FactCheck: Obama's Speech Sometimes Stretched the Facts | Newsweek Politics: Conventions

CAMPAIGN 2008
Battleground Georgia
Suzanne Smalley 11/22/2008 12:00:00 AM
With the final balance of power in the next U.S. Senate still undecided, Democrats and Republicans have called the cavalry into Georgia, where a high-stakes runoff election is scheduled for Dec. 2. The runoff (required by state law when neither candidate garners 50 percent of the vote) has drawn some of the nation's best political operatives and spurred an ugly ground war. Democrats smell a filibusterproof majority of 60 within their grasp, and Republicans are desperate to stop it.
FACTCHECK.ORG
Peach State Piffle
Lori Robertson 11/21/2008 12:00:00 AM
* Chambliss claims in an ad that Martin would work to raise taxes on "nearly every small business in Georgia." In fact, only around 2.4 percent of small businesses nationally earn enough to be affected by the tax plan Martin favors.
CAPITOL LETTER
The Lieberman Lesson
Eleanor Clift 11/21/2008 12:00:00 AM
Lieberman lucked out. In any other election cycle, he'd be doomed. It wasn't so much that the former Democratic and now independent senator from Connecticut supported John McCain. That was forgivable. But blasting Barack Obama at the Republican convention was crossing a bridge too far, a bridge to nowhere. Right after the election, it looked like good ole Joe would be getting his pink slip as chairman of the Senate homeland-security committee. But word went out from Chicago that the president-elect was not interested in recriminations, and the lions laid down with the lambs, and Sen. Joe Lieberman was once again back in the good graces of his fellow Democrats.
FACTCHECK.ORG
Closing Arguments: Obama
Brooks Jackson 11/3/2008 12:00:00 AM
* He continued to ask voters to believe he can pay for every dime of an ambitious health care plan and other spending proposals while cutting taxes for all but the most affluent. Budget experts say that's unlikely.
COVER STORY: THE ECONOMY
A Darker Future For Us
Robert J. Samuelson 11/1/2008 12:00:00 AM
We Americans are progress junkies. We think that today should be better than yesterday and that tomorrow should be better than today. Compared with most other peoples, we place more faith in "opportunity" and "getting ahead." We may now be on the cusp of a new era that frustrates these widespread expectations. It is not just the present financial crisis and its astonishing side effects, from bank rescues to frenzied stock-market swings. The crisis coincides with a series of other challenges—an aging society, runaway health spending, global warming—that imperil economic growth. America's next president takes office facing the most daunting economic conditions in decades: certainly since Ronald Reagan and double-digit inflation, and perhaps since Franklin Roosevelt and 25 percent unemployment.
FACTCHECK.ORG
The Whoppers of 2008—The Sequel
Viveca Novak 10/31/2008 12:00:00 AM
Since our first "Whoppers of 2008" piece, we've seen some of the same themes repeated. McCain's campaign doesn't tire of distorting Obama's tax plan, it seems, and in the process has whipped up at least 15 minutes of fame for sudden star Joe the Plumber. Obama continues trying to pull seniors into his camp by making deceptive claims about what McCain would do to Social Security, and he has new distortions about his opponent's plans for Medicare.