Fact-Checking McCain’s ‘Ayers’ Commercial
In this time of confusion and strife, it’s a good thing there’s FactCheck.org to shine a light through the political fog that surrounds us all. Or something like that. Anyway, the FactCheck folks took a close look at the McCain campaign’s shadowy little commercial number, “Ayers,” and found it to be problematic on several counts.
Wait, before you go…FactCheck.org:
We find McCain’s accusation that Obama “lied” to be groundless. It is true that recently released records show half a dozen or so more meetings between the two men than were previously known, but Obama never denied working with Ayers.
Other claims are seriously misleading. The education project described in the Web ad, far from being “radical,” had the support of the Republican governor and was run by a board that included prominent local leaders, including one Republican who has donated $1,500 to McCain’s campaign this year. The project is described by Education Week as reflecting “mainstream thinking” about school reform.
Despite the newly released records, there’s still no evidence of a deep or strong “friendship” with Ayers, a former radical anti-war protester whose actions in the 1960s and ’70s Obama has called “detestable” and “despicable.”
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