Hillary's travels as First Lady -
With growing talk that Hillary Clinton might be named Secretary of State, we revisit her travels as First Lady and explore whether she was engaged in diplomacy -- or was just a famous tourist.
With growing talk that Hillary Clinton might be named Secretary of State, we revisit her travels as First Lady and explore whether she was engaged in diplomacy -- or was just a famous tourist.
"We are within the margin of error."
UPDATED NOV. 1: Sen. John McCain sounded upbeat in a Halloween morning interview on CNBC. But was the enthusiasm just a mask?
We can't be sure. But we can check some data McCain cited to justify his optimism.
"I'm very optimistic, and we're coming from behind," McCain told anchor Larry Kudlow in the Oct. 31, 2008, interview. "I'm the underdog. There's where we always like to be. But we are within the margin of error, my friends. And I'm very happy where we are."
McCain was clearly talking about national polls, which are not necessarily indicative of Electoral College results. Nevertheless, only four presidents have won the election without winning the national popular vote — John Quincy Adams in 1824, Rutherford B. Hayes in 1876, Benjamin Harrison in 1888 and George W. Bush in 2000.
So we looked at every national poll we could find from the day McCain spoke and the day before to see if he really was within the margin of error.
Five polls were released the same morning McCain was speaking. Rasmussen's daily tracking poll showed Obama up 51 to 47 with a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points. That means if one gives McCain the full benefit of the margin of error, his score could be as high as 49 percent (his 47 plus the 2-point margin of error) and Obama's could be as low as 49 percent (his 51 minus the margin of error). There's a very low probability of that outcome, but still, it's within the margin of error.
The method we employed above of factoring in the margin of error is the one most commonly used by pollsters and political scientists. Some statisticians quibble with it and use a more complicated calculation, but we think it's fair to judge McCain's claim by the most common measure. (We can say for certain that another method the media commonly use — saying a race is within the margin of error only if the gap between the candidates is smaller than the margin of error — is wrong. You have to apply the margin to both candidates' scores.)
Let's look at more polls from Oct. 31. The Diageo/Hotline tracking poll had Obama up 48 to 41 with a margin of error of 3.3 percent, a lead that was outside the margin of error. The Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby poll showed Obama up 50 to 43 with a margin of error of 2.9 percentage points, also outside the margin of error. Research 2000/Daily Kos had Obama up 51-45 with a 3-point margin of error, just within the margin of error. And an Associated Press-Yahoo News poll showed Obama up 51 to 43 with a margin of error of 3 percentage points, back outside the margin of error.
Let's look at the polls released the previous day, Oct. 30.
A Washington Post-ABC News poll showed Obama leading 52 to 44 with a margin of error of 2.5 percentage points — no dice for McCain on that one. The New York Times/CBS News poll showed Obama leading 51 to 40 with a margin of error of three percentage points — even worse news for McCain. The Investor's Business Daily/ TechnoMetrica Institute of Policy poll showed Obama leading 47.7 to 43.6, a lead well within the margin of error of 3.5 points. The GWU/Battleground poll showed Obama up 49 to 45, also within the 3.5 percent margin of error. The Gallup daily tracking poll had Obama up 50 to 45 with a traditional model of turnout, and 51 to 44 with an expanded turnout; both outside the 2-point margin of error. A FOX News/Opinion Dynamics poll had Obama leading 47 to 44, easily within the 3-point margin of error.
So McCain was within the "margin of error" in five of the 11 polls we checked. We find his statement Half True.
UPDATE: Our original item mistakenly calculated the margin of error without using its impact on the number for both candidates. We have changed the calculations, which changed our ruling from Barely True to Half True.
Measures in Barack Obama's health plan could "lower health care costs for the typical family by $2,500 a year."
During a 30-minute campaign ad that aired Oct. 29, 2008, Barack Obama laid out his policy proposals in detail, including health care.
"In the last year, I've visited many hospitals that are computerizing records and implementing technology that improves patient care and dramatically reduces costs," Obama said. "That's why my health care plan includes improving information technology, requires coverage for preventive care and pre-existing conditions, and lowers health care costs for the typical family by $2,500 a year, and you can keep your same coverage and your same doctor."
As Obama's statement makes clear, he brings down costs by introducing efficiency to the existing health care system. He believes the savings should be reflected in lower costs for health insurance and medical care.
We wanted to look into that $2,500 number and see what's behind it. From our previous coverage of health care, we know that it's difficult to forecast costs with precision. But we were curious whether Obama's number was an approximation of realistic savings or an outlandish exaggeration of what experts would say is possible.
The Obama campaign pointed us to a memo several researchers at Harvard University wrote after the campaign asked them to review Obama's plan. Their report concluded that health savings could reach about $2,500 per family, though they included the caveat that "there is no consensus in the research community about how much each element will save, or how much could be saved if these elements were effectively implemented in combination."
We then turned to an independent health policy expert, Kenneth Thorpe of Emory University. He drew up detailed examinations of the Obama and McCain health plans that he published this summer.
Thorpe considered savings that could be achieved through the following Obama proposals:
• expanding evidence-based, best practice programs in public programs like Medicare
• accelerating the adoption of electronic health information technology, such as electronic medical records
• promoting wider use of wellness programs designed to reduce obesity and smoking
• reducing administrative costs through changes in insurance programs
• creating a clinical effectiveness research institute to discourage unproductive health care spending
• improving patient safety by reducing preventable medical errors
Obama's plan has additional cost-savings measures that relate to the way private insurance works. Thorpe did not include those measures in his analysis.
Thorpe concluded that by 2012, the Obama plan could reduce health care spending by $203 billion to $273 billion per year. It sounds like a lot, but it's actually not that much when you consider the United States spends more than $2.5 trillion annually on health care.
Thorpe's report figured that Obama's proposal could reduce total spending by between 6 and 9 percent. Other researchers believe it could be more, with some estimates as high as 30 percent.
So take the total savings Thorpe found and divide it by about 140 million tax filers -- a rough equivalent for families -- and you get savings of between $1,500 and $2,000 per family. That's $1,000 to $500 away from what Obama touts, but he is likely using more aggressive savings targets. Both sets of numbers, however, are estimates based on events that have not yet come to pass, and it's not really possible to say that one set is wrong and another is right.
Thorpe did say, though, that Obama's proposal is superior to John McCain's in achieving cost savings because Obama has designated funding to get initiatives off the ground, such as $50 billion over five years to encourage health information technology. McCain's plan does not include this funding, Thorpe said.
The $2,500-per-family savings that Obama mentioned in his ad is a speculative estimate of what he hopes will happen once all the pieces of his plan are in place. It's $500 to $1,000 dollars higher than the number we came up with using Thorpe's independent analysis. We recognize that plans are vague and it's difficult to predict future numbers with any precision. But Obama's numbers are significantly higher than the best independent estimate we could find. So we find his statement Half True.
"For my energy plan, my economic plan, and the other proposals you'll hear tonight, I've offered spending cuts above and beyond their cost."
In his half-hour prime time political ad on Oct. 29., Sen. Barack Obama made his case for a number of new initiatives for such things as health care, education and energy. Those will cost money. But Obama assured that for all of his new spending proposals, he’s proposed commensurate spending cuts, and then some. "Across the country, families are tightening their belts, and so should Washington," Obama said. "That’s why, for my energy plan, my economic plan, and the other proposals you’ll hear tonight, I’ve offered spending cuts above and beyond their cost." Note what Obama is not saying here. He is not saying he will reduce the federal deficit, or even stabilize it. A number of non-partisan budget and tax analysts say that the deficit is likely to grow considerably under Obama’s plan - mostly due to his proposed tax cuts for the middle class. What Obama did say is that for all of his new spending initiatives, he is proposing offsetting spending cuts. "I think he can go out with a clear conscience and claim that," said Maya MacGuineas, president of the bipartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, which performed a detailed analysis if the budget impact of the Obama and McCain plans as revealed through the camapign. But it's based on a number of shaky assumptions, she said. Obama has proposed several nitiatives - expanded health care coverage, investments in alternative energies and increases in education spending, foreign aid and the size of the military - that the CRFB estimates at a cost of about $220 billion. On the "savings" side of the ledger, the Obama campaign includes ending the Iraq war, letting tax cuts expire for people who earn more than $250,000, closing corporate tax loopholes, discouraging offshore tax havens and reducing wasteful spending. The campaign says all those changes would yield several hundred billion dollars a year. For example, ending the Iraq war — the first five years of which cost $600-billion, according to the Pentagon — would save between $90-billion and $100-billion a year, the Obama campaign asserts. All the savings together would easily be enough to pay for all the programs Obama mentioned, along with all the other new spending and tax cuts he plans, the campaign says. But the Obama campaign uses a few "gimmicks" to make its numbers work, said MacGuineas, a former adviser to the 2000 McCain for President campaign. For example, the Obama campaign includes "savings" realized by a phased-down withdrawal of combat troops in Iraq. The CRFB put a $156 billion tag on that. But to include that figure as "savings" is shaky, MacGuineas said, inasmuch as it’s double counting to include reductions in policies that we are already borrowing to pay for. It also assumes that the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 would be extended indefinitely, even though they are set to expire in 2010. That way, Obama can claim savings with his proposal to eliminate those tax cuts for people making over $250,000 a year. The Obama plan is also short on details when it comes to spending cuts, MacGuineas said. For example, the campaign has pledged to save tens of billions of dollars by "reducing and reforming government contracting" and "reducing wasteful spending." The campaign gives a few examples, she said, "not enough to fill in all of the (claimed) savings." "All of his plans to spend money have far more specifics than his plan to save money," MacGuineas said. It’s that lack of detail that makes many budget experts skeptical of Obama’s claim. Josh Gordon, policy director at the Concord Coalition, a Washington-based nonpartisan group that advocates budget restraint, said it’s a leap of faith to put a monetary figure to something like Obama’s plan to eliminate waste, fraud and abuse. Which waste exactly? Which fraud? Which abuse? "In the sense that they are trying to come up with offsets to the spending plans they are proposing, that’s a good thing," Gordon said. "Whether the numbers are completely accurate, I think even the campaigns would admit they are just best guesses." Isabel Sawhill, an associate budget director during the Clinton administration and a scholar at the Brookings Institution, said she has yet to see specific proposals for spending cuts from the Obama campaign that go beyond his more specific spending plans. "Frankly, it’s a mystery," Sawhill said. "He’s been petty vague." That’s often true with presidential campaigns, said Jim Horney, director of federal fiscal policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Does a candidate get credit for being more fiscally responsible if they talk about larger, unspecified savings? "I think the best you can do is get a sense of what the candidates priorities are," Horney said. "But at the end of the day, it’s difficult to add it all up and come up with a number, then later be able to back that number up." And even if all of Obama’s proposals were budget neutral, Gordon said, the country’s existing debt would continue to grow. Without any changes to current policies, the Congressional Budget Office forecasts a $2.3 trillion budget deficit over the next decade. "If there’s not a net tax increase or a net cut in spending, we’re just treading water as the ship is going under," Gordon said. The "all paid for" logic also assumes you don’t include Obama’s proposals for a host of refundable tax credits. Some would argue those are simply spending initiatives dressed up as tax cuts. "The overall effect of the these policies, there’s no question it would put the country deeper in debt," MacGuineas said. "His plan will significantly increase the budget deficit." A detailed analysis of the Obama tax plan by the non-partisan Tax Policy Institute concluded Obama’s tax plan would increase the country’s debt by $3.5 trillon over 10 years. They estimated McCain’s tax cut plan would boost the deficit even more, by $5 trillion. "He (Obama) is digging a $3.5 trillion hole that has to be filled with spending cuts," said Bob Williams of the Tax Policy Center. To be fair, Obama has not pledged to cut the deficit. "I do not make a promise that we can reduce it by 2013," Obama said, "because I think it is important for us to make some critical investments right now in America’s families." Still, experts agree that while Obama has made efforts to correlate new spending initiatives with proportionate spending cuts, his proposals to cut spending make too many best-case-scenario assumptions and are far too vague to be relied upon. We rate his claim Barely True.
