http://blog.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker/ en-us Copyright 2008 Tue, 06 May 2008 06:00:00 -0400 http://www.movabletype.org/?v=3.36 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss The gasoline wars between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have been heating up to coincide with the Indiana and North Carolina primaries. The airwaves are full of charges and counter-charges over Clinton's plan for a three month gas holiday between Memorial Day and Labor Day. Obama says the idea is simply an election day "gimmick"; Clinton claims her plan will save hard-working American families $8 billion a year. An examination of the fine print in the latest round of TV ads shows that both sides have been stretching the facts. http://blog.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker/2008/05/gas_tax_wars.html http://blog.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker/2008/05/gas_tax_wars.html Candidate Watch Tue, 06 May 2008 06:00:00 -0400 Has Hamas endorsed Obama? "It's just a fact that Hamas, apparently their North American spokesperson, is endorsing Senator Obama. People can make their own judgment from that." --Sen. John McCain, conference call with bloggers, April 25, 2008. "What Senator McCain has said repeatedly is that these candidates cannot be held accountable for all the views of people who endorse them or people who befriend them...When somebody endorses you or befriends you, they're embracing your views, the candidates' views, not the other way around." --McCain senior adviser Charlie Black, interview with MSNBC. March 14, 2008. The McCain campaign has been making a lot of Sen. Barack Obama's friends and acquaintances recently, seeking to tar the Illinois senator with the opinions of his former pastor Jeremiah Wright, the former Weather Underground member Bill Ayers, and even the radical Islamic group Hamas. The guilt-by-association claims seem to run counter to McCain's own http://blog.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker/2008/05/guilt_by_association.html http://blog.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker/2008/05/guilt_by_association.html Candidate Watch Thu, 01 May 2008 06:00:00 -0400 Gas prices hit $4 a gallon. "Barack Obama's argument that immediately reducing gas prices won't help American commuters is shockingly naive and out of touch...Gas tax relief worked when Barack Obama voted for it in the Illinois legislature, and it would work nationally now." --Republican National Committee spokesman Alex Conant, April 28, 2008. Both John McCain and Hillary Clinton have called for a "gas tax holiday" this summer to offer commuters and vacationers some release from spiraling gas prices. They have urged Congress to suspend the 18.4 cent federal gas tax and 24.4 cent diesel tax between Memorial Day and Labor Day, a step that could cost the government about $10 billion in revenues. The only major candidate to oppose the idea is Barack Obama, who voted for a similar measure in Illinois eight years ago. Obama now says that consumers will derive little benefit from the tax moratorium. http://blog.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker/2008/04/a_holiday_from_gas_prices.html http://blog.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker/2008/04/a_holiday_from_gas_prices.html Candidate Watch Tue, 29 Apr 2008 06:00:00 -0400 Elton John fundraiser, April 9, 2008. "Peter Daou, Hillary Clinton's internet director, confirms that, by midnight last night, the campaign had received more than $10 million in web-based contributions [since the Pennsylvania primary]. Not pledges. Not promises. But $10 million transferred directly from the credit and debit cards of about 100,000 donors. --Mark Ambinder blog, April 23, 2008. A spat has broken out in the blogosphere over whether the Clinton campaign's claims to have raised $10 million since Tuesday are inflated. Without direct access to the Clinton fund-raising spreadsheets, it is impossible to adjudicate this dispute. But what about past claims, such as the $4 million allegedly raised by the campaign the day after Super Tuesday? http://blog.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker/2008/04/tracking_the_fundraisers.html http://blog.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker/2008/04/tracking_the_fundraisers.html Candidate Watch Fri, 25 Apr 2008 06:00:00 -0400 Montgomery County Community College, Pa., April 21, 2008. "We've seen just a skyrocketing autism rate. Some people are suspicious that it's connected to the vaccines. This person included. The science right now is inconclusive, but we have to research it." --Barack Obama, Pennsylvania Rally, April 21, 2008. "It's indisputable that (autism) is on the rise among children, the question is what's causing it. And we go back and forth and there's strong evidence that indicates it's got to do with a preservative in vaccines." --John McCain, Texas town hall meeting, February 29, 2008. SEE UPDATE BELOW Two leading presidential candidates have now wandered into an exceptionally emotional medical debate in which they have no known scientific expertise. Several advocacy groups and families of children with autism are embroiled in a long-running court case seeking billions of dollars in damages because of alleged links between autism and vaccines given to http://blog.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker/2008/04/dr_obama_and_dr_mccain.html http://blog.