McCain Lies Independently Confirmed

You know things are bad when Karl Rove says a fellow Republican is playing fast and loose with the truth. Rove, the political strategist President Bush called "the architect" of his election victories, and a practitioner of sometimes scurrilous attack politics himself, commented on Fox News that, "McCain has gone too far in some of his ads-similarly gone one step too far, and sort of attributing to Obama things that are, you know, beyond the 100 percent truth test." You can read more about it here.

My blog on September 5, "Tapestry of Lies," called attention to the large number of untruths the McCain campaign was spinning about its own record and Barack Obama's. Reader Webfoot suggested I go to FactCheck.org to get a nonpartisan, unbiased accounting of the campaign claims made by both sides. That was an excellent idea. You can see FactCheck for yourself here.

For the record, FactCheck finds John McCain, Sarah Palin and their principal convention surrogates responsible for fifteen such lies and distortions. It finds the Obama campaign responsible for one. Here they are, so you can judge for yourself the importance of the misperceptions that are being fostered. And go to the FactCheck link above if you want confirmation of what you read here.

John McCain himself: McCain's own lies include, at the Republican convention: 1. The claim that Obama's health plan burdens small business. In fact it exempts small business. 2. Said that Obama voted for corporate welfare for oil companies. The truth is Obama voted to raise taxes on oil companies by $300 million. 3. Says his own plan encourages a switch to "wind, tidal and solar" energy. The truth is, his energy plan devotes not $1 to these sources.

Exagerrations included, 4. Claimed that Alaska, under Palin, produces 20% of U.S. energy. In fact, it produces 14% of the oil and 3.5% of total energy. 5. Said we import $700 billion worth of oil a year from "countries that don't like us very much." The truth is our oil imports were $536 billion and 1/3 of that comes from Canada and Mexico.

McCain made unfounded claims on, 6. Says he will reduce spending and failed programs. FactCheck finds he has never cited a single cut nor indentified a single program for such attention. 7. Charged that Obama would "close markets" by changing trade agreements. In reality, Obama has suggested he would renegotiate trade accords to better protect American workers but has never advocated suspending trade with such countries.

The McCain Campaign: FactCheck finds the McCain campaign lied by, 8. Charging Obama with voting to teach inappropriate sex education to kindergartners. The truth is that the program in question would, at that grade level, only have trained children in "age appropriate" ways to understand and resist the advances of sexual predators. 9. Charging the Obama campaign with making a groundless attack on Palin for claiming she had supported the "Bridge to Nowhere." She did in fact support it and then lied by saying she hadn't. 10. Charging the Obama campaign with concocting viral internet material derogatory of Palin. FactCheck finds the charges "completely false" because none of the material came from the Obama campaign.

Sarah Palin: At the convention and on the campaign trail, finds she lied about 11. Opposing the "Bridge to Nowhere" which she actually fought for. 12. Claiming she said, "no thanks" for the money for the bridge when she actually accepted it and used it for other purposes. 13. Stating that Obama had passed "no laws" in congress when he authored a sweeping ethics law that was passed.

Convention Surrogates: Says that Mike Huckabee exagerrated by, 14. Claiming that Biden got fewer votes for President in the primaries than Palin did for Mayor of Wasilla. Palin got 651 votes in 1996 and 909 votes in 1999. Biden got 79,754 votes in the Iowa Caucuses. FactCheck also found that Rudy Giuliani, 15. Distorted Obama's record on Georgia when in reality his and McCain's statements were substantively equivalent.

As compared to this record, FactCheck has been able to catch Barack Obama, Joe Biden or their campaign in only one distortion. It finds the Obama Campaign has 1. "Played fast and loose" with McCain's record on Education by claiming he voted to cut education when in fact he voted not to increase it.

All in all, the comparison makes it clear who is making up talking points without regard for the truth in a wholesale way. It is reminiscent of the kind of campaigns George W. Bush ran in 2000 and 2004. And, as columnist Paul Krugman reminds us, "How a politician campaigns tells you a lot about how he or she would govern," and that under the Rove-trained Rick Davis, the McCain-Palin ticket "is running a campaign that makes Bush-Cheney 2000 look like something out of a civics class."