Obama "changed the rules in Washington. Gone are the free gifts from lobbyists. Gone are the fancy airplane rides for nothing."
From the start of his presidential bid, Democratic nominee Barack Obama has touted ethics as a major campaign theme. He barred lobbyists and corporate political action committees from contributing money to his campaign, for example, and fairly or not he's repeatedly assailed his Republican rival's ties to lobbyists.
But the Illinois senator's oft-repeated theme that he led the effort to pass ethics reform legislation in the Senate last year is much exaggerated, as we pointed out last spring.
Obama's 30-minute infomercial made the claim again on October 29, 2008, quoting Missouri Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill. "He's changed the rules in Washington," McCaskill said during the half hour campaign commercial that ran on major broadcast networks and cable channels. "Gone are the free gifts from lobbyists. Gone are the fancy airplane rides for nothing. He did that."
It's clear what McCaskill is referring to here: the 2007 ethics reform law that Congress passed and President Bush signed in the wake of the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal.
And to be sure, Obama backed the 2007 law, which barred gifts from lobbyists and required that a senator flying on a corporate jet reimburse the plane's owner at the full charter rate. (Senators didn't previously fly free, as McCaskill claims, but rather were required to pay whatever a first class ticket on a commercial airline would have cost for the same route.)
But Obama was not the leading player on the new law. Obama was most active on the issue a year earlier, when he was tapped by Democratic party leaders in early 2006 to lead the party's efforts on lobbying reform in the wake of the scandal created by Abramoff, a longtime Washington lobbyist for Indian tribes who pleaded guilty in January 2006 to conspiring to bribe members of Congress.
Obama proposed setting tougher rules for the disclosure of earmark requests and creating an outside ethics office, staffed with independent monitors, to evaluate complaints against senators.
But Obama was not pleased with what the Senate came up with and in March 2006 he was one of just three Democrats to vote against legislation, which ultimately passed 90-8, by then-GOP Sen. Trent Lott of Mississippi that would have made it more difficult to add earmarks to spending bills, required members of Congress to wait two years after leaving public office to lobby their former colleagues and banned gifts from lobbyists.
Obama said Lott's bill was not tough enough. In the end, the House and Senate were not able to reconcile their differing versions of the legislation and Lott's bill died.
When Democrats took control of both chambers in January 2007, they moved quickly to pass ethics reform legislation, but most of the legwork was done by Obama's Democratic colleagues, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California. They negotiated the final legislative language and moved it through both chambers in defiance of skeptical Republicans.
During the 2007 debate, Obama was a less central player than he had been in 2006. Though he supported the gift ban, he was not its most vocal backer.
In 2007, he continued to push, unsuccessfully, for an independent ethics office and, with Democratic colleague Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, drafted the provision on corporate jets that was ultimately incorporated into the final bill. On that score, then, McCaskill is right.
But to imply Obama was the leading force behind the 2007 ethics law goes too far. For that reason, we rate McCaskill's statement Half True.
McCain called for less regulation 21 times just this year.
Following the financial crisis, Sen. Barack Obama has blamed a scarcity of government regulation, and in turn criticized Sen. John McCain for advocating even less regulation over the past year.
Here's a passage from Obama's speech in Raleigh, N.C., on Oct. 29, 2008:
"When it comes to the economy – when it comes to the central issue of this election – the plain truth is that John McCain has stood with this president every step of the way. Voting for the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy that he once opposed. Voting for the Bush budgets that spent us into debt. Calling for less regulation 21 times just this year. Those are the facts."
We'll be the judge of that – at least with respect to the claim that McCain called for less regulation on 21 separate occasions this year.
We asked the Obama campaign for evidence, and spokesman Tommy Vietor provided 21 citations of news reports over the past year.
Some were clear cut calls for deregulation.
For example, "We need less government. We need less regulation," McCain said in a quote that appeared on Washington Week, the PBS show, on Jan. 25, 2008.
No doubt about that one.
But what about this statement the Obama campaign cited from a July 3, 2008, statement McCain made after goverment figures showed a sixth straight month of job losses:
"At a time when our small businesses need support from Washington, we cannot raise taxes, increase regulation, and isolate ourselves from foreign markets."
One could quibble over whether a warning against increased regulation is the same as a call for less regulation.
And this, from a McCain speech in Livonia, Mich., on Jan. 12, 2008: "Michigan's problems are rooted in failed government policies. Heavy regulation, too much government spending and taxes, and a high cost of doing business has hurt it dearly."
That too is an implied, but not explicit, call for less regulation.
In all, 14 of the examples the Obama campaign provided were explicit calls by McCain for less regulation. Six others were along the lines of the general condemnations of regulation cited above – what we would call implied calls for less regulation. (The Obama campaign cited two news accounts of the same McCain statement, so we discounted one of those.)
Our fellow fact-checkers at CNN arrived at the same conclusion, and labeled Obama's claim "misleading." However, we found several instances of McCain calling for deregulation that the Obama campaign did not cite.
For example, later in that Jan. 12 Michigan speech he said, "Michigan – and the United States – needs deregulation, freedom, innovation, and private control of money."
On March 4, 2008, in Dallas, he said, "We will campaign to strengthen job growth in America by helping businesses become more competitive with lower taxes and less regulation."
In Tampa on April 29, 2008, he called for "ridding the market of both needless and costly regulations."
At a town hall event in Denver on July 7, 2008: "Beth (a local business leader) tells me it gets harder every year, not because of the market and competition, but because of government regulations, taxes and the cost of health care. Beth, I promise you, if I'm elected president, we're going to remove these obstacles to your continued success."
We should note that since the financial crisis worsened this fall, McCain has softened his advocacy of deregulation of the financial markets.
For example, on This Week on Sept. 28, 2008, George Stephanopoulos asked him, "In the past you said you were for less regulations, maybe even a moratorium. Do you think now we're heading into an era where we're going to have to have enhanced regulation?"
"Two years ago, I said that I was worried about – co-sponsored legislation because of the excesses of Fannie and Freddie that I saw," McCain replied. "Six years ago, I railed about corporate excess and not expensing stock options. I'm a Teddy Roosevelt Republican. I believe there's a role of government. I believe that government has to be part of the solution. I mean, regulation and oversight has to be absolutely essential. Teddy Roosevelt said unbridled capitalism leads to corruption."
Still, between the 14 explicit and six implied calls for deregulation the Obama campaign cited, plus the four explicit calls we found, Obama was on fairly solid ground with this claim. We find it Mostly True.
Barack Obama said "people making less than $250,000 would benefit from his plan" then said "if you're a family making less than $200,000, you'll benefit."
In a rally in Hershey, Pa., John McCain accused Barack Obama of using different numbers to talk up his tax plans.
"Senator Obama has made a lot of promises," McCain said. "First he said people making less than $250,000 would benefit from his plan. Then this weekend he announced in an ad that if you're a family making less than $200,000, you'll benefit. But yesterday, right here in Pennsylvania, Senator Biden said tax relief should only go to middle class people, people making under $150,000 a year.
"Are you getting an idea of what's on their mind? A little sneak peek. It's interesting how their definition of rich has a way of creeping down. At this rate, it won't be long before Senator Obama is right back to his vote that Americans making just $42,000 a year should get a tax increase."
The $42,000 tax vote is a dubious claim, one we've checked before and found Barely True. It's based on a vote Obama made that set broad revenue goals. No one's taxes went up as a result of the vote.
But McCain is on firmer ground when he talks about the different numbers Obama and Biden have used to tout their tax plans. They have used different numbers, and it can get confusing.
