In another feisty affair, the Democrats traded barbs over contested quotes, crime and Castro. We referee some of the rhetoric.
FactChecking the South Carolina Debate
Issues: financial crisis
Video: The Ninth Democratic Debate
We examine four claims from the Feb. 19 Democratic debate in this video.
Erratic Quotes
The Obama-Biden campaign has a new, unannounced ad that says McCain has been “erratic” in his response to the financial crisis:
The ad includes various critical quotes from editorials in the Washington Post, USA Today and Politico. We looked up the original articles, and all the quotes are in context.
But the ad also cites the August 15 Tax Policy Center report, with text on screen saying “nothing for the middle class.” Within the ad, the words do not appear in quotes,
$700 Billion Blame Game
Summary
We find House and Senate campaigns are taking liberties with the facts as they seek to assign blame for the nation’s financial mess.
A Democratic ad in Kentucky accuses Republican Senate Leader McConnell of conduct bordering on the criminal, but falsely accuses him of taking $4.4 million from "big banks."
A Republican ad in Pennsylvania claims Democratic House member Kanjorski sponsored a bill to "slash oversight" and "banks made millions." In fact, the bill never made it out of committee.
Oversimplifying the Fiscal Crisis
It’s finger-pointing time again, with each candidates blaming the other for the financial crisis. McCain called Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac the “catalyst” for the crisis and blamed Obama for failing to sign on to a bill to rein in the FMs. Obama countered that it’s a culture of deregulation and lack of oversight that caused the problem.
We’ve been here before. Both candidates have a point: Democrats really have fought regulation of the FMs and McCain has in fact been in favor of deregulation.