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A Project of The Annenberg Public Policy Center

Stories by Eugene Kiely

Former Director, FactCheck.org

Car + Ditch=Blame

Car + Ditch=Blame
March 23, 2012

We’ve already written about the 17-minute Obama campaign film. But did you notice how narrator Tom Hanks portrays the president as being above finger-pointing politics, claiming Obama “would not dwell in blame” for inheriting a huge economic mess? We did.
Hanks, “The Road We’ve Traveled”: Not since the days of Franklin Roosevelt had so much fallen on the shoulders of one president. And when he faced his country, who looked to him for answers, he would not dwell in blame or dreamy idealism.

Axelrod’s Hazy Memory of 2008

Axelrod’s Hazy Memory of 2008
March 7, 2012

David Axelrod’s zeal to help President Obama win reelection has clouded his memory. In depicting the 2012 GOP primary as unusually nasty and harmful to the party’s eventual nominee, Obama’s senior campaign adviser falsely claimed “we mentioned Hillary Clinton twice in our advertising” during the 2008 campaign. With little effort, we found 10 such ads — five times what Axelrod claimed.
In a March 6 interview with NBC’s Brian Williams, Axelrod expressed shock at this year’s GOP primary nastiness and recalled with fondness (and fallacy) the gentleness of the 2008 Democratic nominating process.

Obama’s ‘Smidgen’ of Truth on Energy Efficiency

Obama’s ‘Smidgen’ of Truth on Energy Efficiency
March 3, 2012

President Obama criticized “the other side” for failing to provide “a smidgen of an idea” for energy efficiency. But it turns out, there is only a smidgen of truth to the president’s criticism.
The president was speaking in New York at a March 1 fundraising event when he brought up his energy policies — which have come under attack by Republicans of late because of rising gasoline prices. Obama said: “You don’t hear just a smidgen of an idea from the other side about how we might want to enhance energy efficiency,

Obama White House ‘Full of Wall Street Executives’?

Obama White House ‘Full of Wall Street Executives’?
February 29, 2012

A conservative group exaggerates the number of “Wall Street executives” in the Obama White House. In a major TV ad buy, the American Future Fund lists 27 people it claims are part of “Obama’s Wall Street Inner Circle.” But the ad is either flat wrong or greatly exaggerated in more than half of those cases. Among the most laughable examples we found of “Wall Street executives” in Obama’s “inner circle”:

A “White House fellow,” class of 2009-2010,

Santorum Exaggerates Dropout Rate

Santorum Exaggerates Dropout Rate
February 21, 2012

Rick Santorum incorrectly claimed that “one of three children drop out of school” in the United States. The 2009 dropout rate was 8.1 percent — slightly higher than it was in 2008, but down significantly from the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s and even early 2000s, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.
It’s true that a higher percentage of students in the U.S. fail to graduate on time — about 23 percent in the 2009-10 school year.