We'll say right off the bat that candidates' tax proposals are general outlines that don't have the specificity that actual tax law requires. So there are gray areas, particularly when we're talking about specific income amounts.
We've also noticed that candidates don't like to talk about the difference between single people and couples.
So Obama will say he won't raise taxes for people making $250,000 or less, and McCain will say he offers a health care tax credit of $5,000. But these numbers are for couples. If you're a single person, Obama will likely raise your taxes if you make more than $200,000, and you would only get $2,500 from John McCain's health care tax credit. Roughly 47 percent of people file taxes as a single person, so this is not an insignificant difference.
But the numbers McCain cited in his speech seem to all apply to families, so let's zoom in closer on that.
Obama often says that he won't raise taxes for those making $250,000 or less. This appears to be generally true for couples. He also offers tax credits to workers of $500 each — and, yes, that's $1,000 for couples if both spouses work. The tax credits, though, phase out as you get closer to the $250,000 mark. The Obama campaign hasn't detailed how the tax credits phase out. The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center believes the tax credits will phase out generally at about $150,000 for couples.
The Obama campaign's tax calculator, which we evaluated in depth previously, sheds some additional light on the issue of credit phase-outs. If you mark the category of married filing jointly, the Obama tax calculator shows that for the $100,000 to $150,000 income category, there is a tax cut of $1,000. For the $150,000 to $200,000 income category, it shows a tax cut of $500. And for the $200,000 to $250,000 category, it shows a tax cut of $0. The calulator appears to assume the both members of the couple work. So it seems like the credits start phasing out around $150,000 and completely phase out around $200,000.
We want to issue a big word of caution here. People with the same income levels can have different tax burdens. Different sources of income tend to be taxed differently, and you must work to get Obama's tax credit. The Tax Policy Center's analysis projects that most people with low incomes will see lower taxes under Obama's plan — but not all of them. Conversely, their analysis projects that most of the top 1 percent of income tax filers will see higher taxes under the Obama plan — but again, not all of them. In that high-earning group, 93 percent will see their taxes go up, but 7 percent won't, because of the intricacies of the tax system. Did you make that exclusive 7 percent of the top 1 percent? Only your accountant knows for sure. (For more detail on these points, take a look at the Tax Policy Center's analysis of the Obama plan.)
Getting back to McCain's statement: Did Obama say that "people making less than $250,000 would benefit from his plan"? Obama typically states that he won't raise taxes on people making $250,000 or less, but the McCain campaign points to a statement Obama made in Powder Springs, Ga., on July 8, 2008.
Obama emphasized that he would not raise taxes on people making less then $250,000, then said: "If you make $250,000 a year or less, we will not raise your taxes. We will cut your taxes."
That's problematic, because Obama clearly does not offer a tax cut for everyone making less than $250,000.
But we only found a few times that Obama or his advisers talked about tax cuts for people making less than $250,000. Much more often, they said they wouldn't raise taxes on people making less than $250,000. It's a small but significant difference, and it's possible Obama simply tripped up his lines in Powder Springs.
McCain then said Obama "said in an ad that if you're a family making less than $200,000, you'll benefit." That's also true. Obama said in a television ad, "If you have a job, pay taxes and make less than $200,000 a year, you’ll get a tax cut." Obama's statement seems very likely true, though naturally we hesitate to say it's true always and everywhere, for the reasons outlined above.
Finally, McCain went after Joe Biden, saying that Biden said tax cuts "should go to middle class people — people making under $150,000 a year," a comment Biden made to a Pennsylvania television station on Oct. 28, 2008. Biden did say that, but the Obama campaign said he only meant it as an example of the types of income levels that should get a tax cut.
That may be right; it's hard for us to say based on Obama's proposals. But $150,000 is also the income level that the Obama tax calculator shows that tax credits start phasing out. The Tax Policy Center uses that number as a phase-out for tax cuts. We can't say that's what was in Biden's head, but it seems likely to us that the $150,000 number is likely where the tax credits will start going away.
To be clear, we don't see evidence that Obama is crawfishing backward from his tax plan, as McCain implies. Most of the statements McCain refers to are consistent with Obama's long-stated tax policies. But McCain is also correct that there are a lot of numbers flying around that can be used in different ways. Voters need to be cautious in evaluating these numbers, because there are caveats and assumptions behind them. For this reason, we rate McCain's statement Mostly True.
"Fidel (Castro) has made his preferences known in the campaign and had some very unkind things to say about me."
Florida is a swing state, and in Florida, Cuban-Americans are a swing constituency.
By and large, Cuban-Americans don’t like Fidel Castro. And Castro, it seems, doesn’t much like Sen. John McCain.
So it comes as little surprise that McCain would wear Castro’s disdain like a badge of honor in an interview with a Spanish-language radio station in Miami on Oct. 29, 2008.
"I notice in the past couple of days that Fidel has made his preferences known in the campaign and had some very unkind things to say about me," McCain said. "My feelings are hurt."
How’s this for unkind words? In an Oct. 11, 2008, commentary published in Cuban state newspapers, and translated by Granma Internacional, Castro says McCain "cultivates his reputation as a belligerent man" and "was one of the worst students in his class at West Point."
"He has confessed that he knows nothing about Mathematics, and presumably far less about complicated economic sciences," Castro states. "There is no doubt that his rival surpasses him in intelligence and serenity."
Castro doesn’t seem to think much of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin either, and he warns that due to McCain’s age "his health is not at all secure."
"I mention this information to indicate the eventual possibility — if anything should happen in terms of the candidate’s health, given that he is elected — of the rifle lady, the inexperienced former governor of Alaska, becoming president of the United States," Castro states. "It is obvious that she knows nothing about anything."
While Castro stops short of supporting either candidate, he seems to pay Obama the most backhanded of compliments, saying, "It’s a miracle that the Democratic candidate has not met the same fate as Martin Luther King, Malcolm X and others who dreamed of justice and equality in recent decades."
Earlier this summer, we took a look at an e-mail from the Republican Party of Florida (which claimed it was a joke) that carried the headline, "Fidel Castro endorses Obama," and included a doctored image of Castro holding a poster of Obama. Above Castro were the words, "I love this guy!" We ruled that one Pants on Fire.
A link in the e-mail went to another Castro commentary published in a Communist newspaper on May 26, 2008. In it, Castro says Obama is "doubtless, from the social and human points of view, the most progressive candidate to the U.S. presidency." Castro also praises Obama’s "great intelligence, his debating skills and work ethic." But it amounts to lesser-of-two-evils praise, at best. For example, Castro later calls the embargo that Obama pledged to maintain "an act of genocide."
Stated Castro: "Presidential candidate Obama’s speech may be formulated as follows: hunger for the nation, remittances as charitable handouts and visits to Cuba as propaganda for consumerism and the unsustainable way of life behind it."
Castro also clearly understood that any praise for Obama would provide fodder for his opponents.
"I feel no resentment towards him (Obama), for he is not responsible for the crimes perpetrated against Cuba and humanity," Castro said then. "Were I to defend him, I would do his adversaries an enormous favor. I have therefore no reservations about criticizing him and about expressing my points of view on his words frankly."
But back to McCain’s statement. That Castro had "unkind things to say" about McCain is clear. Our issue is whether Castro "made his preferences known in the campaign." Castro stops short of endorsing one candidate or the other. But we think the tone of Castro’s statements leaves little doubt he prefers Obama. For whatever that’s worth. We rule McCain’s statement True.
"In April, Sen. McCain came out against helping women earn equal pay for equal work."
In a direct appeal to women voters, a recent Obama campaign television ad features a handful of female supporters taking shots at Sen. John McCain. Borrowing from a common theme on the campaign trail, one of the women, Sherri Kimbel, calls out McCain on the issue of equal pay for women.
"In April, Sen. McCain came out against helping women earn equal pay for equal work," Kimbel said.
So we’re clear, McCain did not make some sort of public pronouncement in April that he is against helping women earn equal pay. To the contrary, McCain has repeatedly stated that he is for equal pay for equal work.
Kimbel is referring specifically to McCain’s opposition to the Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, a law designed to make it easier for women to sue their employer over unequal pay.
The law was named after Lilly Ledbetter, a former 19-year supervisor at a tire plant in Alabama who sued the company after discovering several months before her 1998 retirement that, for years, she was being paid less than her male counterparts. Ledbetter was awarded more than $3-million by a jury. But the Supreme Court overturned that judgment in March 2007, ruling 5 to 4 that a 180-day statute of limitation for her to file a lawsuit had started from the first instance of discrimination, meaning that her suit about more than a decade of discrimination was untimely.
Numerous women’s rights activists decried the ruling, arguing that it was unfair to expect that a woman would know within six months after her hiring or promotion that she was getting unequal pay.
A handful of like-minded officials in Congress quickly drafted legislation so that the 180-day window to file a suit could start with each new discriminatory paycheck, rather than when the person was hired or promoted.
The bill passed the House but stalled in the Senate after a 56-42 vote fell short of the needed 60 votes for the legislation to proceed and overcome a filibuster. The vote came down largely along party lines, and Obama took time out of his campaign to vote for it. Republicans who opposed it argued the proposal to ease the filing deadlines would prompt a rash of lawsuits and unfairly burden companies with litigation over outdated cases.
Although McCain was campaigning in New Orleans and not present for the vote, he told reporters at the time that he opposed it.
"I am all in favor of pay equity for women, but this kind of legislation, as is typical of what’s being proposed by my friends on the other side of the aisle, opens us up to lawsuits for all kinds of problems," McCain said.
McCain echoed that stance when Obama highlighted the legislation during the final presidential debate.
"That law waived the statute of limitations, which you could have gone back 20 or 30 years," McCain said. "It was a trial lawyer’s dream."
