McCain and Palin close their campaign with a new set of dubious attacks.
FactCheck.org, 3 Nov

In the final week, the McCain-Palin campaign unleashed some all-new misleading attacks on Obama:

• McCain strained to tie Obama to a Palestinian professor whose views on Israel are quite different from Obama's.

• McCain and Palin both distorted a seven-and-a-half-year-old radio interview with Obama concerning the court system and civil rights.

• McCain and the GOP ran ads claiming Obama's military budget would mean huge job cuts in Virginia, despite Obama's proposal to increase the size of the Army and Marine Corps Ð and McCain's own calls for ending wasteful weapons programs.

Fact check: Obama, Biden 'creeping down' on who gets tax cuts?
CNN, 21 Oct

The Verdict: False. What McCain is doing here, in part, is comparing apples and oranges. He compares two different aspects of Obama's tax plan as if they were the same. And Biden never said people making less than $150,000 are the "only" people who would get a tax cut under Obama's policies.

Fact check: Is Columbia professor Khalidi a 'political ally' of Barack Obama?
CNN, 21 Oct

The Verdict: Misleading. While Khalidi eight years ago hosted a political fund-raiser for Obama, the two men strongly disagree over the Israeli-Palestinian issue and there's no evidence of a continuing political relationship.

Fact check: Was McCain once against Bush tax cuts?
CNN, 21 Oct

The Verdict: True. As Obama states, McCain did say he could not support President Bush's tax cuts in 2001, saying it was because they went to the wealthy at the expense of the middle class. He later supported extending them, saying the economy made them feasible at that later time.

Did Obama vote against care for children born during abortions?
CNN, 16 Oct

Verdict: Misleading. Obama voted against the legislation, but said doing so was not a vote against caring for the children, because there was already an Illinois law that required treating babies born alive during abortions.

Real Deal on 'Joe the Plumber' Reveals New Slant
CNN, 6 Oct

His full name is Samuel J. Wurzelbacher. And he owes back taxes, too, public records show. The premise of his complaint to Mr. Obama about taxes may also be flawed, according to tax analysts. Contrary to what Mr. Wurzelbacher asserted and Mr. McCain echoed, neither his personal taxes nor those of the business where he works are likely to rise if Mr. Obama's tax plan were to go into effect, they said.

Sorting out fact and fiction in the presidential candidates' final debate.
FactCheck.org, 16 Oct

Spin and hype were apparent, once again, at the third and final debate between McCain and Obama:

McCain claimed the liberal group ACORN "is now on the verge of maybe perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in voter history... maybe destroying the fabric of democracy." In fact, a Republican prosecutor said of the first and biggest ACORN fraud case: "[T]his scheme was not intended to permit illegal voting." He said $8-an-hour workers turned in made-up voter registration forms rather than doing what ACORN paid them to do.

McCain said "Joe the plumber" faced "much higher taxes" under Obama's tax plan and would pay a fine under Obama's health care plan if he failed to provide coverage for his workers. But Ohio plumber Joe Wurzelbacher would pay higher taxes only if the business he says he wants to buy puts his income over $200,000 a year, and his small business would be exempt from Obama's requirement to provide coverage for workers.

Update Oct. 16: ABC News reported the morning after the debate that Wurzelbacher admitted to a reporter that he won't actually make enough from his new plumbing business to pay Obama's higher tax rates. ABC said his admission "would seem to indicate that he would be eligible for an Obama tax cut."

Obama wants to fine employers? 13 Oct

VIDEO: Alina Cho checks out John McCain's claims that Barack Obama wants to fine employers who don't offer insurance.

How Valid is Palin's Abortion Attack on Obama?
CNN, 13 Oct

In each case, Palin's words were carefully chosen for maximum effect, without employing any outright falsehoods. Taken in isolation, however, her statements were also quite misleading, as they suggested that Obama supported the death of babies after birth who had a chance of survival.

The reality is very different. Between 2001 and '03, Obama repeatedly voted to oppose bills in the Illinois senate that would have declared, simply, that any child "born alive" as a result of an abortion shall be protected as a "human person" under the law. The bills broadly defined a live birth as any child outside the mother who shows voluntary movement, breathes or has a beating heart, among other attributes. More...

'Lying' About Being Liberal?
FactCheck.org, 13 Oct

A McCain-Palin ad twists Obama's words.

A McCain-Palin ad claims Obama was rated the "most liberal" U.S. senator, which was true only for 2007 but not for his entire Senate career. He was rated 10th and 16th in his two previous years.

The ad also misquotes Obama. It says he defended himself against the "most liberal" rating by saying "they're not telling the truth" and "folks are lying." Actually, Obama said McCain and Palin weren't truthful about the "Bridge to Nowhere," and he was correct. And his "folks are lying" remark referred to anti-abortion groups that accuse him of favoring "infanticide" because of votes he cast in the Illinois state Senate.

After twisting Obama's words, the ad accuses him of being "not presidential." More...

Drilling Down on the Facts in McCain's Speech
New York Times, 6 Oct

Many of [McCain's] charges relating to the economic meltdown, taxation and health care contained inaccuracies or exaggerations of his own position or Mr. Obama's.

For instance, Mr. McCain claimed that "as recently as September of last year," Mr. Obama "said that subprime loans had been, quote 'a good idea.'" But that quote is taken out of context and reverses the intent of Mr. Obama's remarks, which were clearly meant primarily as a criticism of practices on Wall Street.

"Obama will raise taxes"
FactCheck.org, 4 Oct

In what has become an ongoing theme, the McCain-Palin campaign has released yet another ad that makes false claims about Barack Obama's tax plan.

As we keep saying, Obama says he'll raise income taxes and capital gains taxes only for couples earning more than $250,000 per year or singles making over $200,000. He has proposed no plans to raise taxes on either home heating oil or electricity.

Is Obama 'palling around with terrorists'?
CNN, 6 Oct

Verdict: False. There is no indication that Ayers and Obama are now "palling around," or that they have had an ongoing relationship in the past three years. Also, there is nothing to suggest that Ayers is now involved in terrorist activity or that other Obama associates are.

Sarah Palin's Alaskonomics
TIME: 9 Sep

Spare us, please, any talk about how she is a tough fiscal conservative.

Palin has continued to repeat the already exposed lie that she said "No, thanks" to the famous "bridge to nowhere" (McCain's favorite example of wasteful federal spending). In fact, she said "Yes, please" until the project became a symbol and political albatross.

Back to reality. Of the 50 states, Alaska ranks No. 1 in taxes per resident and No. 1 in spending per resident. Its tax burden per resident is 2 1/2 times the national average; its spending, more than double.