Campaign ads vs. the truth

last updated 8 January 2015

Campaign ads vs. the truth

The 2008 presidential campaign has featured an unprecedented spate of false and misleading advertising, says a new report from the nonpartisan Politifact.com. Both Barack Obama and John McCain have aired ads that are either barely true, factually false, or outright “pants on fire” lies, the report says. McCain, though, has been the worst offender, the report concludes, singling out his ads attacking Obama for causing high gasoline prices and for falsely accusing Obama of favoring explicit sex education for kindergartners.

The report censures Obama for twisting McCain’s remark that U.S. peacekeeping forces could be in Iraq for 100 years into an endorsement of a 100-year war in Iraq. But Obama’s biggest whopper, according to Politifact, was his attempt to characterize McCain as hostile to immigrants by linking him to anti-immigrant comments by conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh that were themselves taken out of context.