http://blog.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker/ en-us Copyright 2008 Thu, 07 Feb 2008 06:00:00 -0400 http://www.movabletype.org/?v=3.2 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Even Bill Clinton says, [Hillary] "and John McCain are very close." Don't we need a leader who agrees with conservatives?" --"Very Close," Web ad for Mitt Romney. Mitt Romney has a new ad circulating on the web that attempts to demonstrate that there is not much difference politically between John McCain and Hillary Clinton. The sub-text of the ad, available on YouTube, is that Republican voters should stick with the former Massachusetts governor, as "the full spectrum conservative." The web ad omits a few pertinent areas where McCain and Clinton are poles apart, such as the Iraq war (McCain is ready to stay in Iraq "a hundred years," Clinton wants to start withdrawing troops within 60 days of becoming president) and whether or not to extend the Bush tax cuts (McCain says yes, Clinton says no.) It distorts McCain's positions on other issues as well. Let's look at the http://blog.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker/2008/02/no_difference_between_clinton.html http://blog.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker/2008/02/no_difference_between_clinton.html Ad Watch Thu, 07 Feb 2008 06:00:00 -0400 Romney rally, Panama City, FL, Jan. 24 It is an old advertising trick: select a few words from an article by a recognized media outlet and use them to promote your product and denigrate your opponent. Ruthlessly eliminate anything in the article that is at odds with the line that you are peddling. Use the quote to make it appear that the media outlet has endorsed your point of view. The art of the partial or distorted quote is alive and well in the 2008 presidential campaign. I would like to make "Partial Quote Alert" a regular feature of the Fact Checker blog. To get us going, here are some recent examples of the genre from the campaign trail, complete with omitted words (in italics) that provide a rather different spin on the candidate. If you come across more examples, please pass them along, and I will add them http://blog.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker/2008/01/partial_quote_alert.html http://blog.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker/2008/01/partial_quote_alert.html Ad Watch Tue, 29 Jan 2008 06:00:00 -0400 The anti-war group Moveon.org attacked General David Petraeus in a September 10 full-page advertisement in the New York Times, accusing him of being "constantly at war with the facts." Here is an annotated fact check of MoveOn.org's broadside against Petraeus. MoveOn.org claims are in yellow; our comments in regular type. The Facts General Petraeus is a military man constantly at war with the facts. While some of the facts and statistics cited by General Petraeus can legitimately be questioned and debated, MoveOn.org offers only partial support for such a sweeping accusation. The data they do cite is itself open to challenge. In 2004, just before the election, he said there was "tangible progress" in Iraq and that "Iraqi leaders are stepping forward." With hindsight, Petraeus was overly optimistic in his 2004 assessment. But does this statement support MoveOn.org's indictment against him? A claim of "tangible progress" was not totally http://blog.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker/2007/09/general_betray_us.html http://blog.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker/2007/09/general_betray_us.html Ad Watch Thu, 20 Sep 2007 09:00:13 -0400