Texas Two-Step

By Bill Adair
Published on Friday, February 22nd, 2008 at 3:00 p.m.

Related rulings:

He's been endorsed by "every major newspaper here in the state of Texas."

Barack Obama, Thursday, February 21st, 2008.

Ruling: True | Details

"As has been noted by many observers, including Bill Clinton's former secretary of labor, my plan does more than anybody to reduce costs."

Barack Obama, Thursday, February 21st, 2008.

Ruling: False | Details

"We send a billion dollars to foreign countries every day because of our addiction to foreign oil."

Barack Obama, Thursday, February 21st, 2008.

Ruling: True | Details

"We have seen hate crimes skyrocket in the wake of the immigration debate."

Barack Obama, Thursday, February 21st, 2008.

Ruling: Mostly True | Details

Bookmark this story:

The Alamo metaphors won't work.

The Democratic debate in Austin, Texas on Feb. 21, 2008 was not the showdown many pundits had predicted. Instead of showing up with guns blazing, Sen. Hillary Clinton came with daisies in her rifle.

"You know, no matter what happens in this contest," she said in her closing remarks, "I am honored to be here with Sen. Barack Obama. I am absolutely honored."

But despite the good feelings (both candidates kept saying how much they agreed with each other), we found a few facts to check:

• We found Obama was way off with his claim that former Labor Secretary Robert Reich and other experts have said his health plan reduces costs more than other plans. We rated that False.

• But Obama was right that he's been endorsed by the largest newspapers in Texas and rated his claim True.

• Obama had his numbers right about the costly U.S. addiction to foreign oil. We gave that a True.

• We found Obama was slightly exaggerating the numbers when he said hate crimes have "skyrocketed" since the debate over the 2006 immigration bill, but he's right they are up. We gave him a Mostly True.