Summary
The latest Democratic presidential debate brought into sharp focus the candidates’ disagreements on how quickly the U.S. can disentangle itself from Iraq. Long-shot candidate Dennis Kucinich stood by his promise to bring all troops home within three months, and Bill Richardson said he could do it in a year – even at the cost of leaving some military equipment behind. But Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama said they might have to keep some combat troops there in a counterterrorism role for more than four years,
Stories by Brooks Jackson
Director Emeritus, FactCheck.org
Maybe It’s a Trend
Last month we were happy to note the launch of PolitiFact.com, a joint project of the St. Petersburg Times of Florida and Congressional Quarterly of Washington, D.C. Today we welcome The Washington Post‘s new feature, “The Fact Checker,” written by veteran journalist Michael Dobbs with the assistance of chief researcher Alice Crites.
The first four Fact Checker articles find fault with statements by Republican presidential candidates Fred Thompson and Sam Brownback,
Twisting Facts in Spanglish
Summary
The Sunday night debate, complete with interpreters, produced a few flubs or fibs from the Democratic field, including these:
Rep. Dennis Kucinich gave a figure for health insurance company profits that was vastly overstated. He also made a much-disputed claim about NAFTA.
Former Sen. John Edwards made his health care plan seem cheaper than it would actually be. He assumed it was in effect right now, rather than the soonest it could possibly be implemented,
We have company!
We’re often asked if there are other sites like ours, trying in a nonpartisan way to help voters sort out fact from fiction. Now, there is.
The St. Petersburg Times of Florida and Congressional Quarterly of Washington, D.C. announced a new Web site called PolitiFact.com. The official launch date is Tuesday, Sept. 4th, but the site has been available to the public for several days.
The new site does something we don’t. It offers a “truth-o-meter”
Richardson’s Job Boast
Summary
Democratic presidential contender Bill Richardson boasts of creating 80,000 jobs since becoming governor of New Mexico. Not yet, he hasn’t. The state has gained fewer than 76,000 payroll jobs since he took office, and official figures showed a mere 68,100 gain when he first started making his inflated boast last year. He bases his claim on a definition of “jobs” that includes unpaid workers in family businesses and freelancers who don’t draw a paycheck.
AFL-CIO Democratic Forum
Summary
Seven Democratic presidential candidates appeared Aug. 7 in a nationally televised forum at Chicago’s Soldier Field, sponsored by the AFL-CIO. Once again, we found some claims that were wrong and others that were questionable.
Sen. Joseph Biden said none of the others "has a better labor record than me." Actually, they all have better AFL-CIO "lifetime" ratings than Biden.
Sen. Barack Obama attempted to revise his own earlier remarks about invading Pakistan, claiming: "I did not say that we would immediately go in unilaterally.
Sunday Morning Missteps
Summary
The Republican presidential candidates debated – and sounded some more false notes:
Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney falsely claimed U.S. job growth had been nearly 17 times faster than Europe’s. Actually, European Union employment grew faster than that of the U.S. last year. Romney’s source for the information told FactCheck.org that he himself would no longer use the figures.
Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani accused Democratic candidates of "appeasement" toward Islamic terrorists.
GOP Candidates Debate, Round 2
Summary
Claims, facts and figures flew at the second GOP presidential debate of 2008. Not all were true. For example:
Mitt Romney claimed he didn’t raise taxes when he was governor of Massachusetts, failing to note that he increased government fees by hundreds of millions of dollars and shifted some of the state tax burden to the local level.
Rep. Tom Tancredo of Colorado claimed scientific reports on whether humans are responsible for global warming are split 50-50,
Levitating Numbers
Summary
In an earlier article we criticized Rudy Giuliani for saying adoptions went up 65 to 70 percent when he was mayor, when in fact adoptions at the end of his tenure were only 17 percent higher than at the start, and falling. His campaign still insists his claim is justified and offers its own interpretation of the statistical record.
In this article we offer the former mayor’s rationale, along with why we believe it is a classic case of how candidates and public officials sometimes use data selectively to create a false impression.
Republican Candidates Debate
Summary
Ten Republican candidates for president debated at the Reagan Library in California, the first GOP debate of the 2008 campaign. Here and there we found stumbles, spin and exaggerations, just as we did at the Democratic debate a week earlier.
Giuliani claimed that adoptions shot up 65 to 70 percent while he was mayor. In fact, the net increase over his entire tenure was 17 percent.
Brownback hyped the medical potential of stem cells taken from adults and not embryos,