Taking Liberties in Philadelphia

Summary
Clinton and Obama both strained the facts at times during their debate in Philadelphia.

Clinton said "people died" in 1970s bombings by a radical group of which an Obama acquaintance was a member. In fact, the deaths were of three members of the Weather Underground itself, who died when their own bombs accidentally exploded.

Obama said, "I have never said that I don't wear flag pins or refuse to wear flag pins." Actually, he did. He said last year, "I decided I won't wear that pin on my chest" because it had become "a substitute for ... true patriotism" during the run-up to the Iraq war.

Clinton claimed that applying Social Security taxes to wages above the current cap "would impose additional taxes on ... educators ... police officers, firefighters and the like." Actually, not many of them would be affected. The cap is $102,000 a year.

Obama denied his handwriting appeared on an old questionnaire that said he supported a ban on possessing a handgun, and he said he has never taken that position. Actually, his writing does appear on one of two versions of the questionnaire.

Clinton said she believes "market manipulation" is partly to blame for rising fuel prices. She offered no evidence of that. Past investigations of alleged price gouging have concluded that it's mainly market forces that push prices up.

Analysis
Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama met in Philadelphia's National Constitution Center for a debate televised by ABC News on April 16, just six days before the Pennsylvania presidential primary election. We noted some exaggerations and errors.

Obama's Radical "Connection"
Clinton exaggerated the violence committed by an Obama acquaintance who had been part of a radical group in the 1960s and 1970s and who refused to apologize for setting bombs.

Clinton: Senator Obama served on a board with Mr. [William] Ayers for a period of time, the Woods Foundation, which was a paid directorship position.

And if I'm not mistaken, that relationship with Mr. Ayers on this board continued after 9/11 and after his reported comments, which were deeply hurtful to people in New York, and I would hope to every American, because they were published on 9/11 and he said that he was just sorry they hadn't done more. And what they did was set bombs and in some instances people died.

In fact, nobody died as a result of bombings in which Ayers said he participated as part of the Weather Underground, at the New York City Police Headquarters in 1970, in a men's lavatory in the Capitol building in 1971 and in a women's restroom in the Pentagon in 1972. The deaths to which Clinton referred were of three Weather Underground members who died when their own "bomb factory" exploded in a Greenwich Village townhouse on March 6, 1970. Ayers was not present. Also, two police officers were murdered in connection with the robbery of a Brinks armored car by Weather Underground members in 1981. That was about a year after Ayers had turned himself in and after all charges against him had been dropped.

Ayers did say ''I don't regret setting bombs'' and "I feel we didn't do enough'' regarding the group's violent protests against the Vietnam War. That was in a New York Times interview all that was published the morning of September 11, 2001. The interview had been conducted earlier, in connection with the publication of a memoir of the year Ayers spent as a fugitive with his wife and fellow Weather Underground member Bernardine Dohrn. Ayers is now a professor of education at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Obama and Ayers served together for a time on the board of an antipoverty charity, the Woods Fund of Chicago, from 1999 to 2002. Ayers also contributed $200 to Obama's campaign for the Illinois state Senate on March 2, 2001.