The FactCheck Wire

Of all the nutty rumors, baseless conspiracy theories and sheer disinformation that we’ve dealt with at FactCheck.org during campaign 2008, perhaps the goofiest is the claim that Barack Obama is not a “natural-born citizen” and therefore not eligible to be president under the constitution.

This claim was first advanced by diehard Hillary Clinton supporters as her campaign for the party’s nomination faded, and has enjoyed a revival among John McCain’s partisans as he fell substantially behind Obama in public opinion polls. There has never been anything but rumor and speculation to support such a claim, and zero hard evidence. When Obama produced a “certificate of live birth” from the state of Hawai, doubters simply claimed it was forged and continued to huff and puff. Lawsuits were filed (and dismissed). Blogs blogged on. Our own “Born in the U.S.A” article, showing close-up photos of the document complete with official signature and raised seal, got more page views than any other article this week, even though we posted it back in August. It is a document that would satisfy the State Department’s requirements for proof of citizenship for purposes of getting a passport. But not, of course, those who wish to believe otherwise, whatever the evidence.

Now, there is even less reason to doubt that Obama was born when and where he has always said. We posted this update to our Born in the U.S.A article:

Update, Nov. 1: The director of Hawaii’s Department of Health confirmed Oct. 31 that Obama was born in Honolulu. . . . The Associated Press quoted Chiyome Fukino as saying that both she and the registrar of vital statistics, Alvin Onaka, have personally verified that the health department holds Obama’s original birth certificate.

Fukino also was quoted by several other news organizations. The Honolulu Advertiser quoted Fukino as saying the agency had been bombarded by requests, and that the registrar of statistics had even been called in at home in the middle of the night.

Honolulu Advertiser, Nov. 1 2008: “This has gotten ridiculous,” state health director Dr. Chiyome Fukino said yesterday. “There are plenty of other, important things to focus on, like the economy, taxes, energy.” . . . Will this be enough to quiet the doubters? “I hope so,” Fukino said. “We need to get some work done.”

We say, “amen” to that. You can take it from Hawaii’s officials: Obama was born in the U.S.A.

Posted under FactCheck.org

We’ve chronicled a lot of misleading, exaggerated and flat-out false claims during this campaign — too many to count. But some rise above the others in their sheer mendaciousness. In our latest article on FactCheck.org, we present a look at the biggest bogus bits of the final five weeks of campaign 2008:

The Whoppers of 2008 — The Sequel
October 31, 2008

For part one of this saga, see our September story that detailed the whoppers from earlier in the election.

In other whopper news, Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens, who was convicted of seven felony counts of corruption on Monday, said yesterday, “I’m not going to step down. I have not been convicted.”

Posted under FactCheck.org

The Obama-Biden campaign has released an ad as part of its “closing argument” to the American people. But we have a few factual objections to raise.

The ad is called “Rearview Mirror” and says that if you “wonder where John McCain would take the economy” just “look behind you,” alluding to the Bush administration. The ad even pictures President Bush’s face in the rearview mirror of a car.

But it touts some misleading claims Obama has dropped along the long campaign trail.

• The ad says McCain would “keep tax breaks for companies that ship our jobs overseas.”

As we’ve explained a few times before, this refers to an aspect of the tax code that allows companies to defer paying U.S. corporate income taxes on profits earned and left overseas. A number of economists, including left-leaning ones, have said that eliminating this “tax break” would not put an end to the offshoring of jobs. In fact, they say it’s not a major reason companies move jobs overseas.

• The ad says McCain “wants $4 billion in new tax breaks for big oil.”

Again, as we’ve pointed out a few times before, McCain is not proposing new tax breaks specifically targeted to the oil industry. He’s proposing a general reduction in the corporate income tax rate from 35 percent to 25 percent. The liberal Center for American Progress Action Fund calculated that this would save the five largest oil companies $3.8 billion per year. But cutting the corporate rate would benefit all companies.

• The ad says McCain “would tax your health care benefits for the first time ever.”

As we’ve explained a few times before, McCain would, for the first time, tax health care benefits workers get at their jobs, but for most Americans, the increased tax bill would be more than offset by McCain’s tax credit. The ad doesn’t mention that. McCain would give a tax credit of up to $2,500 to individuals and $5,000 for couples or families, and only those in high tax brackets and with very high-priced plans would pay more than that in taxes.

A family in the top income tax bracket would pay more in taxes if their benefits were worth $14,286 or more. The Tax Policy Center estimated that the top 40 percent of income earners in the U.S. would pay more in taxes than they’d get with the credit by 2018. (In 2007, the top 40 percent were those with income above $62,000.)