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker/2008/04/dr_obama_and_dr_mccain.html Candidate Watch Tue, 22 Apr 2008 06:00:00 -0400 9:50 p.m. Both the McCain and Clinton campaigns are accusing Obama of giving a misleading answer to Charlie Gibson about whether his handwriting was on a questionnaire that reported him as favoring a complete ban on handguns. The Obama campaign has said that a staffer "mischaracterized" the senator's views while filling up answers to the questionnaire without Obama's input. You can see the questionnaire here. Obama's handwriting is on the first page, but tonight he said flatly, "no, my writing was not on that particular questionnaire." There were, in fact, two versions of the questionnaire, filed under Obama's name in 1996 when he was running for the Illinois State Senate. One version has Obama's handwriting on it, one does not. Obama spokesman Tommy Vietor subsequently told Politico that the senator scribbled a few notes on the first page of the questionnaire, but did not read the response to the question http://blog.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker/2008/04/pennsylvania_democratic_debate.html http://blog.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker/2008/04/pennsylvania_democratic_debate.html Live Fact Check Wed, 16 Apr 2008 20:02:37 -0400 Antoin Rezko and Stuart Levine. "Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama was again drawn into Tony Rezko's corruption trial on Monday, when the prosecution's star witness placed Obama at a party for an Iraqi-born billionaire who was later barred entry to the United States." --Chicago Sun-Times, April 15, 2008. Proof of a meeting between Barack Obama and the Iraqi-born billionaire, Nadhmi Auchi, would be a blow for the Illinois senator's presidential campaign. Obama has repeatedly said that he cannot recollect any meeting with Auchi, a London-based businessman who is appealing a conviction for fraud in France. Auchi was a business contact of Antoin Rezko, a former Chicago developer and Obama fundraiser currently on trial for corruption. With a fortune estimated at more than $5 billion, Auchi is one of the world's richest men. According to U.S. prosecutors, Rezko lobbied the U.S. government to get a visa for Auchi after he http://blog.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker/2008/04/obamas_rezko_connection.html http://blog.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker/2008/04/obamas_rezko_connection.html Candidate Watch Wed, 16 Apr 2008 06:00:00 -0400 Molly's gas station, Manheim, Pa., March 31, 2008. "What Senator Obama does not tell you is that..he has taken roughly $213,000 from the employees of oil companies. The senator has not been upfront, open, and honest with the people of Pennsylvania with respect to this ad. He does not tell us that two of his bundlers are top executives of oil companies." --Clinton campaign conference call, April 9, 2008. The Obama and Clinton campaigns have got into a rather petty dispute over a television ad that the Illinois senator is running in Pennsylvania. The Clinton camp says that Obama has not been "upfront" about the amount of financial support that he receives from oil company employees and executives. The Clintonites have a valid point. On the other hand, they are conveniently overlooking the even larger financial contributions to their candidate from representatives of the oil and gas sector. http://blog.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker/2008/04/the_pot_and_the_kettle.html http://blog.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker/2008/04/the_pot_and_the_kettle.html Candidate Watch Fri, 11 Apr 2008 06:00:00 -0400 Testifying to Congress, April 8, 2008. "We haven't turned any corners. We haven't seen any lights at the end of the tunnel." --Gen. David Petraeus. "The reality is, it is hard in Iraq. And there are no light switches to throw that are going to go dark to light." --Ambassador Ryan Crocker. The semi-annual Congressional dog and pony show on Iraq provided the three remaining presidential candidates an opportunity to explain how they will clean up the mess left behind by George W. Bush, beginning in January 2009. In their different ways, John McCain, Hillary Rodham Clinton, and Barack Obama have all tried to convince American voters that their Iraq policy will produce peace with honor. All three candidates are spinning a very grim reality to make their preferred course of action seem easier and less painful than it actually is. Let us look at each of their positions http://blog.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker/2008/04/still_no_light_at_the_end_of_t.html http://blog.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker/2008/04/still_no_light_at_the_end_of_t.html Candidate Watch Wed, 09 Apr 2008 13:55:00 -0400 Heading to Iraq, March 17, 2008 "You know, John McCain wants to continue a war in Iraq perhaps as long as 100 years." --Sen. Barack Obama, Lancaster, PA, Town Hall meeting, March 31, 2008. The charge that John McCain wants to wage a "100-year war" in Iraq has become a recurring theme of the Obama campaign. The candidate has made the claim several times on the campaign trail, as has Susan Rice, one of his top foreign policy advisers. McCain has never talked about wanting a 100-year war in Iraq. But he has talked about a prolonged U.S. military presence in Iraq, similar to the stationing of U.S. troops in Germany after World War II or in Korea after the Korean war. http://blog.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker/2008/04/mccains_100year_war.html http://blog.