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 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 Suffragette Jeannette Rankin "Remember, Jeannette Rankin was elected before women could vote. So who says men don't vote for a woman?" --Sen. Hillary Clinton, speech in Missoula, Montana, April 6, 2008. It is always risky for a candidate to make a historical claim without checking their facts. Hillary Clinton was wrong back in March when she insisted that no candidate, from either political party, had ever won the presidency without first winning the Ohio primary. She was earlier mistaken about the date of her own meeting with Martin Luther King Jr., saying it took place in 1963, when it actually happened in 1962. Last weekend, she made a mistake about suffragette history. http://blog.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker/2008/04/_sufragette_jeannette_rankin_r.html http://blog.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker/2008/04/_sufragette_jeannette_rankin_r.html Candidate Watch Tue, 08 Apr 2008 06:00:00 -0400 Greeting ceremony, Tuzla military airport, Bosnia, March 25, 1996. "I remember landing under sniper fire. There was supposed to be some kind of a greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base." --Hillary Clinton, speech at George Washington University, March 17, 2008. Hillary Clinton has been regaling supporters on the campaign trail with hair-raising tales of a trip she made to Bosnia in March 1996. In her retelling, she was sent to places that her husband, President Clinton, could not go because they were "too dangerous." When her account was challenged by one of her traveling companions, the comedian Sinbad, she upped the ante and injected even more drama into the story. In a speech earlier this week, she talked about "landing under sniper fire" and running for safety with "our heads down." http://blog.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker/2008/03/hillarys_balkan_adventures_par.html http://blog.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker/2008/03/hillarys_balkan_adventures_par.html Candidate Watch Fri, 21 Mar 2008 06:00:00 -0400 In Amman, Jordan, March 18, 2008, with Sens. Lieberman and Graham. "As you know, there are al Qaeda operatives that are taken back into Iran, given training as leaders, and they're moving back into Iraq. --John McCain, Hugh Hewitt Radio Show, March 17, 2008. Getting the facts right about Iraq remains a challenge for American politicians five years after the U.S. invasion. Speaking in Amman, Jordan, after a visit to Iraq, Republican candidate John McCain was obliged to correct himself after telling reporters that Iran was training al-Qaeda operatives, who were then moving back into Iraq to engage in terrorist activities. The Arizona senator made this claim at least twice, first in an interview with conservative talk show host Hugh Hewitt and then at a press briefing the following the day. McCain is hardly the first U.S. politician to be tripped up by the complexities of Iraqi and Middle http://blog.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker/2008/03/mccains_foreign_policy_gaffe.html http://blog.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker/2008/03/mccains_foreign_policy_gaffe.html Candidate Watch Thu, 20 Mar 2008 11:38:17 -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 Visiting refugee camp in Macedonia, May 1999. ."There is no doubt that I played a major role in many of the foreign policy decisions." --Hillary Clinton, interview with NPR, March 13, 2008. Hillary Clinton has cited her experiences as First Lady as preparation for those 3 a.m. phone calls that she expects to receive as commander-in-chief. It is true that she traveled to some eighty foreign countries, including troublespots like Northern Ireland, the Balkans, and Rwanda. But did she play a "major role" in the foreign policy decision-making of the Clinton administration, as she has been claiming on the campaign trail? The Obama campaign has accused the New York senator of "gross overstatements." The Clinton camp has responded with "fact sheets" defending her record on northern Ireland and Kosovo. Let's try to sort it all out. http://blog.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker/2008/03/hillarys_balkan_adventures.html http://blog.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker/2008/03/hillarys_balkan_adventures.html Candidate Watch Mon, 17 Mar 2008 14:52:51 -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 Cincinnati, Ohio, Feb. 23, 2008. "Shame on you, Barack Obama. It is time you ran a campaign consistent with your messages in public. That's what I expect from you." --Hillary Clinton news conference, Cincinnati, Ohio, Feb. 23, 2008. Hillary Clinton made a fine show of indignation in Ohio over the weekend, accusing Barack Obama of distorting her positions on NAFTA and universal health care. Both candidates have been trying to convince Ohio voters that they would fight to protect the interests of American workers from "unfair" trade deals such as NAFTA. But neither Obama nor Clinton is being entirely honest on the NAFTA issue. They have both exaggerated their opposition to the 1993 free trade agreement with Mexico and Canada and misstated the other's position. http://blog.