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Viral Video Film School: Campaign Ads

From state congressional races to obscure ballot initiatives, every political campaign no matter how poorly funded posts videos... more

infoMania
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McCain can't make attacks stick to Obama

The Republican accusations against Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama have come fast and thick, from palling around... more

BuddyP
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Mat Vs Michael - Mat's Response

The Smearing Continues...

MichaelAHagan
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Mat V Michael

He Must Be Stopped! Stayed Tuned

MichaelAHagan
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Study: McCain getting burnt by his attacks on Obama

The PEW Research Center is out with a new study that suggests John McCain's attacks against Barack Obama's character and... more

GrandKnow2
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McCain's Campaign "A Turn-Off"

From The Article: The McCain campaign’s recent angry tone and sharply personal attacks on Senator Barack Obama appear to... more

Found_Avenue
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FactCheck.org: 'Lying' About Being Liberal?

A McCain-Palin ad claims Obama was rated the "most liberal" U.S. senator, which was true only for 2007 but not for his... more

khaosworks
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Barack Obama and Bill Ayers: The Truth About McCain's Lies

Tired of hearing the Republican's version of Bill Ayers and his connection to Barack Obama? Get all the facts you can... more

mako2424
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Factchecking the Ayers connection

For most of the election, Sen. John McCain's campaign has been somewhat subtle about trying to tie Sen. Barack Obama to the former '60s radical William Ayers.

No longer. A 90-second Web ad released Oct. 8, 2008, features sinister music, side-by-side photographs of Obama and Ayers, and a series of dubious allegations about their past connections, including this one:

"Ayers and Obama ran a radical education foundation together."

Ayers was a founding member of the militant Vietnam-era anti-war group the Weathermen. He was investigated for his role in a series of domestic bombings, but the charges were dropped in 1974 due to prosecutorial misconduct. He is now an education professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and actively engaged in the city's civic life.

The McCain campaign said the "radical education foundation" to which they were referring is the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, a charity endowed by publishing magnate Walter Annenberg that funded public-school programs in Chicago from 1995 to 2001.

We'll look at whether the foundation was radical. But first we have to grapple with whether Obama and Ayers ran it.

Obama served on the foundation's volunteer board from its inception in 1995 through its dissolution in 2001, and was chair for the first four years. So an argument can be made that he ran it, though an executive director handled day-to-day operations.

Ayers, who received his doctorate in education from Columbia University in 1987 and is now a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, was active in getting the foundation up and running. He and two other activists led the effort to secure the grant from Annenberg, and he worked without pay in the early months of 1995, prior to the board's hiring of an executive director, to help the foundation get incorporated and formulate its bylaws, said Ken Rolling, who was the foundation's only executive director. Ayers went on to become a member of the "collaborative," an advisory group that advised the board of directors and the staff.

However, Ayers "was never on the board of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge," and he "never made a decision programmatically or had a vote," Rolling said.

"He (Ayers) was at board meetings — which, by the way, were open — as a guest," Rolling said. "That is not anything near Bill Ayers and Barack Obama running the Chicago Annenberg Challenge."

Now, was the foundation radical?

The McCain campaign cited several pieces of evidence for that allegation, including a 1995 invitation from the foundation for applications from schools "that want to make radical changes in the way teachers teach and students learn." The campaign appears to have confused two different definitions of the word "radical." Clearly the invitation referred to "a considerable departure from the usual or traditional," rather than "advocating extreme measures to retain or restore a political state of affairs."

(more at the link)For most of the election, Sen. John McCain's campaign has been somewhat subtle about trying to tie Sen. Barack Obama to the... more