Monthly Archives: August 2008
Posted on August 29, 2008 , Corrected on September 3, 2009
Q: Does Barack Obama have Kenyan citizenship? A: No. He held both U.S. and Kenyan citizenship as a child, but lost his Kenyan citizenship automatically on his 23rd birthday.
Posted on August 29, 2008
Summary We checked the accuracy of Obama’s speech accepting the Democratic nomination, and noted the following: Obama said he could “pay for every dime” of his spending and tax cut proposals “by closing corporate loopholes and tax havens.” That’s wrong – his proposed tax increases on upper-income individuals are key …
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Posted on August 27, 2008
Q: Did a Billy Graham team member say Obama should be defeated "to save America"? A: No. The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association says a widely quoted anti-Obama screed wasn't written by anyone associated with the organization.
Posted on August 27, 2008
Summary McCain’s new ad, released on Day 3 of the Democratic National Convention, quotes Obama saying that Iran is a "tiny" country that "doesn’t pose a serious threat." It implies that he fails to see Iran’s threat to Israel. The picture changes dramatically when Obama’s full quotes are considered: Obama …
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Posted on August 26, 2008
Q: Did Obama say we "are no longer a Christian nation"? A: He said we are no longer "just" a Christian nation, but a nation of many other faiths as well. A chain e-mail drops that key word and thus changes the meaning.
Posted on August 25, 2008
Summary Anti-abortion activists accuse Obama of "supporting infanticide," and the National Right to Life Committee says he’s conducted a "four-year effort to cover up his full role in killing legislation to protect born-alive survivors of abortions." Obama says they’re "lying." At issue is Obama’s opposition to Illinois legislation in 2001, …
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Posted on August 22, 2008
Summary An Obama ad in Georgia ties McCain to former Christian Coalition executive Ralph Reed and the Abramoff lobbying scandal. It doesn’t give a full picture. The ad says that Reed "is now raising money for McCain’s campaign." But McCain has said, "I neither seek nor want his support." It …
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Posted on August 22, 2008
Summary On the defensive over the extent of multiple McCain homes, the GOP candidate strikes back. But his TV spot gives an oversimplified and misleading account of how Obama bought his own $1.6 million house in Chicago. The ad says Chicago power broker Tony Rezko got "political favors" including …
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Posted on August 21, 2008
Q: Did McCain lift his cross-in-the-sand anecdote from Solzhenitsyn’s "Gulag Archipelago"? A: There’s no such story in "Archipelago." There is a somewhat similar story attributed to Solzhenitsyn, which we’ve traced back to Rev. Billy Graham by way of former Richard Nixon aide Charles Colson. But that’s not proof that McCain’s …
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Posted on August 21, 2008 , Updated on November 1, 2008; April 27, 2011
Summary In June, the Obama campaign released a digitally scanned image of his birth certificate to quell speculative charges that he might not be a natural-born citizen. But the image prompted more blog-based skepticism about the document’s authenticity. And recently, author Jerome Corsi, whose book attacks Obama, said in a …
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FactCheck Mailbag, Week of March 19-25.
