RENEE MONTAGNE, host:
Time now for your comments.
The morning after the president delivered his annual State of the Union, we delivered our annual fact check of the president's address.
Thank you, NPR, writes Mona Paradi(ph) of Clinton, New York. Finally I was able to listen to a news piece that actually analyzed a politician's words for accuracy. I hope this is an approach you will use throughout this election year.
Listener Jay Carlson(ph) was quite a bit less enthusiastic. The title you gave was fact-checking, Carlson writes. A better title would be We Really Don't Like President Bush. You refuted virtually every claim from the president with general statements. Where you found nothing wrong with what the president said, your quote "analysis" glossed this over and pointed to something else.
And now some fact-checking of ourselves. On Monday we said American University, where Senator Ted Kennedy endorsed Barack Obama, was the same place where President John F. Kennedy announced the Peace Corps. Matthew Grockoff(ph) of Ann Arbor, Michigan pointed out that's wrong. He writes: It's bad enough that our auto industry is downsizing. Please don't downsize our history as well.
Our apologies, Wolverines. The University of Michigan was where JFK launched the Peace Corp during a middle of the night speech in 1960.
President JOHN F. KENNEDY: How many of you who are going to be doctors are willing to spend your days in Ghana? Technicians or engineers, how many of you are willing to work in the Foreign Service and spend your lives traveling around the world?
MONTAGNE: We also got comments this week about Frank Deford's preview of the Super Bowl, performed as a Shakespearean drama.
FRANK DEFORD: Yea, the true giants, these peerless monsters, call themselves Patriots, e'en though they give shame to that sweet address, trafficking more as traitors, scoundrels in video deceit...
MONTAGNE: Those immortal words inspired some of you to write in with verse of your own, including Pamela Jennings(ph) of Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Ms. PAMELA JENNINGS (Caller): Frank Deford verily thou didst (unintelligible) me dead in the tracks of my most hurried morning ablutions with thine captivating tale of the great, nay, super tourney anon of the hallowed pigskin. Ye, mine admiration for thy wit doth wax brighter.
MONTAGNE: Robert Krulwich's tale about how people hear music in their heads even when they're deaf got Bea Canter(ph) of Midlothian, Virginia thinking. I have always love Beethoven, she writes. And I've always felt such pity. How could someone who loves music so much survive hearing loss? But maybe he did hear music inside his head. Maybe that famous scowl was not frustration but concentration. He was capturing the compositions to write down.
(Soundbite of music)
MONTAGNE: If you hear something you want to weight in on, we hope you'll write. Go to npr.org and click on the button that says Contact Us.