That’s not entirely accurate. The law would have started the 180-day clock on filing a discrimination lawsuit from the time "an unlawful employment practice" occurs, and would have included each time compensation is paid. The law stated that a person could seek relief including recovery of back pay for up to two years.
Back in August, PolitiFact ruled on a statement from Sen. Hillary Clinton that McCain "still thinks it’s okay when women don’t earn equal pay for equal work." We ruled the statement False, noting that opposing that one bill was not the same as thinking it’s okay if women don’t get equal pay for equal work. We also noted that Clinton’s assertion was flatly contradicted by public statements McCain has made. On April 23 he said he is "all in favor of pay equity for women," then said in July, "I’m committed to making sure that there’s equal pay for equal work."
The claim in the recent Obama campaign ad is more carefully worded, however. It includes a small print reference to the Ledbetter bill, and could reasonably be said to be a comment about McCain's position on that one bill. So its truth lies in the extent to which you believe MCain's position was "against helping women earn equal pay for equal work."
That’s certainly the view of the National Organization for Women, which has endorsed Obama for president.
Equal pay laws have been fairly stable for decades, NOW president Kim Gandy told PolitiFact, and the Ledbetter bill was the most important piece of legislation in years to gauge congressional support for it.
"It’s disingenuous to say ‘I support equal pay for equal work’ but then not support any way to enforce it legally," Gandy said.
The wording of the claim in the ad makes our ruling tricky. Interpreted broadly, one might be led to believe that McCain made a decision to oppose any help for women getting unequal pay. And that would be misleading, because we are only talking about McCain's opposition to a single piece of legislation that would have eased the statute of limitations for bringing a lawsuit over unequal pay — weighed against McCain's numerous pronouncements of support for equal pay for equal work.
On the other hand, one could argue that the woman is simply stating an opinion about McCain's vote on the Ledbetter bill. McCain did oppose it. And one could certainly argue the bill was designed to help women get equal pay for equal work. And so we rule the statement Mostly True.
Michelle Obama ordered $400 worth of lobster and caviar at a New York hotel.
A new e-mail claims to depict a $400 room service receipt signed by Michelle Obama. Guess what? It's phony.
The e-mail is a graphic (view it here) that has an accurate quote from Obama next to her photo: "The truth is, in order get things like universal health care and a revamped education system, then someone is going to have to give up a piece of the pie so that someone else can have more." Obama made the remarks on the campaign trail in North Carolina on April 8, 2008.
The e-mail then says, "Oh really? Who is the someone that gives up a piece of the pie? Keep the change!"
It then shows a receipt with the caption, "Receipt signed by Michelle Obama at Waldorf Astoria on October 15, 2008 at 4:00 p.m., $447.39 for an afternoon snack." The receipt then lists things like whole steamed lobsters and "Iranian Osetra caviar."
The receipt is a phony mock-up, and doesn't even look like the receipts the hotel actually uses, said a spokeswoman for the Waldorf Astoria hotel.
Obama was not staying at the hotel, and the story is "completely made up," the spokeswoman said. Usually, the hotel doesn't comment at all on its guests, but was willing to deny the report in this case because it is false and "it's escalated so much," the spokeswoman said.
The basis for the e-mail appears to be a story that appeared Oct. 17, 2008, in the New York Post gossip column Page Six. The newspaper has since posted a correction: "The source who told us last week about Michelle Obama getting lobster and caviar delivered to her room at the Waldorf-Astoria must have been under the influence of a mind-altering drug. She was not even staying at the Waldorf. We regret the mistake, and our former source is going to regret it, too."
We're not sure who created the e-mail, but it credits itself to PUMA PAC, a political action committee formed in the wake of Hillary Clinton's loss to Barack Obama in the Democratic Primary. PUMA says its acronym stands for "People United Means Action," but among Democrats its common meaning is usually thought to be "Party unity, my a--."
PUMA posted the graphic to its Web site a few days after the New York Post story appeared, but has since retracted it. PUMA PACs's executive director, Darragh Murphy, posted a message to the group's Web site that states, "I sincerely regret repeating and amplifying what turns out to be a shameful attempt to embarrass and undermine Michelle Obama. I will take better care in checking sources in the future."
So the hotel where the event was supposed to have occurred repudiates the e-mail, the newspaper that originally reported it repudiates the e-mail, and the political group that promoted it repudiates the e-mail.
Lest we be in the grips of a well-oiled conspiracy, we went back and checked on Michelle Obama's activities on the day in question. The date and time on the receipt are Oct. 15, 2008, at 16:04, or 4:04 p.m. That day, Obama was in Fort Wayne, Ind., speaking at a rally, and was onstage speaking at about 1:30 p.m. Even a charter flight from Fort Wayne to New York would take about two hours, and we don't think she could have rushed from the Fort Wayne event, flown to New York, checked into the Waldorf and ordered room service in that brief window of time.
So the e-mail flying around the Internet that says Michelle Obama ordered $400 of lobster and Iranian caviar is just wrong, and because it's a mock-up based on a retracted news item, we rate it Pants on Fire!
"Obama says Iran is a 'tiny' country, 'doesn't pose a serious threat.'"
In the final week before the election, the McCain campaign is airing a rerun.
The campaign announced on Oct. 28, 2008, that it was launching an ad called "Tiny" that alleges that Barack Obama described Iran as a "tiny" country that is not a serious threat to the United States. The ad, which was initially released in August, repeats a claim McCain made in a speech in May.
The ad opens with scary music, a photograph of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the words "Don't forget to say Death to America" painted on a wall.
"Iran. Radical Islamic government. Known sponsors of terrorism," the announcer says in a somber tone. "Developing nuclear capabilities to 'generate power' but threatening to eliminate Israel. Obama says Iran is a 'tiny' country, 'doesn't pose a serious threat.' Terrorism, destroying Israel, those aren't 'serious threats'? Obama – dangerously unprepared to be president."
Back in May, McCain made the claim in an address to the National Restaurant Association in Chicago. We rated that claim False. We examined it again in August when the ad first aired and again found the statement to be False. But the ad will be new to many viewers this week, so we are revisiting it here.
McCain is distorting Obama's original comments. Here’s the full context of Obama’s remarks in Pendelton, Ore., on May 18, 2008:
“Strong countries and strong presidents talk to their adversaries,” Obama said. “That’s what Kennedy did with Khrushchev. That’s what Reagan did with Gorbachev. That’s what Nixon did with Mao. I mean, think about it. Iran, Cuba, Venezuela, these countries are tiny compared to the Soviet Union. They don’t pose a serious threat to us the way the Soviet Union posed a threat to us. And yet we were willing to talk to the Soviet Union at the time when they were saying we’re going to wipe you off the planet. And ultimately that direct engagement led to a series of measures that helped prevent nuclear war, and over time allowed the kind of opening that brought down the Berlin Wall. Now, that has to be the kind of approach that we take.
“You know, Iran, they spend one-one hundredth of what we spend on the military. If Iran ever tried to pose a serious threat to us, they wouldn’t stand a chance. And we should use that position of strength that we have to be bold enough to go ahead and listen. That doesn’t mean we agree with them on everything. We might not compromise on any issues, but at least we should find out other areas of potential common interest, and we can reduce some of the tensions that have caused us so many problems around the world.”
McCain twisted Obama's words when he claimed that Obama characterized the threat from Iran as tiny or insignificant. Obama never said that.
Obama was speaking about whether to negotiate with Iran, which the Bush administration resisted. Obama noted that previous presidents had met with adversaries from the Soviet Union and China that were willing to destroy the United States, but that President Bush refused to meet directly with leaders of smaller global players such as Iran, Cuba and Venezuela.
Rather than dismiss those countries as insignificant, Obama was urging direct talks to engage them.
And Obama elaborated on his comments back in May when he issued a retort to McCain: “So John McCain, he said, ‘Oh, Obama doesn’t understand the threat of Iran.’ I understand the threat of Iran. But what I know is that the Soviet Union had the ability to destroy the world several times over, had satellites spanning the globe, had huge masses of conventional military power all directed at destroying us, and so I’ve made it clear for years that the threat from Iran is grave, but what I’ve said is that we should not just talk to our friends, we should be willing to engage our enemies as well, that’s what diplomacy is all about.
“So let me be absolutely clear: Iran is a grave threat. It has an illicit nuclear program, it supports terrorism across the region and militias in Iraq, it threatens Israel’s existence, it denies the Holocaust. But this threat has grown, primarily – and this is the irony – the reason Iran is so much more powerful now than it was a few years ago is because of the Bush-McCain policy of fighting an endless war in Iraq and refusing to pursue direct diplomacy with Iran.”
This isn’t the first time Obama has talked about the grave threat posed by Iran. He has repeatedly characterized it as such during his campaign.
Obama never said the threat from Iran was “tiny” or “insignificant,” only that the threat was tiny in comparison to the threat once posed by the Soviet Union. And if the McCain campaign was unclear on that point, it should have been clear after Obama's comment in May that "Iran is a grave threat." To continue to twist Obama's words, especially after that clarification, earns another False.
Editor's note: Last Spring, candidate Hillary Clinton said her extensive world travel as First Lady gave her valuable experience in diplomacy. But critics belittled those claims and said she was more tourist than diplomat. So PolitiFact examined her records from every foreign trip -- she visited 82 countries -- and analyzed her activities. We found the truth was somewhere in the middle. She attended a lot of ceremonial events, but she also held many meetings on substantitive issues, particularly women's rights, health care and child care. Here is our report.
(Oirginally published April 4, 2008)
Two days after Hillary Clinton reluctantly agreed to be photographed riding on an elephant, hours after she sat through a children’s gymnastic demonstration but before tea at the ambassador’s residence, the then-first lady’s motorcade steered Clinton to a dusty Hindu village in rural Bangladesh.
