopes does the mea culpa

Local blog Shock and Awe recently took a fair shot at Snopes.com (the Urban Legends Reference Pages, also SoCal based) for a screed against Michael Moore over his remarks about the secret flights of bin Laden family members after 9/11. Now Snopes' Barbara Mikkelson has apologized publicly on her site.

There's no good excuse for my having gotten vitriolic about Michael Moore as I attempted to address the substance of what he said. I regret having done that because it's just flat-out the wrong thing to do under any circumstance. Michael, if you're out there, please know that I am sorry for having said hurtful things. The world is full enough already with pain and miserableness for me to want to add to it or to want to direct any of it your way.

Good for her. I find Snopes.com generally a bit quick to debunk based on non-definitive info, but think they do good work. Back when it was the San Fernando Valley Folklore Society, the site ran some erroneous debunks of local history legends, but as I recall they graciously fixed them. Update: The commenters at Shock and Awe find Snopes quite pro-Bush.

Shock and Awe also fact-checks Instapundit and posts evidence that Gray Davis's sleazy remark about Arnold's accent wasn't the first from one of the leading recall camps. Update: Liberal blogger Atrios sees a distinction between Davis' barb about Arnold's accent and the McClintock guy's hit on Arnold's English. Atrios says Davis' is worse.

Updated 5:50 p.m.