www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/belittling_palin.html
September 11, 2008 Updated: September 12, 2008 A McCain-Palin TV ad accuses Obama of being "disrespectful" of Palin, but it distorts quotes to make the case. Summary The McCain-Palin campaign has released a new TV ad that distorts quotes from the Obama campaign. What he actually said is that she made a false claim about Obama's legislative record and added, "maybe that's what she was told." Obama - who is the one pictured - didn't say anything like that. The only one the McCain campaign quotes is Obama's running mate, Biden, and he actually offered the remark as a compliment. Biden said the "obvious" difference between Palin and himself is "she's good looking." But the truth is Palin's claim to have "said no" to the "bridge to nowhere" is indeed a dubious one, as we and many have pointed out.
criticized, with its reference to Barack Obama's celebrity, but then goes down new paths of deception. It takes quotes from news organizations and uses them out of context in an effort to portray Obama and his running mate, Joe Biden, as unfairly attacking Sarah Palin and making sexist remarks.
thumb Narrator: He was the world's biggest celebrity, but his star is fading. And how Governor Sarah Palin proves them wrong every day. The reference is to a report of Biden joking that one of the differences between Palin and him is that "she's good looking."
it up" for the crowd, with one woman telling Biden that he's "gorgeous." The Democratic candidate then says he'd like to end "on a serious note." "There's a gigantic - gigantic - difference between John McCain and Barack Obama, and between me and I suspect my vice presidential opponent. "Well there's obvious differences," Biden said, beginning to ham it up. But there's a whole lot -- " A woman shouted: "you're gorgeous!" "Oh, I tell you what, would you make sure Jill hears that?" And hanging out with this lean, young-looking guy is making me feel pretty old, you know what I mean?" "I thought I was in pretty good shape til I hung out with this guy, you know what I mean?" "Yeah, I'm looking good alright, I tell you what," Biden said. "But look, folks, let me end with, on a serious note here. On a serious note -- I was a pretty good football player, man," he said to Obama "We oughta talk a little bit after this. Our ears don't hear Biden's "good looking" comment as dismissive. To the contrary, it's clearly a self-deprecating remark made in joking about himself and his looks. And by the way, the ad shows a picture of Obama next to the "good looking" quote, but it was Biden, not Obama, who said that. Rather, the McCain ad took a fragment of an actual statement by an Obama adviser and carefully added language to alter the meaning.
com in which he interviewed Obama adviser David Axelrod about Palin's speech at the Republican National Convention. The full quote reads: Axelrod, quoted by Politico, Sept. Coburn, talk to people across the aisle in Illinois where he passed dozens of major laws to expand health care reform welfare, reduce taxes on working families." Axelrod's statement, as reported, was about information that Palin was given: "maybe that's what she was told." The McCain-Palin campaign manipulated the phrase to make it sound as though he was alleging that Palin took orders: "doing what she was told." The rest of the interview actually included some praise from Axelrod for Palin. And, again, the quote used in the ad wasn't said by Obama, either - though his photo appears next to it. Speaking of Dismissive The ad wraps up by saying Obama and Biden "desperately called Sarah Palin a liar."
an ad the Obama-Biden campaign released in which it criticizes Palin for saying she was against the infamous Bridge to Nowhere when she had previously been for it.
an item from the liberal magazine The New Republic, which called the claim that Palin stopped the pork-barrel bridge project "a naked lie." So we can't determine whether the McCain campaign means to say that calling a woman a liar is disrespectful - or whether it's just disrespectful to say that of Palin.
It was recorded by the Campaign Media Analysis Group, a unit of TNS Media Intelligence. Our original story did not include a date that the ad had aired. We do not have any information suggesting it aired on Sept.
Faking News in the Illinois Governor Race Oberweis uses made-up headlines against a rival in the GOP primary. org's staff, not the Annenberg Center, is responsible for this material.
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