It was in this village that Dr. Mohammad Yunus first established his microcredit movement, a program that seeks to reduce poverty by making small loans to poor people, mostly women.
Yunus’ efforts would win him a Nobel Peace Prize a decade later. But this was April 1995, and here was Clinton, “First Lady of the World,” as Yunus would describe her, in a bamboo hut halfway around the world to meet with 80 women whose lives were turned around due to loans as small as $100.
Bangladesh was just one of an astounding 82 countries Clinton visited during her days as first lady, from 1993 through 2001. Clinton’s White House daily schedules recently were made public. PolitiFact reviewed her schedule on all the days she was traveling in another country to get a sense of the substance of her trips.
Locked in a tight presidential primary, now-Sen. Hillary Clinton has made much of her experience in foreign affairs, often trumpeting her travels as first lady as proof that she is better equipped to lead than her Democratic opponent, Sen. Barack Obama.
But the significance of Clinton’s travel also has been challenged. Opponents claim she’s embellishing her record. Did she really help bring peace to Northern Ireland? Did her widely praised “women’s rights are human rights” speech in China amount to much? And then the whopper: Clinton’s recounting how she once landed in Bosnia amid sniper fire, a claim first derided by comic Sinbad, who was on the trip, and later indisputably debunked by CBS file video that has now been viewed more than 2-million times on YouTube.
Clinton critics like Dick Morris, a onetime political adviser to President Bill Clinton, ridiculed her foreign agenda as little more than ceremonial fluff.
“During her international travels, there was no serious diplomacy, just a virtually endless round of meetings with women, visiting arts-and-crafts centers, watching native industries and photo opportunities for the local media,” Morris wrote recently.
The White House schedules certainly show lots of that, but what emerges from a careful review is a truth that lies somewhere in between the characterizations by the competing camps. There were more weighty activities than Clinton’s critics like to believe; but little indication that the first lady played any kind of pivotal foreign policy role.
Some quick impressions:
• Clinton traveled a lot. We counted 82 countries.
• She met often with women’s groups, virtually on every trip, holding roundtable discussions that usually centered on women’s rights, health care or child care.
• After meeting with Yunus in Bangladesh that day in April 1995, using mircocredit as a tool to fight world poverty became one of Clinton’s biggest international initiatives in her travels as first lady. The issue of microcredit appears on Clinton’s schedules more than 50 times.
• She traveled nearly half the time with her husband, Bill. While traveling free of the shadow of the president, the schedules show Hillary Clinton was more free to lead a diplomatic mission. Flying solo, she met more often with heads of state and social leaders, made meaningful addresses and convened discussion groups.
In many ways, Clinton’s trip to South Asia is emblematic of her travels. For sure, there was one part ceremony — meet-and-greets with heads of state, sightseeing tours, photo ops. But as with her itinerary in Bangladesh, Clinton often used her travels as a platform to advocate for her favored causes.
“When Hillary Clinton says something, the whole world listens,’’ Yunus said after Clinton’s 1995 visit. “This will have a tremendous impact on the world’s financial system, which is basically biased against women.’’
According to Melanne Verveer, Clinton’s former chief of staff and nearly constant travel companion, the 12-day trip to South Asia, which included stops in Pakistan, India, Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, was just one example of Clinton’s important international efforts in championing women’s and children’s issues.
But that’s not how the Calcutta Telegraph saw it at the time.
“For someone billed as one of the most able and sensitized minds of the American administration, Ms. Clinton was singularly insensate and solely decorative today,” the paper stated. “She did speak a few sentences at Prayas [school]. ... But it could just as well have been Lady Diana, Jane Fonda or (Miss World) Aishwarya Rai speaking.”
Clinton addressed the criticism at a speech before the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation in New Delhi.
“I recognize that discussion of such problems as education and health care for girls and women is viewed by some as ‘soft,’ labeled dismissively as a women’s issue belonging, at best, on the edge of serious debate,” Clinton said. “I want to argue strongly, however, that the questions surrounding social development, especially women ... are at the center of our political and economic challenges.” Clinton’s schedule, while illuminating, will not settle the debate about her foreign affairs credentials, said Bruce Miroff, a professor of political science at the State University of New York, Albany.
“It’s not just where you go and who you meet,” Miroff said. “It’s what you learn when you get there. And that’s very hard to measure.”
Miroff says that while the sweep and import of Clinton’s travels were certainly unprecedented for a first lady, it’s also true that she was not the commander in chief. She did not have security clearance.
That limited Clinton to advocating within her established niche: women’s rights, microcredit, children’s issues. Yes, she made a powerful human rights speech in China, Miroff said, but her experience cannot be compared to a president or even to the level a senator on the Foreign Relations Committee.
“It’s true that she traveled more than most first ladies,” Miroff said. “On the other hand, it’s hardly the case that she was on the front line of U.S. international relations.”
Not willing to concede the foreign “experience” mantle, Obama in November characterized Clinton’s experience as no more than having tea with world leaders.
That unfairly disparages what Clinton actually did, said Verveer, who was with Clinton on all but two of her trips.
While it’s true that Clinton did not deal with national security issues, Veveer said, she did advance U.S. interests around the globe. Verveer said Clinton also advanced the reach of microcredit and helped to promote democracy in countries that were just developing free-market economies.
“In the context of the importance of that to our country,” Verveer said, “I don’t consider that fluff.” And while the press often found her roundtable discussions boring, Verveer said, “it was an attempt by her to get really significant insight into what was happening in a country. It was her effort to bring together people who were making a difference in health care and education.”
The trips also afforded her access to an array of leaders. In March 1995, she met with Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. A few days later she met with P.V. Narasimha Rao, the prime minister of India. In Eastern Europe in July 1996, she met with President Ion Iliescu of Romania and President Vaclav Havel of the Czech Republic. In a tour of Central American countries in 1998, she announced major aid packages for hurricane relief and addressed the Congress of Guatemala. In Egypt in March 1999, she met with Hosni Mubarak: The 15-minute courtesy call stretched to an hour, with Clinton expressing concern about the treatment of his country’s 6-million to 10-million Coptic Christians, according to reports from the time.
And that’s just a sampling of her far-reaching international travel. The only comparison would be Eleanor Roosevelt, the original “first lady of the world.” Roosevelt also worked hard to enhance the status of working women while first lady and helped found the United Nations. She later served as a U.N. delegate and chaired the committee that put together the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Though Clinton never held any formal position like that, a March 1997 trip to Africa with daughter Chelsea provides another example of the duality of Clinton’s purpose.
In South Africa, while she did some sightseeing and glad-handing, she also met with members of the controversial Truth and Reconciliation Commission, a panel chaired by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, that was investigating apartheid-era political crimes.
“There are people who have not taken kindly to the commission,” Tutu said at the time. “To have had people like herself come in is important for enhancing public belief in the intrinsic credibility of the commission.”
Tutu said Clinton talked about the role of memorials in helping a nation heal its wounds.
“It wasn’t just a courtesy chat,’’ Tutu said.
Locked as she is in a tight race with Obama, who is relatively inexperienced in foreign affairs, there is big temptation for Clinton to inflate her assets, said Michael A. Genovese, director of the Institute for leadership Studies at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles.
In the heat of the campaign, Genovese said, Clinton seems to have “overplayed her hand a bit.”
Clinton’s recent misstatement about landing in Bosnia under sniper fire made the whole strategy backfire.
PolitiFact also found accuracy problems with Clinton’s claims that she brought peace to Northern Ireland and helped negotiate open borders for Kosovo refugees.
“In terms of real substance, the first lady seems not to have left many major footprints,” said Genovese. “She wasn’t negotiating treaties. But she was discussing international events with international leaders.”
And she was hammering her pet issues — children, women and health care.
“She was doing what she’s always done,” Genovese said. “But she’s not going to change the world as a first lady.”
SUMMARY: The Truth-O-Meter is out of commission for routine maintenance, but we'll bring it back in January to fact-check the White House and other players in Washington.
The 2008 campaign was grueling for everyone involved, but especially for our Truth-O-Meter.
It made more than 750 rulings over the past 15 months, including 49 Pants on Fires. They really take a toll on the meter because, as you can see from our home page, it spontaneously bursts into flames. (And the building manager really hates it when we set off the fire alarm.)
So during November and December we'll give the Truth-O-Meter a rest and perform some routine maintenance (oil and lube, flush the transmission, a new flux capacitor).
But PolitiFact will be back in late January. We'll put the Meter to work checking President Obama, members of his administration, the Congress, lobbyists, special interest groups and anyone else who speaks up in Washington.
We'll be unveiling some new features and a new design on PolitiFact, but the heart of the site will still be the Truth-O-Meter. So check back in late January and we'll help you sort out the truth about Washington.
SUMMARY: In their final days on the trail, the candidates repeat their favorite points. The Truth-O-Meter separates fact from fiction.
If the '08 campaign were a Las Vegas lounge act, the candidates would be belting out their greatest hits medleys right about now.
With time growing short before voters go to the polls, the candidates are hitting their best talking points to rally supporters and make a last-ditch case to the few undecideds out there.
Whether you're grooving to the oldies or just checking in, we're looking at the latest from the trail and seeing what our Truth-O-Meter says about the facts.
Life is a Highway
Sen. Barack Obama's final ad shows a voter driving in a car. George W. Bush appears in the rearview mirror, while a narrator tells you Sen. John McCain would continue Bush's policies.
McCain would "provide no tax breaks to 101-million Americans," the ad says.
This is very likely true. McCain plans to keep the Bush tax cuts in place, and offers additional tax exemptions for children and dependents. The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center found that between 66- and 69-million tax filers won't see a reduction in taxes under the McCain plan. When you factor in family members, that likely comes to just over 100-million people. We looked into this matter when Sen. Joe Biden said McCain would not give tax relief to 100-million families, and rated it Half True. We dinged Biden for saying it was 100-million families, but 101-million Americans is correct.
