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A Project of The Annenberg Public Policy Center

Person: Barack Obama

That’s ‘Former Lobbyist’ to you

September 16, 2008

The Obama campaign has been pushing a connection between John McCain and lobbyists — as in saying that McCain has them working on his campaign. This ad, for instance, claims that “John McCain’s chief adviser lobbies for oil companies” and his “campaign manager lobbies for corporations outsourcing American jobs.” But neither of those campaign staffers are currently lobbyists – a McCain campaign conflict-of-interest policy doesn’t allow it.

The ad refers to campaign manager Rick Davis, who formerly lobbied for telecommunications companies and Airborne Express.

Corsi’s Dull Hatchet

September 15, 2008

Summary
Despite its place near the top of The New York Times’ nonfiction bestseller list, where it has been riding high for the past six weeks, Jerome Corsi’s "The Obama Nation" is not a reliable source of facts about Obama. Corsi cites opinion columns and unsourced, anonymous blogs as if they were evidence of factual claims. Where he does cite legitimate news sources, he frequently distorts the facts. In some cases, Corsi simply ignores readily accessible information when it conflicts with his arguments.

Have You Looked At Obama’s “Not Exactlys?”

September 12, 2008

Not exactly.
Actually, we’ve looked at it rather a lot. We just haven’t written about it. Until now.
You surely know the e-mail we’re talking about. It’s one of the more popular chain e-mails that our readers keep sending our way. You know, the one that starts out with

Selma Got Me Born — NOT EXACTLY…

That’s actually the nice version. Some trade “LIAR” for “NOT EXACTLY.” Pretty much all the versions go on to list a whole bunch of other supposedly false Obama claims.

School Funding Misleads

September 11, 2008

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."

Belittling Palin?

September 11, 2008

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,

McCain-Palin Distorts Our Finding

September 10, 2008

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."

Off Base on Sex Ed

September 10, 2008

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,

Pigs and Pit Bulls

September 10, 2008

 The McCain camp has put out a Web ad painting Obama as “ready to smear.”

McCain ad, “Lipstick”
[Title: Sarah Palin on: Sarah Palin]
Palin: Do you know they say, the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull? Lipstick.
[Title: Barack Obama on: Sarah Palin]
Obama: But you know, you can put lipstick on a pig, it’s still a pig.
[Title: Katie Couric on: This election]
Couric: One of the great lessons of that campaign is the continued and accepted role of sexism in American life.

Obama’s Iraqi Accounting Oversight

September 9, 2008

Fox News commentator Bill O’Reilly conducted a sit-down interview with Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama that is airing in four installments. (Parts three and four of the interview will air tonight and tomorrow night.)
The first segment was broadcast Thursday, and we noticed an accounting error on Obama’s part. When speaking about how much the U.S. is spending in Iraq, Obama added, “They’ve got $79 billion,” alluding to Iraq’s financial deposits and budget surplus. But that’s false.

Health Care Hyperbole

September 9, 2008

Obviously, Obama and McCain don’t see eye-to-eye on health care, and their plans are markedly different. But we’ve heard Obama misrepresenting some aspects of McCain’s proposal in stump speeches. On Aug. 21 in Chester, Va., he said:

Obama, Aug. 21: John McCain doesn’t have a health care plan other than to eliminate the tax deduction for employers for paying health care premiums. And in return, giving $5,000 tax credits to each individual family. Now, that sounds pretty good,