A.P. FACT-CHECK: Secretaries Don’t Pay More Taxes Than Their Bosses. “Even when talking rates rather than aggregate payments, the claims made by Buffett and Obama are nothing more than an urban legend.”

UPDATE: A reader emails: “When Michelle Bachmann repeated an anecdote about the HPV vaccine causing mental retardation as fact she was rightly criticized for not doing her due diligence, and it has hurt her campaign. Now President Obama wants to pass a bill premised on an anecdote that he did not fact-check. What is the difference exactly?”