The ad then says that McCain wants to "keep tax breaks for companies that ship our jobs overseas." The Truth-O-Meter found this claim Barely True. McCain supports existing tax law, which lets American companies defer taxes on overseas profits in some cases. You can argue that's an incentive to companies to ship jobs overseas, but it also allows them to compete more effectively with foreign companies.
Next up: McCain "wants $4-billion dollars in new tax breaks for big oil." The Obama campaign loves to say this, but we say it's Barely True, because the ad fails to mention that the tax cut is part of McCain's overall plan to reduce corporate taxes. McCain is not singling out oil companies for tax breaks.
Finally, the ad slams McCain on health care, saying he "would tax your health care benefits for the first time ever." McCain does have a plan to tax employer-provided health care benefits, but he offers a $2,500 tax credit to offset that loss. So the ad only tells half the story. We looked at a similar one-sided claim Obama made about McCain's health plan and found it Barely True. McCain's goal is to increase competition by taking away the tax incentive that's built in for employer-provided health insurance, not to increase taxes on health benefits.
"Look behind you. We can’t afford more of the same," the narrator in the Obama ad concludes. (View the ad here.)
The Obama campaign announced on the Friday before Election Day that they would be buying time in Georgia and North Dakota to show the "Rearview" ad.
'Cause He's the Tax Man
McCain, meanwhile, has fought back with his own attacks on Obama. We looked at his stump speech in Hanovertown, Ohio, on Oct. 31, 2008, and found plenty of familiar lines.
"Now, my friends, Senator Obama is running to be redistributionist-in-chief," McCain said. "I'm running to be commander-in-chief. Senator Obama is running to spread the wealth, to take the money from one group of Americans and give it to another. I'm running to create more wealth."
McCain mentioned the different numbers Obama has used when talking about his tax plan: "First he said people making less than $250,000 would benefit. Then this weekend he announced in an ad, if you're a family making less than $200,000 you'll benefit." We did find that Obama uses different numbers when talking about his taxes, so we rated that part of McCain's statement Mostly True and explained the significance of the different numbers.
McCain also pointed out that Obama will give tax cuts to people who don't owe taxes now. "Forty percent don't pay any income taxes. So what do you do? You take money from one group and you give it to another," McCain said. "The liberal left has tried it before. It will not work in America."
McCain is correct about the 40 percent number — the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center found that 38 percent of people who could potentially owe taxes will have zero or negative individual income tax liability in 2009.
We also rated a previous statement of McCain's that Obama's tax credits were welfare; we found that to be False.
McCain also attacked Obama's past votes on taxes, saying, "Sen. Obama voted 94 times for tax increases or against tax cuts. It won't be long before Sen. Obama is right back to his vote that taxes Americans making just $42,000 a year. We can't let that happen, my friends."
We found the 94 times claim to cherry-pick votes that didn't actually raise or reduce taxes. We rated it False. Similarly, the vote to raise taxes on people making $42,000 was actually a vote for a budget resolution that set broad revenue goals. No one thought it would result in increased tax bills. We rated that one Barely True.
SUMMARY: We mark the final week of the campaign by highlighting some of our favorite Pants on Fire ratings from the past year. We're filling our home page with all Pants on Fire ratings.
When we launched PolitiFact in the summer of 2007, we realized that sometimes it wouldn't be enough to call a statement False. We needed an even lower rating for the most ridiculous falsehoods. But what to call it?
Kevin McGeever, an editor at our sister site TampaBay.com, came up with the idea: Pants on Fire.
Initially, we thought we'd primarily use the rating for our lighthearted items. Our first Pants on Fire went to Joe Biden for his claim that "President Bush is brain-dead." We studied medical journals about the definition of brain death and wrote a tongue-in-cheek article that said Dr. Biden had not performed the proper diagnosis for brain death. He had not done a cerebral blood flow study or examined Bush to see if he had an oculocephalic reflex.
Many readers got the joke, but many did not and they continue to send us quizzical e-mails. (Reply to all: We were kidding!) In the same spirit, we also gave a Pants on Fire to Bill Richardson for invoking God on why the Iowa caucus should come first in the nominating season, and Rudy Giuliani earned one for claiming "I'm probably one of the four or five best-known Americans in the world." (We used Google searches to determine that he lagged behind the Clintons, Tom Cruise, Angelina Jolie and Oprah, among others.)
But we soon realized there were lots of serious claims that were so over-the-top wrong that they deserved the rating. So we gave one to Mike Huckabee for claiming that most of the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence were clergyman (actually, only one was) and we gave one to John Edwards for threatening to take away Congress' health care plan if lawmakers didn't approve his universal health care. (The president doesn't have that power over Congress.)
We don't award Pants on Fire ratings very often. In total, we've awarded 49 since we launched on Aug. 22, 2007, accounting for 6 percent of our Truth-O-Meter rulings. McCain has gotten seven, Obama has received two.
Chain e-mails have received the most Pants on Fires — 13. (Indeed, the chain e-mails have the worst record for accuracy of any source we've checked. Nearly half of their claims are False or Pants on Fire.) They include the bogus list of books that Sarah Palin supposedly wanted to ban, the fake receipt that supposedly showed Michelle Obama ordered $400 in lobster and caviar from a New York hotel, and the distorted Bible verses to suggest that Barack Obama was the Antichrist.
The 2008 election has been the most fact-checked campaign in American history. Between our 750-plus items, and dozens of articles published by our friends at FactCheck.org and other news organizations, the presidential candidates have been challenged about their accuracy more than ever before. But despite all that, the candidates are still stretching the truth and, in some cases, spreading outright falsehoods. As we look to the next phase of PolitiFact, we expect we'll still find plenty of times to call them Pants on Fire.
SUMMARY: We check Obama's infomercial and find some truth and some stretching.
Barack Obama unveiled a unique campaign ad six days before the election, a 30-minute prime-time ad on seven networks.
The ad featured Obama speaking to the camera about his proposals interspersed with the stories of ordinary voters and their concerns about the country's direction. Elected officials from around the country also spoke positively about Obama.
We checked several items from this ad:
• Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri said Obama "changed the rules in Washington. Gone are the free gifts from lobbyists. Gone are the fancy airplane rides for nothing." We found that he worked on ethics reform, but wasn't the driving force. We rated her statement Half True.
• Obama said his health care plan could save a typical family "$2,500 a year." We found that number is based on estimates and projections of what he hopes will happen once all the pieces of his plan are in place. We rated his statement Half True.
• Obama also said he finds a way to pay for all of his spending plans. We found that he offers proposals to pay for his direct spending, but he's sometimes vague on the details. And that spending doesn't include his proposed tax cuts. We rated this statement Barely True.
The ad also touched on a few statements we've checked previously:
• Gov. Ted Strickland of Ohio said in the ad that Obama would "cut taxes for the struggling families." We looked into a similar claim that Obama would cut taxes for "95 percent of working families" and found it to be True, based primarily on Obama's proposal to give a $500 tax credit to workers.
• Obama said that there are 47 million people in the U.S. without health insurance. That's correct. We've run across that number many times when checking statements about health care.
• Vice presidential nominee Joe Biden praised Obama's work in the Senate, saying he "reached across the aisle to Dick Lugar, one of the leading guys in America for the past 20 years on arms control, to keep loose nukes out of the hands of terrorists." We looked into Obama's work with Lugar a few months ago and rated a similar statement True.
SUMMARY: With an eye on Cuban-American voters in Florida, John McCain claims Fidel Castro is no fan.
Florida is a swing state, and in Florida, Cuban-Americans are a swing constituency.
By and large, Cuban-Americans don’t like Fidel Castro. And Castro, it seems, doesn’t much like Sen. John McCain.
So it comes as little surprise that McCain would wear Castro’s disdain like a badge of honor in an interview with a Spanish-language radio station in Miami on Oct. 29, 2008.
"I notice in the past couple of days that Fidel has made his preferences known in the campaign and had some very unkind things to say about me," McCain said. "My feelings are hurt."
How’s this for unkind words? In an Oct. 11, 2008, commentary published in Cuban state newspapers, and translated by Granma Internacional, Castro says McCain "cultivates his reputation as a belligerent man" and "was one of the worst students in his class at West Point."
"He has confessed that he knows nothing about mathematics, and presumably far less about complicated economic sciences," Castro states. "There is no doubt that his rival surpasses him in intelligence and serenity."
Castro doesn’t seem to think much of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin either, and he warns that due to McCain’s age "his health is not at all secure."
"I mention this information to indicate the eventual possibility — if anything should happen in terms of the candidate’s health, given that he is elected — of the rifle lady, the inexperienced former governor of Alaska, becoming president of the United States," Castro states. "It is obvious that she knows nothing about anything."
While Castro stops short of supporting either candidate, he seems to pay Obama the most backhanded of compliments, saying, "It’s a miracle that the Democratic candidate has not met the same fate as Martin Luther King, Malcolm X and others who dreamed of justice and equality in recent decades."
Earlier this summer, we took a look at an e-mail from the Republican Party of Florida (which claimed it was a joke) that carried the headline, "Fidel Castro endorses Obama," and included a doctored image of Castro holding a poster of Obama. Above Castro were the words, "I love this guy!" We ruled that one Pants on Fire.
A link in the e-mail went to another Castro commentary published in a Communist newspaper on May 26, 2008. In it, Castro says Obama is "doubtless, from the social and human points of view, the most progressive candidate to the U.S. presidency." Castro also praises Obama’s "great intelligence, his debating skills and work ethic." But it amounts to lesser-of-two-evils praise, at best. For example, Castro later calls the embargo that Obama pledged to maintain "an act of genocide."
Stated Castro: "Presidential candidate Obama’s speech may be formulated as follows: hunger for the nation, remittances as charitable handouts and visits to Cuba as propaganda for consumerism and the unsustainable way of life behind it."
