[Rhodes22-list] Politics: NYT Dubious Claims in Obama’s Ads Against McCain, Despite Vow of Truth

[Bill Effros]

New York Times
September 26, 2008


  Dubious Claims in Obama’s Ads Against McCain, Despite Vow of Truth

By JIM RUTENBERG 
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/r/jim_rutenberg/index.html?inline=nyt-per> 
and JULIE BOSMAN 
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/b/julie_bosman/index.html?inline=nyt-per>

ROANOKE, Va. — Two weeks ago, Senator Barack Obama 
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/o/barack_obama/index.html?inline=nyt-per>’s 
presidential campaign gleefully publicized a spate of news reports about 
misleading and untruthful statements in the advertisements of his rival, 
Senator John McCain 
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/m/john_mccain/index.html?inline=nyt-per>. 
Asked by a voter in New Hampshire if he would respond in kind, Mr. Obama 
said, “I just have a different philosophy, I’m going to respond with the 
truth,” adding, “I’m not going to start making up lies about John McCain.”

Yet as Mr. McCain’s misleading advertisements became fodder on shows 
like “The View” and “Saturday Night Live 
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/s/saturday_night_live/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier>,” 
Mr. Obama began his own run of advertisements on radio and television 
that have matched the dubious nature of Mr. McCain’s more questionable 
spots.

A radio advertisement running in Wisconsin and other contested states 
misleadingly reports that Mr. McCain “has stood in the way of” federal 
financing for stem cell 
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/health/diseasesconditionsandhealthtopics/stemcells/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier> 
research; Mr. McCain did once oppose such federally supported research 
but broke with President Bush to consistently support it starting in 
2001 (his running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin 
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/p/sarah_palin/index.html?inline=nyt-per> 
of Alaska, does not support it).

A commercial running here on Thursday morning highlighting Mr. McCain’s 
votes against incentives for alternative energy misleadingly asserts he 
supports tax breaks for “one source of energy: oil companies.” Mr. 
McCain’s proposed corporate tax break would cover all companies, 
including those developing new sources of power.

A new television advertisement playing in areas with high concentrations 
of elderly voters and emphasizing Mr. McCain’s support for President 
Bush’s failed plan for private Social Security accounts misleadingly 
implies Mr. McCain supported “cutting benefits in half” — an analysis of 
Mr. Bush’s plan that would have applied to upper-income Americans 
retiring in the year 2075.

A much criticized Spanish-language television advertisement wrongly 
links the views of Mr. McCain, who was a champion of the sweeping 
immigration 
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/i/immigration_and_refugees/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier> 
overhaul pushed by Mr. Bush, to those of Rush Limbaugh 
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/l/rush_limbaugh/index.html?inline=nyt-per>, 
a harsh critic of the approach, and, frequently, of Mr. McCain.

The advertisement implies Mr. Limbaugh is one of Mr. McCain’s 
“Republican friends,” and quotes Mr. Limbaugh as calling Mexicans 
“stupid and unqualified.” Mr. Limbaugh has written that his quotes were 
taken out of context and that he was mocking the views of others.

In all, Mr. Obama has released at least five commercials that have been 
criticized as misleading or untruthful against Mr. McCain’s positions in 
the past two weeks. Mr. Obama drew complaints from many of the 
independent fact-checking groups and editorial writers who just two 
weeks ago were criticizing Mr. McCain for producing a large share of 
this year’s untruthful spots (“Pants on Fire,” the fact-checking Web 
site PolitiFact.com wrote of Mr. Obama’s advertisement invoking Mr. 
Limbaugh; “False!” FactCheck.org said of his commercial on Social 
Security.)

Some Democrats expressed concern that Mr. Obama, in stretching the truth 
in some of his advertisements, was putting at risk the “above politics” 
persona he has tried to cultivate.

“I do think there is a risk,” said Joe Trippi 
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/t/joe_trippi/index.html?inline=nyt-per>, 
a longtime Democratic strategist. “The risk is that they seem to be 
different, that the appeal for Obama is ‘it’s not the same old politics.’ ”

Nevertheless, Mr. Trippi described the advertisements as “an eye for an 
eye.”

And other Democrats shrugged off the questionable advertisements, saying 
they were relieved Mr. Obama was responding to continuing, frequently 
misleading assaults from Mr. McCain. They did not distinguish between 
advertisements that are tough on Mr. McCain and those that are misleading.

Some Democrats argued that Mr. Obama had yet to produce spots along the 
lines of two from Mr. McCain that drew criticism two weeks ago: One that 
wrongly asserted Mr. Obama supported comprehensive sex education for 
kindergartners and another, created only for the Internet, that 
incorrectly asserted that Mr. Obama had been referring to Ms. Palin when 
he said of Mr. McCain’s new message of change, “You can put lipstick on 
a pig; it’s still a pig.”

