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A Project of The Annenberg Public Policy Center

Bush Still Fudging the Numbers on Kerry’s Tax Votes

The Bush-Cheney campaign released a television ad August 23 accusing Kerry of casting “98 votes for tax increases.” The number is an improvement on Bush’s earlier claim that Kerry cast 350 votes for “higher taxes,” which we described as inflated. But even the new, reduced total is padded.

Radio Ads Accuse Kerry Of Not Helping Blacks

Summary
The newly established group People of Color United (PCU) began running a series of radio ads August 2 that challenges John Kerry’s record on “helping and hiring Blacks.”
Some of the content is misleading. One ad blames Kerry for ensuring that jobless workers won’t be eligible for an extra 13 weeks of unemployment benefits. It’s true Kerry missed a crucial vote in which an extension of benefits fell just one vote short of Senate passage,

Bush Nails Kerry’s Poor Attendance at Intelligence Committee Hearings

Summary
A Bush-Cheney ’04 ad released Aug. 13 accuses Kerry of being absent for 76% of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s public hearings during the time he served there. The Kerry campaign calls the ad “misleading,” so we checked, and Bush is right.
Official records show Kerry not present for at least 76% of public hearings held during his eight years on the panel, and possibly 78% (the record of one hearing is ambiguous).
Kerry points out that most meetings of the Intelligence Committee are closed and attendance records of those meetings aren’t public,

DNC Ad Says Bush Lost Manufacturing Jobs

The Democratic National Committee released an ad Aug. 6 saying 2.7 million manufacturing jobs had been lost under Bush. That’s true, but ignores the fact that manufacturing jobs started their decline three years before Bush took office.