Castro also clearly understood that any praise for Obama would provide fodder for his opponents.
"I feel no resentment towards him (Obama), for he is not responsible for the crimes perpetrated against Cuba and humanity," Castro said then. "Were I to defend him, I would do his adversaries an enormous favor. I have therefore no reservations about criticizing him and about expressing my points of view on his words frankly."
But back to McCain’s statement. That Castro had "unkind things to say" about McCain is clear. Our issue is whether Castro "made his preferences known in the campaign." Castro stops short of endorsing one candidate or the other. But we think the tone of Castro’s statements leaves little doubt he prefers Obama. For whatever that’s worth. We rule McCain’s statement True.
SUMMARY: This wraps up our series on key issues of the presidential election. This time, the economy. In a six-week series, we've examined issues from the presidential campaign. For each topic, we distilled the candidates' positions and presented some key rulings. Part 1 was taxes. Part 2 was Iraq. Part 3 was energy. Part 4 was health care. Part 5 was national security and foreign policy. This week, we take on the economy. Read all our rulings on the economy here.
THEIR PAST POSITIONS AND THEIR PLANS
John McCain
• Supported the Bush administration’s $700-billion plan to buy troubled securities.
• Advocates reduction of corporate taxes to spur economic growth.
• Proposes new $300-billion plan for the government to buy subprime mortgages and convert them to fixed-rate mortgages.
• Proposes a suspension on rules that say people age 70½ must begin cashing in retirement accounts, so they may avoid locking in recent losses.
• Wants to eliminate taxes on unemployment benefits.
• Will guarantee all savings, beyond normal limits, for six months.
• Cut the capital gains tax by half, to 7.5 percent, for two years.
Barack Obama
• Supported the Bush administration’s $700-billion plan to buy troubled securities.
• Offers a $500 tax credit to workers; will raise taxes on singles who make $200,000 or more and couples who make more than $250,000.
• Favors a temporary $3,000 tax credit to businesses for each new job created.
• Will temporarily allow people to withdraw up to 15 percent of their retirement money, to a maximum of $10,000, without penalty. (Normal taxes apply.)
• Favors mandatory 90-day freeze on some foreclosures.
• Wants the federal government to lend money to states and local governments in need of credit.
Key rulings for McCain
• On Obama's plan: Attacking Obama's point that his tax plan protects 95 percent of working Americans from higher taxes, McCain said, "It's not truthful in the respect that 50 percent or 40 percent of the American people — of taxpayers — American citizens don't pay taxes, federal income taxes." We consulted the nonpartisan experts at the Tax Policy Center. They said that the percent of taxpayers with zero or negative individual income tax liability will be 38 percent in 2009. That’s pretty close to 40 percent, the low end of the range McCain said. We rate his claim Mostly True.
• On blame for the financial crisis: In an October debate, McCain said, "The Democrats in the Senate and some members of Congress defended what Fannie and Freddie were doing. They resisted any change." McCain rightly notes that the 2005-06 efforts to regulate Fannie and Freddie were Republican-led and opposed by the Democrats, but McCain’s attempts to depict those efforts as an early warning that could have lessened the current credit crisis don’t wash. Even if the 2006 effort to strengthen oversight had succeeded, it’s debatable whether it would have averted the subprime crisis. We rate his statement Half True.
Key rulings for Obama
• On the economy: In a Democratic debate in April, Obama said, "We're seeing greater income inequality now than any time since the 1920s." The U.S. Census compiles data on income distribution on a year-to-year basis. Since 1967, it’s clear that the top 5 percent of all households are capturing a growing share of the nation’s aggregate income. From 1917 to 1998, the income share of the top 10 percent dropped and then began rising again, following a U-shaped curve, according to a historical analysis of U.S. tax returns by economists Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez published in 2003 in the Quarterly Journal of Economics. Piketty and Saez found that economic inequality grew further by 2005. That year, the top 1 percent of Americans — people with incomes of more than $348,000 — received their largest share of national income since 1928. We find Obama’s statement to be True.
• On McCain: Obama attacked McCain's economic philosophy in a Nevada speech, saying that McCain economic adviser Phil Gramm is "the architect of some of the deregulation in Washington that helped cause the mess on Wall Street." First off, Phil Gramm might view the title “architect of deregulation” as a compliment, though he might prefer the title “architect of regulatory efficiency.” As a U.S. senator, Gramm promoted two bills that curtailed regulation: the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999 and the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000. But these bills had other supporters, and President Bill Clinton signed both into law. Now, the Wall Street carnage is still being autopsied, but most Wall Street watchers agree that light regulation allowed irresponsible lending and mortgage fraud to go unchecked. Finally, Gramm is no longer a chief adviser to the McCain campaign. He resigned in July. So there’s some truth here, but it also seems like Obama is exaggerating to make a point. We rate it Half True.
SUMMARY: A chain e-mail making the rounds claims it has proof that Michelle Obama enjoyed a $400 lobster lunch from room service at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York. We consider the lobster and rate it Pants on Fire!
A new e-mail claims to depict a $400 room service receipt signed by Michelle Obama. Guess what? It's phony.
The e-mail is a graphic (view it here) that has an accurate quote from Michelle Obama next to her photo: "The truth is, in order get things like universal health care and a revamped education system, then someone is going to have to give up a piece of the pie so that someone else can have more." Obama made the remarks on the campaign trail in North Carolina on April 8, 2008.
The e-mail then says, "Oh really? Who is the someone that gives up a piece of the pie? Keep the change!"
It then shows a receipt with the caption, "Receipt signed by Michelle Obama at Waldorf Astoria on October 15, 2008 at 4:00 p.m., $447.39 for an afternoon snack." The receipt then lists things like whole steamed lobsters and "Iranian Osetra caviar."
The receipt is a phony mock-up, and doesn't even look like the receipts the hotel actually uses, said a spokeswoman for the Waldorf Astoria hotel.
Obama was not staying at the hotel, and the story is "completely made up," the spokeswoman said. Usually, the hotel doesn't comment at all on its guests, but was willing to deny the report in this case because it is false and "it's escalated so much," the spokeswoman said.
The basis for the e-mail appears to be a story that appeared Oct. 17, 2008, in the New York Post gossip column Page Six. The newspaper has since posted a correction: "The source who told us last week about Michelle Obama getting lobster and caviar delivered to her room at the Waldorf-Astoria must have been under the influence of a mind-altering drug. She was not even staying at the Waldorf. We regret the mistake, and our former source is going to regret it, too."
We're not sure who created the e-mail, but it credits itself to PUMA PAC, a political action committee formed in the wake of Hillary Clinton's loss to Barack Obama in the Democratic Primary. PUMA says its acronym stands for "People United Means Action," but among Democrats its common meaning is usually thought to be "Party unity, my a--."
PUMA posted the graphic to its Web site a few days after the New York Post story appeared, but has since retracted it. PUMA PACs's executive director, Darragh Murphy, posted a message to the group's Web site that states, "I sincerely regret repeating and amplifying what turns out to be a shameful attempt to embarrass and undermine Michelle Obama. I will take better care in checking sources in the future."
So the hotel where the event was supposed to have occurred repudiates the e-mail, the newspaper that originally reported it repudiates the e-mail, and the political group that promoted it repudiates the e-mail.
Lest we be in the grips of a well-oiled conspiracy, we went back and checked on Obama's activities on the day in question. The date and time on the receipt are Oct. 15, 2008, at 16:04, or 4:04 p.m. Obama was in Fort Wayne, Ind., speaking at a rally, and was onstage speaking at about 1:30 p.m. Even a charter flight from Fort Wayne to New York would take about two hours, and we don't think she could have rushed from the Fort Wayne event, flown to New York, checked into the Waldorf and ordered room service in that brief window of time.
So the e-mail flying around the Internet that says Michelle Obama ordered $400 of lobster and Iranian caviar is just wrong, and because it's a mock-up based on a retracted news item, we rate it Pants on Fire!
SUMMARY: The McCain campaign went from tiptoeing around allegations that Obama is a socialist, to outright calling him one.
Sen. John McCain's campaign has seized on Sen. Barack Obama's offhand remark that he wants to "spread the wealth around" to allege Obama is a socialist.
Even in the context of a heated presidential campaign, that's a remarkably incendiary accusation. It's become a standard part of the McCain campaign rhetoric, uttered by surrogates and candidates alike.
Gov. Sarah Palin's remarks in Springfiled, Mo., are a good example: "Senator Obama says that he wants to spread the wealth, which means — you know what that means," she said at a rally on Oct. 24, 2008. "It means that government takes your money, (handed) out however a politician sees fit. Barack Obama calls it spreading the wealth, and Joe Biden calls higher taxes patriotic. And yet to Joe the Plumber, he said it sounded like socialism. And now is not the time to experiment with socialism."
She has repeated the line in Nevada, New Mexico, Colorado and most recently in Leesburg, Va., on Oct. 27, 2008. It consistently evokes boos and jeers from a crowd protective of the American system of government.
But is Palin stoking their anger honestly?
Socialism refers most commonly to a system in which the government owns the means of production and distribution of goods. That is, the state truly is responsible for creating and spreading the wealth. Let's look at the root of Palin's claim — Obama's Oct. 12, 2008, exchange with plumber Samuel J. Wurzelbacher, who has come to be known simply as Joe the Plumber — and see if that's what Obama was suggesting.
Wurzelbacher approached Obama on the street in his Holland, Ohio, neighborhood, and said he was close to buying a plumbing company that makes $250,000 to $280,000 a year. He complained that Obama would tax him more, punishing his success.
Obama responded that he was raising the top tax rate so he could decrease taxes for those who make less than $250,000.