“All’s fair in love, war and politics,” said Chris Lehane, a Democratic 
strategist who was Vice President Al Gore 
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/g/al_gore/index.html?inline=nyt-per>’s 
press secretary in 2000. “Given the fact that the other side has come 
after him for quite some time, he has every right to fight back, and I 
think people understand that.”

Tommy Vietor, a spokesman for Mr. Obama, said the campaign stood by its 
advertisements.

“Our ads discuss serious differences on critical issues like stem cell 
research, Social Security and energy policy,” Mr. Vietor said. “John 
McCain’s ads are about Britney Spears and Paris Hilton 
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/h/paris_hilton/index.html?inline=nyt-per>, 
and have been called some of the most frivolous and dishonest ads in 
campaign history.”

Tucker Bounds, a spokesman for Mr. McCain, said, “It’s bad enough that 
Barack Obama fictionalizes his own record, but it is a disgrace that he 
lies about John McCain’s.”

The disputed spots from Mr. Obama coincide with a significantly 
increased advertising push by his campaign and the Democratic National 
Committee 
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/d/democratic_national_committee/index.html?inline=nyt-org> 
that has taken a decidedly negative tone in the past few weeks, perhaps 
reflecting the natural progression of a tight campaign. CMAG, a group 
that tracks political advertising, said Thursday that the $10 million 
Mr. Obama had spent over the previous week on advertisements represented 
a nearly $4 million increase from the week before.

The increased advertising push has been accompanied by a campaign by the 
Democratic National Committee featuring an emotional advertisement shown 
on African-American-oriented programs meant to encourage blacks to 
register to vote. It opens with violent images from the civil rights era 
of black marchers being attacked with power hoses and the words, 
“Thousands died so you could vote,” the advertisement states. The 
advertisement was not publicly announced by the party.

Some of the advertisements that have drawn criticism were similarly 
started without fanfare. Mr. Obama’s campaign did not announce it was 
running its new radio spot that said Mr. McCain “has stood in the way, 
he’s opposed stem cell research.” That ad concluded, “John McCain 
doesn’t understand that medical research benefiting millions shouldn’t 
be held hostage by the political views of a few.”

The radio advertisement correctly asserts that Mr. McCain’s running 
mate, Ms. Palin, is against the use of federal funds for stem cell 
research. But since 2001, Mr. McCain has consistently supported the 
financing. Last year, he voted for the Stem Cell Research Enhancement 
Act, which Mr. Bush vetoed, and in 2004 signed a letter to the president 
with 57 other senators, urging him to change his policy on stem cell 
research.

The campaign has said Ms. Palin will defer to Mr. McCain on the matter 
should they win the White House.

As backup for the advertisement’s implication that Mr. McCain is against 
stem cell research financing, Mr. Vietor of the Obama campaign pointed 
to a recent report in The Los Angeles Times that Mr. McCain had told 
evangelical leaders he was open to learning more about their concerns, 
though the article stated, “McCain did not offer any indication he would 
change his mind.”

The stem cell advertisement hit the airwaves around the same time Mr. 
Obama released his Spanish-language commercial about Mr. Limbaugh. Bill 
Adair, the editor of PolitiFact, the fact-checking Web site of The St. 
Petersburg Times and Congressional Quarterly, said that until last week, 
the McCain campaign was more frequently guilty of including the most 
egregious falsehoods in its advertisements.

But the advertisement with Mr. Limbaugh, he said, prompted PolitiFact to 
deliver its worst rating, “Pants on Fire,” to Mr. Obama for the first 
time (as opposed to six times for Mr. McCain). The “Pants on Fire” 
rating is defined as, “not just false, but ridiculously false,” Mr. 
Adair said.

“I think the Obama campaign in the last two weeks has been very 
aggressive with its advertising,” Mr. Adair said. “And ads like the stem 
cell ad and the Spanish-language ad are just not accurate.”

Mr. Obama has been previously challenged over falsehoods or misleading 
statements in his advertisements. For instance, the campaign has 
frequently been criticized for implying that Mr. McCain has singled out 
“big oil” as the sole recipient of his broad, corporate tax cut. Mr. 
Obama does it again in his latest spot, in which the announcer says he 
“does support tax breaks for one source of energy: Oil Companies.”

Mr. Vietor defended the ad, saying it was accurate and had not said the 
oil companies would be “the only” recipients of Mr. McCain's proposed 
corporate tax break.