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker/2008/02/feuding_over_nafta_1.html http://blog.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker/2008/02/feuding_over_nafta_1.html Candidate Watch Tue, 26 Feb 2008 06:00:00 -0400 Columbus, Ohio, Feb. 19, 2008. "Will the next president have the experience? Or will we risk the confused leadership of an inexperienced candidate who once suggested bombing our ally, Pakistan?" --John McCain, rally in Columbus, Ohio, Feb. 19, 2008. Senator McCain was clearly referring to Barack Obama on Tuesday night when he lambasted an unnamed rival for his lack of experience on military matters. He depicted the Illinois senator as a foreign policy naif who was willing to attack U.S. allies, while at the same time "sitting down without preconditions" to talk with America's enemies. In the original version of his remarks, distributed to reporters, McCain said that Obama had talked about "invading" Pakistan, but this was changed at the last minute to merely "bombing" the country. Has McCain summarized Obama's position accurately? http://blog.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker/2008/02/bombs_away.html http://blog.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker/2008/02/bombs_away.html Candidate Watch Thu, 21 Feb 2008 06:00:00 -0400 Obama on the McCain campaign plane "Senator Obama's words are contradicted by deeds. He said he would -- he pledged to take public financing as now Senator McCain has pledged. He has just reversed that pledge. --Hillary Clinton surrogate Lanny Davis, CNN Late Edition, Feb. 17. 2008. Obama spokesman Bill Burton on Thursday called public financing "an option that we wanted on the table," but said "there is no pledge" to take the money and the spending limitations that come with it. --Associated Press report, Feb. 17, 2008, from Obama website. Did Barack Obama ever commit himself to accept public financing for the general election if the Republicans made a similar pledge? The Obama and Clinton campaigns have been arguing this point for the last few days, and it is now the Fact Checker's turn to weigh in. The issue of public financing has come back to the fore http://blog.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker/2008/02/the_obama_pledge_1.html http://blog.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker/2008/02/the_obama_pledge_1.html Candidate Watch Wed, 20 Feb 2008 06:00:00 -0400 Clearing up nuclear waste "Senator Obama has some questions to answer about his dealings with one of his largest contributors, Exelon, a big nuclear power company. Apparently he cut some deals behind closed doors to protect them from full disclosure in the nuclear industry." --Hillary Clinton, ABC-Politico Forum, Feb. 11, 2008. Hillary Clinton has leveled a serious charge against Barack Obama, her colleague on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. During the ABC-Politico forum earlier this week, she suggested that Obama "cut some deals" on nuclear regulatory legislation with the Exelon company of Illinois, a major nuclear power operator. She implied that the backroom "deal" was somehow connected to contributions to the Obama campaign from Exelon. Both the Obama campaign and Exelon strongly deny these charges, while acknowledging "contacts" between Obama staffers and Exelon officials on the nuclear bill. For the record, Obama has not received any corporate http://blog.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker/2008/02/obamas_backroom_deal.html http://blog.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker/2008/02/obamas_backroom_deal.html Candidate Watch Thu, 14 Feb 2008 18:40:07 -0400 Voting in Alexandria, VA, Feb. 12, 2008.."We have doubled turnout, essentially, in every single contest from what we did four years ago. And we are seeing huge numbers of independents and Republicans flock into the Democratic primary." --Barack Obama, This Week with George Stephanopoulos, Feb. 10, 2008. Barack Obama is claiming that he has vastly expanded the Democratic electorate. The Illinois senator has pointed to his ability to attract "huge numbers" of independents and Republicans as one of his main advantages over Hillary Clinton, who appeals to more traditional Democratic voters. It is true that participation in Democratic primaries has been significantly higher during the current election season than it was back in 2004. But it is leveling off now that the first round of voting is over. And Obama's claim to have "doubled turnout...in every single contest" is inaccurate. http://blog.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker/2008/02/measuring_the_obama_effect_1.html http://blog.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker/2008/02/measuring_the_obama_effect_1.html Candidate Watch Wed, 13 Feb 2008 06:00:00 -0400