"It's not that I want to punish your success," Obama said. "I just want to make sure that everybody who is behind you, that they've got a chance at success too."
"Seems like you would be welcome to a flat tax then," Wurzelbacher said.
"You know, I would be open to it except for here's the problem with a flat tax," Obama countered. "You'd have to slap on a whole bunch of sales taxes on it. And I do believe that for folks like me who have worked hard but, frankly, also been lucky, I don't mind paying just a little bit more than the waitress who I just met over there who — things are slow, and she can barely make the rent. Because my attitude is if the economy's good for folks from the bottom up, it's going to be good for everybody. If you've got a plumbing business, you're going to be better off if you've got a whole bunch of customers who can afford to hire you. And right now, everybody's so pinched that business is bad for everybody. And I think when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody."
So when Wurzelbacher brought up a flat tax, Obama responded by endorsing progressive taxation – the principle of taxing those with higher incomes at a higher percentage than those with lower incomes. And it is in that context that Obama said he wanted to "spread the wealth."
Progressive taxes do indeed spread the wealth a bit. But they do so much more modestly than government owning the means of production.
Few serious policy makers — including McCain — consider progressive taxation socialist. In fact, on the Oct. 26, 2008 edition of NBC's Meet the Press, McCain stood by a comment he made in 2000 that "there's nothing wrong with paying somewhat more" in taxes when you "reach a certain level of comfort."
"You put into different, different categories of wealthier people paying, paying higher taxes into different brackets," McCain told host Tom Brokaw, as if to say progressive taxes are a no-brainer.
Indeed, progressive taxation has been a cornerstone of American tax policy since the federal government first collected an income tax in 1863. It was based on the Tax Act of 1862, which President Abraham Lincoln signed, and which imposed a "duty of three per centum" on all income over $600, and five percent on income over $10,000.
Obama's proposed top tax rate of 39.6 percent, (up from today's 36 percent) is considerably higher than that. But it's not particularly high in the context of modern times; as he pointed out to Wurzelbacher, it's about what top earners paid in the Clinton years. In 1987, the top tax rate was 38.5 percent. In 1944, it was 94 percent on the top portion of the highest incomes.
So no, Obama's tax increase on those making more than $250,000 would not represent a transformation of the U.S. system of government. His desire to "spread the wealth" through progressive taxation makes him no less a capitalist than McCain, or Lincoln. Palin's allegation that Obama wants to "experiment with socialism" seems designed less to inform than to inflame.
(Originally published June 19, 2008)
SUMMARY: After Obama's longtime fundraiser was convicted on federal fraud and money laundering charges, the Republican National Committee went on the attack.
It didn’t take long for the Republican Party to pounce after Antoin “Tony” Rezko, a prominent longtime fundraiser for Sen. Barack Obama, was convicted on June 4, 2008, of federal charges of fraud and money laundering.
The day of the conviction, the Republican National Committee shot off a news release titled “Rezko: Obama’s longtime friend and money man.” The next morning, it sent one titled: “Obama Must Answer Questions so the American People Can Decide.”
There is plenty to scrutinize in Obama’s dealings with Rezko, a developer and political operative who has come to symbolize Illinois’ shadowy and infamous pay-to-play politics. But the news releases from the GOP distort facts to make Obama’s dealings with Rezko appear more nefarious than they really were.
For example, one asks, “Did Obama know that Tony Rezko was saving him $300,000 on the purchase of his home?”
By asking if Obama knew about it, the question presumes that Rezko did, in fact, save Obama $300,000 on the purchase of his home. He didn’t.
Now Obama did pay $300,000 less than the asking price for a century-old mansion he and his wife, Michelle, purchased from a Chicago doctor in 2005 for $1.65-million.
And on the same day the Obamas closed on their house, Rezko’s wife, Rita Rezko, bought a vacant lot next door from the same seller, at the full asking price of $625,000. Obama said it was his understanding that there was another offer for the vacant lot at or near the asking price, thereby setting the market.
Donna Schwan, with MetroPro Realty, which listed both the house and the vacant lot, recalled that there were several offers on both the house and the lot, though she could not remember the amount of those other offers and said she has since discarded the offer sheets.
“The most important thing to the sellers was to close on the same day,” Schwan said, as they did not want one of the properties to sit unsold, alone.
The sellers also required the buyers to put off the closing until June 15, after their children had gotten out of school.
The fact that the Rezkos agreed to purchase the vacant lot on that date in mid June “could have been to their (the Obamas’) advantage, absolutely,” Schwan said.
“Each was contingent on the other selling,” she said.
One could certainly argue that the Rezkos’ purchase solidified the Obamas’ purchase. And that may have some value. But whether that saved the Obamas $300,000 is another matter. The GOP offers no proof that the price paid by the Obamas was anything other than a matter of negotiation, or that the Obamas would have had to pay $300,000 more if not for the Rezkos’ purchase.
The Obama campaign has posted an e-mail from the seller, Frederic Wondisford, in which he specifically confirmed that the Obamas’ offer of $1.65-million was the best offer received on the house. In fact, the seller rejected two lower offers from the Obamas before the two sides settled at $1.65-million.
Further, the seller confirmed that he did not offer the Obamas a discount on the price of the house “on the basis of or in relation to the price offered and accepted on the lot” purchased by Rezko. Lastly, Wondisford confirmed that it was he who insisted the closing for the two properties be completed on the same day.
Having the Rezkos as flexible buyers on the vacant lot might have helped the Obamas get the house they had been trying to buy, but there's just nothing to suport the GOP claim that the Rezkos saved the Obamas $300,000. We rule this GOP claim False.
The following year, the Obamas purchased a one-sixth strip of the Rezkos’ vacant lot to enlarge their yard.
In an interview with the Chicago Sun-Times in March 2008, Obama said he got an appraisal for the strip of land because he didn’t want to be perceived as paying below an appraised price. The appraisal came back at $40,000, but Obama ended up paying Rezko $104,500, one-sixth of what Rezko paid. It was a deal Obama came to regret, for appearance sake alone.
“But it’s fair to say at that time a red light might have gone off in my mind in terms of him purchasing his property next to mine, and the potential conflicts of interest,” Obama told the Sun-Times. “And I think that’s the first stage of where I wasn’t sufficiently focused on how this would look.
“I think that a larger problem is me having bought the strip of land. At that point, it was clear that he was going to have some significant legal problems. But more to the point, even if he hadn’t‚ he was a contributor and somebody who was doing business with the state. For me to enter into a business transaction with him was a bad idea. I’ve said repeatedly it was a boneheaded move, and a mistake that I regret.”
On December 28, 2006, the neighbors parted ways when Rezko's wife sold the property to a company owned by her husband's former business attorney, Michael J. Sreenan, for $575,000.
That sum, plus the $104,500 paid by the Obamas for the 1,500-square-foot strip, comes to a net profit of $54,500 for the Rezkos (though the Rezkos also paid $14,000 to erect a fence between the two properties). In October 2007, the new owners listed the vacant property for $1.5 million.
The GOP news release suggests Obama changed his story about not needing help to buy the home or the vacant lot next door.
“Could Obama have afforded his home without Rezko’s help?” the release asks.
“Obama originally said that he could not afford to purchase the parcel of land Rezko’s wife purchased and that the house itself was already a stretch.”
“But Obama later said that he did not need help purchasing ‘both or either of the tracts’ of land involved in the purchase of his Chicago home.”
The first statement is accurate. It comes from an interview Obama had with the Chicago Tribune, published on Nov. 1, 2006:
“It was ‘already a stretch’ to buy the house, Obama said, so the vacant lot was not affordable for his family.”
The second quote is based on a Time magazine reporter asking Obama for a March 6, 2008, story: “Did you generally or expressively state a need for help in buying both or either of the tracts?” Obama: “No, I didn’t need help.”
This isn’t the “gotcha” it’s made out to be. If Obama had no interest in the vacant lot next to the home (other than the sliver he purchased from Rezko a year later), he would have no reason to tell Rezko he needed help buying it. The answer is not a contradiction of his first statement. We rule this GOP claim False, too.
We also did some research to check out a GOP claim that “Obama has maintained a friendship with a now convicted felon.”
There is no question Rezko was a longtime friend of Obama’s. In his interview with the Chicago Sun-Times, Obama detailed a relationship that dated back to when Obama was finishing law school at Harvard and Rezko approached him about coming to work for his development company. Obama declined.
Obama got to know Rezko, he said, when his law work overlapped occasionally with Rezko’s development business. But the two became friends when Obama made his first run for Illinois state Senate. Rezko was a key supporter and fundraiser for Obama.
“So we became friendly at that point, and through most of my years in the Senate, he was somebody I considered a friend, and I’d probably see maybe when I wasn’t in the midst of a campaign, I would probably see maybe six times a year,” Obama said. “We’d have lunch or we’d have breakfast.”
Obama and his wife, Michelle, had dinners with Rezko and his wife a couple times, Obama said, and they once visited the Rezkos’ home at Lake Geneva, in Wisconsin, for the day.
When Obama ran for U.S. Senate in 2004, Rezko served on his finance committee and was a significant fundraiser. Rezko even hosted a fundraising event in his home.
In the wake of Rezko’s October 2006 indictment, the Obama campaign took all campaign contributions tied to Rezko — $160,000 as of January 2008 — and donated them to charity. In the March interview with the Chicago Sun-Times, Obama said he still considered Rezko a friend, though he had not spoken to him since his indictment. That was October 2006.
In a statement issued after the verdict, Obama said he was “saddened” by Rezko’s conviction. “This isn’t the Tony Rezko I knew,” Obama stated.
Obama said that if elected president, he would not pardon Rezko for his corruption convictions or reduce his prison time. Any implication that Obama actively continues to maintain a friendship with Rezko — getting together, even speaking on the phone — is misleading. But since “maintained a friendship” is a bit ambiguous and the
