Six months before Election Day, and the silly season is here. Both sides are flinging cheap shots, hoping busy voters won't notice that many such accusations are factually challenged.

Take the charge that U.S. Rep. Dave Reichert supports the execrable proposal to drill for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Apparently, the charge is based on Reichert's 2005 vote for a House defense appropriations bill authorizing drilling. The proposal was killed in the Senate.

Left unmentioned is Reichert's vote against the parliamentary maneuver that allowed Arctic drilling into the House defense bill.

Once the pro-drilling faction won the procedural vote, Reichert could not bring himself to oppose an appropriation supporting soldiers in the field. To twist those circumstances into a charge that Reichert favors Arctic drilling is scurrilous.

Reichert also was among Republicans who played a critical role in forcing House leaders to remove Arctic drilling from the House's final 2006 budget bill. Given the top-down, toe-the-line nature of House leadership, that was not easy.

Holding congressional representatives accountable for their votes is our duty in a democracy. But do it with facts, not false charges.