Readers have been filling up our inbox with questions regarding claims being made about McCain’s v.p. pick, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. We found many charges to be false or misleading. Palin didn’t cut funding for special needs education, for instance. Nor was she ever a member of the Alaskan Independence Party. See our article, “Sliming Palin,” for all the details.
FactCheck Posts
Obama’s Iraqi Accounting Oversight
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.
Original Mavericks, Old Bunk
A new McCain ad, “Original Mavericks,” repeats the claim that Gov. Sarah Palin “stopped the Bridge to Nowhere” last year.
We’re here to tell you that no matter how many times she and McCain say it, it’s still misleading. We refer you to our story of last week, GOP Convention Spin, Part II, in which we explain: Congress actually knocked out the earmark for the bridge, which was projected to cost $398 million. The state instead received funds that weren’t designated for specific projects.
Health Care Hyperbole
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,
Welcome to The Wire!
Welcome to The FactCheck Wire. It’s our way of bringing you shorter posts on the latest political bunk. We’ll continue to publish articles, special reports and vidcasts at our Webby Award-winning site, www.FactCheck.org. But now you can also stop by The Wire, Wire.FactCheck.org, for brief reports on who’s recycling old, misleading claims in new, misleading ways or for the latest on discredited chain e-mails that are circulating with new (and equally bogus) references. When the candidates try to distill complicated issues into deceptive sound bites,
GOP YouTube Debate Flubs
The CNN/YouTube debate among Republicans lacked any talking snowmen, but we did note a few false and misleading statements by the candidates.
The Not-Quite Truth About NYC
Giuliani twists facts about crime and liberalism in the Big Apple.
Huckabee’s Fiscal Record
Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee has been hit with criticism over his record on taxes as governor of Arkansas. In recent interviews on Fox News, Huckabee responded to some of these questions, but we found him to be misleading and incorrect on several points:
‘Outrageous’ Exaggerations
Republican presidential candidate John McCain cites three absurd-sounding examples of pork-barrel spending in a recent ad. But he appears to have chosen these three because they’re easy to mock, not because he had significant involvement in removing them from the budget.
Maybe It’s a Trend
Last month we were happy to note the launch of PolitiFact.com, a joint project of the St. Petersburg Times of Florida and Congressional Quarterly of Washington, D.C. Today we welcome The Washington Post‘s new feature, “The Fact Checker,” written by veteran journalist Michael Dobbs with the assistance of chief researcher Alice Crites.
The first four Fact Checker articles find fault with statements by Republican presidential candidates Fred Thompson and Sam Brownback,