Posted under Barack Obama, Economy, Energy, FactCheck.org, Health Care, Presidential Election 2008, Taxes

Sen. Barack Obama has said several times that he has proposed cuts that pay for “every dime” of his spending proposals, a claim we’ve called “misleading.” The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center’s analysis, for one, found that “without substantial cuts in government spending” Obama’s plan - and McCain’s, too - “would substantially increase the national debt over the next ten years.”

Obama repeated his claim in his half-hour commercial that aired Wednesday night on major networks and cable television, saying, “I’ve offered spending cuts above and beyond” the cost of his proposals.

We still don’t buy it. And neither does CBS News, which debunked the claim using its own calculations on what the Democratic candidate has put forth. As reporter Wyatt Andrews says: “He seems blind to the concept his numbers don’t add up.”

CBS News estimates Obama’s first-year spending could be more than $280 billion, and it finds his spending cuts leave him $90 billion short. Andrews says the Obama campaign disputes that estimate, claiming that over 10 years, everything is paid for.

But CBS News isn’t the only one doubting Obama’s accounting. Andrews points out that under health care, for example, independent studies have found Obama’s plan isn’t paid for. According to a Lewin Group study, Obama’s plan has a $1.2 trillion deficit, while McCain’s also comes up short — leaving $2 trillion not covered.

Andrews also questions Obama’s claim that his health care plan would reduce families’ premiums by up to $2,500 a year. Months ago, we also called that “wishful thinking.”

Read - or watch - CBS News’ full “reality check” for more.

Posted under Barack Obama, Presidential Election 2008

With a handful of days to go before Election Day, the Republican Federal Committee of Pennsylvania is going after Sen. Barack Obama with a mailer that claims the presidential nominee has “a record of being soft on crime.” Luckily, our fellow fact-checkers at PolitiFact.com are all over this one. According to PolitiFact, the mailer (also being distributed in Florida) “cherry-picks a few choice examples and conveniently ignores evidence that contradicts its conclusions.”

For example, the mailer says that Obama is “against tougher penalties for street gangs,” referring to Obama’s vote against HB 1812 in the Illinois state Senate. We actually wrote about Obama’s vote on this legislation back in April when the National Campaign Fund released an ad making similar claims about Obama being “weak” on gang killers and terrorists.

The bill in question would have made anyone found guilty of a murder committed “in furtherance of the activities of an organized gang” eligible for death. Obama voted against the bill, saying that Illinois law already made murderers eligible for death in instances where the crime was committed in “a cold, premeditated and calculated” manner. He also expressed concern that the legislation would likely target particular neighborhoods and individuals. Even the bill’s sponsor, Rep. Susana Mendoza of Chicago, said that she didn’t think Obama was weak on crime and that he opposed her bill for valid reasons.

Furthermore, Politifact notes that Obama’s votes in favor of legislation in 2003 (prohibiting released gang members from associating with their old gang compadres) and 2004 (making gang recruiting at a school a crime) could be used to make the exact opposite claim about Obama. You can read PolitiFact’s full analysis of the mailer here.

The mailer comes right on the heels of a similar attack against the Illinois senator from the Republican National Committee and the McCain-Palin campaign. In a robo-call going out in battleground states, former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani says, “You need to know that Barack Obama opposes mandatory prison sentences for sex offenders, drug dealers, and murderers.” He continues, “It’s true, I read Obama’s words myself.” Leaving out the word “minimum,” Giuliani’s words make it seem as though Obama is against just “mandatory” jail time, which isn’t the case.

At a 2003 Illinois Senate debate, when asked if he would “vote to abolish mandatory minimum jail sentences,” Obama answered “I would,” adding that “mandatory minimums take too much discretion away from judges.” Obama gave a non-specific answer to a broad question. More recently, an Obama-Biden fact sheet on the campaign Web site says that Obama will “reform mandatory minimums,” but it specifically refers to drug offenders, with no mention of sex offenders and murderers. The fact sheet reads: Obama and Biden “will immediately review these sentences to see where we can be smarter on crime and reduce the ineffective warehousing of nonviolent drug offenders.” Obama made a similar statement about sentencing for “nonviolent” offenders during a speech at Howard University in 2007, but again, there was no mention of sex offenders or murderers:

Obama (Sept. 27, 2007): When I’m President, I will. We will review these sentences to see where we can be smarter on crime and reduce the blind and counterproductive warehousing of non-violent offenders. And we will give first-time, non-violent drug offenders a chance to serve their sentence, where appropriate, in the type of drug rehabilitation programs that have proven to work better than a prison term in changing bad behavior. So let’s reform this system. Let’s do what’s smart. Let’s do what’s just.

Obama’s answer in 2003 suggests that he was in favor of eliminating mandatory minimum sentences in general. But his more recent statements specify that he wants to reexamine sentencing for “non-violent” drug offenders.

Posted under Barack Obama, FactCheck.org, Presidential Election 2008, Social Issues