As long as we’re talking about Sarah Palin’s first v.p. interview, it’s worth noting that she may have stretched the facts a bit when Gibson asked whether she had ever met a foreign head of state.
Gibson: I’m talking about somebody who’s a head of state, who can negotiate for that country. Ever met one?
Palin: I have not and I think if you go back in history and if you ask that question of many vice presidents,
Dipping one more time into last night’s Gibson/Palin interview, we found another misleading claim, this time on climate change. When Gibson accused Palin of flip-flopping her stance on the causes of global warming, Palin denied her position had changed on whether humans are partially responsible. But that doesn’t quite jibe with what she’s said in the past:
Gibson: Do you still believe that global warming is not man-made?
Palin: I believe that man’s activities certainly can be contributing to the issue of global warming,
We published this article on our home page late Friday:
Energetically Wrong
September 12, 2008
Palin says Alaska supplies 20 percent of U.S. energy. Not true. Not even close.
We generally don’t take it upon ourselves to parse ABC’s morning gabfest. But we noticed that when the chat turned to Palin’s record on earmarks McCain got it wrong.
He was correct on one point: Palin vetoed $500 million in spending as governor. She axed over $230 million in state spending in 2007. And the Anchorage Daily News reported that she lopped off another $268 million in spending for 2008.
But then the ladies shot back with this:
Barbara Walters: She also took some earmark spending.
Q: Did Sarah Palin sell the Alaska governor's jet on eBay?
A: The jet was placed on eBay for sale, but it wasn't purchased from the site. The plane was eventually sold through an aircraft broker to businessman Larry Reynolds for less than the asking price and the original cost.
Summary
A new Obama-Biden ad includes misleading claims about McCain and education spending:
It says McCain "voted to cut education funding" and lists five votes. But one was a vote for increased education funding, although for fewer dollars than what Democrats may have wanted. And three others were votes against additional funding, not votes for funding cuts.
The ad says that "McCain’s economic plan gives $200 billion more to special interests while taking money away from public schools."
Summary
The McCain-Palin campaign has released a new TV ad that distorts quotes from the Obama campaign. It takes words out of context to make it sound as though the Democratic ticket is belittling Palin:
The ad says "they said she was doing ‘what she was told.’ " But the Obama adviser who’s being quoted didn’t accuse Palin of meekly following orders. What he actually said is that she made a false claim about Obama’s legislative record and added,
Summary
A McCain-Palin ad has FactCheck.org calling Obama’s attacks on Palin "completely false" and "misleading." That’s what we said, but it wasn’t about Obama.
Our article criticized anonymous e-mail falsehoods and bogus claims about Palin posted around the Internet. We have no evidence that any of the claims we found to be false came from the Obama campaign.
The McCain-Palin ad also twists a quote from a Wall Street Journal columnist. He said the Obama camp had sent a team to Alaska to "dig into her record and background."
Summary
A McCain-Palin campaign ad claims Obama’s "one accomplishment" in the area of education was "legislation to teach comprehensive sex education’ to kindergarteners." But the claim is simply false, and it dates back to Alan Keyes’ failed race against Obama for an open Senate seat in 2004.
Obama, contrary to the ad’s insinuation, does not support explicit sex education for kindergarteners. And the bill, which would have allowed only "age appropriate" material and a no-questions-asked opt-out policy for parents,
Today’s Washington Post has a story about the repetition of deceptive statements in the campaign, leading with McCain’s and Palin’s claim that Palin told Congress “Thanks, but no thanks” for the Bridge to Nowhere. It’s a standard line in their stump speeches, despite the fact that we and a slew of news organizations have explained that it’s extremely misleading, at best. One quote from a GOP strategist: “[T]he bigger truths are that [Palin]’s new,