Q: Did a Billy Graham team member say Obama should be defeated "to save America"?
A: No. The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association says a widely quoted anti-Obama screed wasn't written by anyone associated with the organization.
Person: Barack Obama
Context Included: Obama on Iran
Summary
McCain’s new ad, released on Day 3 of the Democratic National Convention, quotes Obama saying that Iran is a "tiny" country that "doesn’t pose a serious threat." It implies that he fails to see Iran’s threat to Israel.
The picture changes dramatically when Obama’s full quotes are considered:
Obama actually said of Iran, Cuba and Venezuela: "These countries are tiny compared to the Soviet Union" (emphasis ours).
Likewise, he said those countries don’t pose a serious threat to the United States "the way the Soviet Union posed a threat to us."
Obama and the “Christian Nation” Quote
Q: Did Obama say we "are no longer a Christian nation"?
A: He said we are no longer "just" a Christian nation, but a nation of many other faiths as well. A chain e-mail drops that key word and thus changes the meaning.
Obama and ‘Infanticide’
Summary
Anti-abortion activists accuse Obama of "supporting infanticide," and the National Right to Life Committee says he’s conducted a "four-year effort to cover up his full role in killing legislation to protect born-alive survivors of abortions." Obama says they’re "lying."
At issue is Obama’s opposition to Illinois legislation in 2001, 2002 and 2003 that would have defined any aborted fetus that showed signs of life as a "born alive infant" entitled to legal protection,
Rezko Reality
Summary
On the defensive over the extent of multiple McCain homes, the GOP candidate strikes back. But his TV spot gives an oversimplified and misleading account of how Obama bought his own $1.6 million house in Chicago.
The ad says Chicago power broker Tony Rezko got "political favors" including "$14 million from taxpayers." But there’s no evidence of any connection to the Obama home purchase. The $14 million was to build apartments for low-income seniors.
Born in the U.S.A.
Summary
In June, the Obama campaign released a digitally scanned image of his birth certificate to quell speculative charges that he might not be a natural-born citizen. But the image prompted more blog-based skepticism about the document’s authenticity. And recently, author Jerome Corsi, whose book attacks Obama, said in a TV interview that the birth certificate the campaign has is “fake.”
We beg to differ. FactCheck.org staffers have now seen, touched, examined and photographed the original birth certificate.
Distorting McCain’s Remarks
Summary
Obama’s campaign is running a TV ad in Indiana that asks the question: "How can John McCain fix the economy, when he doesn’t think it’s broken?" But the ad uses quotes from McCain that are old and taken out of context:
The ad shows McCain saying, "I don’t believe we’re headed into a recession." But McCain said that in January, and he also acknowledged at the time that the American economy was in "a rough patch."
Saddleback Bloopers
Summary
At a nationally televised forum at a mega-church in Southern California, we found these misrepresentations:
Obama claimed that "I worked with John McCain" on ethics legislation. In fact, the two worked together for barely a week, after which McCain accused Obama of "partisan posturing" and added, "I won’t make the same mistake again." McCain later voted against the ethics bill that Obama supported, stating that it was written by Democrats with "no input"
Obama in Berlin
Q: Did 200,000 people show up in Berlin for food, beer and a free concert and not to hear Obama’s speech?
A: It’s possible that some people were there for those reasons, but there’s no way of knowing for sure. The lead singer of one of the bands says that Obama was definitely the main attraction.
Distorting the DHL Deal
Summary
Ads from the AFL-CIO and the Obama campaign claim that McCain is partly to blame for the loss of more than 8,000 jobs in Ohio. They paint a false picture.
There's at least some truth in both ads: German-based DHL announced a deal that could result in 8,200 lost jobs in Wilmington, Ohio. And McCain did in fact oppose an amendment that would have kept DHL from buying Wilmington-based Airborne Express. McCain's campaign manager,