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker/2008/04/mccains_100year_war.html Candidate Watch Wed, 02 Apr 2008 06:00:00 -0400 Teaching at University of Chicago Law School. "Sen. Obama has often referred to himself as 'a constitutional law professor' out on the campaign trail. He never held any such title. And I think anyone, if you ask anyone in academia the distinction between a professor who has tenure and an instructor that does not...you'll get quite an emotional response." --Clinton spokesman Phil Singer. The Clinton campaign has been making a lot of the fact that some of Barack Obama's campaign literature describes the Land-of-Lincolner as a former "law professor" at the University of Chicago when in fact he was a senior lecturer. This brings to mind Henry Kissinger's famous crack about academic politics being "so vicious because the stakes are so small." It is true, as the Clinton spokesman says, that academics are very protective of their titles. But was Obama out of line when he called himself a http://blog.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker/2008/04/professor_obama.html http://blog.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker/2008/04/professor_obama.html Candidate Watch Tue, 01 Apr 2008 06:00:00 -0400 Barack Obama, aged 10, with his father. "What happened in Selma, Alabama and Birmingham also stirred the conscience of the nation. It worried folks in the White House who said, "You know, we're battling Communism. How are we going to win hearts and minds all across the world? If right here in our own country, John, we're not observing the ideals set fort in our Constitution, we might be accused of being hypocrites." So the Kennedys decided we're going to do an air lift. We're going to go to Africa and start bringing young Africans over to this country and give them scholarships to study so they can learn what a wonderful country America is. This young man named Barack Obama got one of those tickets and came over to this country. He met this woman whose great great-great-great-grandfather had owned slaves; but she had a good idea there http://blog.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker/2008/03/obamas_camelot_connection.html http://blog.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker/2008/03/obamas_camelot_connection.html Candidate Watch Mon, 31 Mar 2008 06:00:00 -0400 With Rev. Jeremiah Wright, March 2005. "The statements that Rev. Wright made that are the cause of this controversy were not statements I personally heard him preach while I sat in the pews of Trinity." --Barack Obama posting on Huffington Post, March 14, 2008. In the speech on race that he delivered in Philadelphia on Tuesday, Barack Obama effectively conceded that he had been less than fully candid in his earlier remarks about Jeremiah Wright. He was quoted last year as saying that he did not think that his church was "particularly controversial." In Tuesday's speech, he acknowledged that he had sat in church while Wright made "remarks that could be considered controversial." Some commentators have sought to further challenge Obama's veracity by citing a news report claiming that he attended a service at Trinity United Church of Christ on July 22, 2007 at which Wright made some incendiary http://blog.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker/2008/03/what_did_he_hearand_when_did_h.html http://blog.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker/2008/03/what_did_he_hearand_when_did_h.html Candidate Watch Wed, 19 Mar 2008 06:00:00 -0400 Samantha Power, March 10, 2008. Barack Obama "will, of course, not rely on some plan that he's crafted as a presidential candidate or a U.S. Senator. He will rely upon a plan -- an operational plan -- that he pulls together in consultation with people who are on the ground to whom he doesn't have daily access now...It would be the height of ideology to sort of say, 'Well, I said it, therefore I'm going to impose it on whatever reality greets me.'" --Samantha Power, former Obama adviser, BBC interview, March 6, 2008. Returning to Washington after a five-day vacation, I am catching up on the Samantha Power resignation, the liaisons dangereuses of Eliot Spitzer, the Mississippi primary, the Geraldine Ferraro brouhaha, and much debate about who is best qualified to answer the phone at 3 a.m. My quick take on all this: next to extra-marital sex, speaking your http://blog.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker/2008/03/truthtelling_on_iraq.html http://blog.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker/2008/03/truthtelling_on_iraq.html Candidate Watch Thu, 13 Mar 2008 13:25:59 -0400 Canvassing votes in Columbus, Ohio, March 4, 2008 "I don't just criticize [NAFTA]. I don't have my campaign go tell a foreign government behind closed doors: `That's just politics. Don't pay attention to it'" --Hillary Clinton, Toledo, Ohio, March 3, 2008. Predictably enough, the Clinton campaign is using the phrase "NAFTA-gate" to describe a newly-disclosed memo suggesting that Barack Obama may be exaggerating his opposition to the 1993 trade agreement with Canada and Mexico. As voters go to the polls in economically depressed Ohio, the Clintonistas obviously have an interest in fanning the flames of the controversy by accusing Obama of telling the voters one thing--and telling a foreign government something different. In addition to Clinton's own attacks on her rival, her campaign also put up a radio ad in Ohio putting the most negative spin possible on the Feb. 8 meeting between a senior Obama staffer, Austan Goolsbee, http://blog.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker/2008/03/naftagate_part_ii.html http://blog.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker/2008/03/naftagate_part_ii.html Candidate Watch Tue, 04 Mar 2008 11:46:28 -0400