McCain: count the lies

John McCain may be trying to sell himself as a "maverick" and a "straight talker" who will tell the truth no matter the consequences, but independent, non-partisan watchdog groups aren't buying it. But, since he wrapped up his party's nomination, John McCain has offered more of the same false attacks and smears. To date, independent, nonpartisan fact checkers have published more than 50 fact checks debunking John McCain's lies and distortions.

To hold John McCain accountable to his own standard, the Democratic National Committee will count and chronicle the lies here on the McCainPedia's "Count the Lies" page.

175 Fact Checks
CNN: McCain’s Claim About Creeping Tax Hikes Is False. In a campaign speech Tuesday, October 28, in Hershey, Pennsylvania, Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain accused Democratic opponent Sen. Barack Obama and his running mate, Sen. Joe Biden, of being inconsistent on taxes.…The Verdict: False. What McCain is doing here, in part, is comparing apples and oranges. He compares two different aspects of Obama's tax plan as if they were the same. And Biden never said people making less than $150,000 are the "only" people who would get a tax cut under Obama's policies. [CNN, 10/29/08: http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/10/29/fact-check-obama-biden-creeping-...]

Politifact.com: “Tiny” Ad Makes Large Error. Back in May, McCain made the claim in an address to the National Restaurant Association in Chicago. We rated that claim False. We examined it again in August when the ad first aired and again found the statement to be False. But the ad will be new to many viewers this week, so we are revisiting it here.McCain is distorting Obama's original comments…McCain twisted Obama's words when he claimed that Obama characterized the threat from Iran as tiny or insignificant. Obama never said that. ...This isn’t the first time Obama has talked about the grave threat posed by Iran. He has repeatedly characterized it as such during his campaign. Obama never said the threat from Iran was “tiny” or “insignificant,” only that the threat was tiny in comparison to the threat once posed by the Soviet Union. And if the McCain campaign was unclear on that point, it should have been clear after Obama's comment in May that "Iran is a grave threat." To continue to twist Obama's words, especially after that clarification, earns another False. [Politifact: http://politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/828/]

McClatchy: McCain Wrong on World Series. What happened: "No one will delay the World Series game with an infomercial when I'm president," the Republican presidential nominee told a crowd Tuesday in Hershey, Pa… Why that's wrong: It's not unusual for World Series games to start after 8:30 p.m., and according to the Web site Politico, the Fox executive who's responsible for the Obama ad purchase said the infomercial was replacing only the pre-game show. "Our first pitch for the World Series is usually around 8:30 anyway, so we didn't push back the game. It was really just about suspending the pre-game, you know, Joe Buck," said the account executive, Joe Coppola. "That's all we did." The request to delay the game came from Major League Baseball. McCain himself was responsible for shifting the time of the National Football League's 2008 opening game ... Penalty: 15 yards for misleading the public about Obama and the World Series. [McClatchy, 10/29/08: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics/AP/story/746704.html]

Complete list at link ...