OMG Look! It's a Brand New Baby News Agency!

CNN has just given birth to a news report that actually does some fact checking on McCain! Wheee!



(Transcript below the fold)
Who knew that one day the MSM could actually be like this? I know, I know. Wait till it grows up.

RANDI KAYE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Call it what you will, mistruths, half-truths, stretching the truth, telling the truth. Whatever it is, it has both Democrats and Republicans questioning what's going on inside the McCain campaign. Their opponents have gone so far as to say that John McCain and Sarah Palin are lying their way into the White House, claims the campaign brushes off.

TUCKER BOUNDS, MCCAIN CAMPAIGN SPOKESMAN: I think that those who say John McCain and Governor Palin are lying about anything in this campaign need to pay closer attention to our advertisements and the record of the candidate we're running against.

KAYE (on camera): Make no mistake. The Obama campaign has also been accused of mistruths along the way, like telling voters McCain wanted to spend 100 years in Iraq. McCain actually said, troops should stay in non-combat roles for as long as it take, not that he wanted 100 years of war.

(voice-over): But, today, Obama turned up the heat on McCain.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, OBAMA CAMPAIGN AD)

NARRATOR: He's running the sleaziest ads ever, truly vile, dishonest smears.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KAYE: McCain stands by his ads, he told the ladies from "The View."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "THE VIEW")

JOY BEHAR, "THE VIEW": We know that those twos ads are untrue, they're lies. And, yet, you, at the end of it, say, I approve these messages.

Do you really approve them?

SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R-AZ), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: Actually, they're not lies. And...

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KAYE: Well, are they or aren't they?

"Keeping Them Honest..."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, MCCAIN CAMPAIGN AD)

NARRATOR: Learning about sex before learning to read?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KAYE: Did Obama want to teach sex education to kindergartners? Not really. The programming question was intended to teach kids how to avoid sexual predators, says the nonpartisan group FactCheck.org.

VIVECA NOVAK, FACTCHECK.ORG: What he wanted to do was increase the range of some -- some sort of sex education, K-12. But the kind of thing he was interested in having kids at a young age learn about was inappropriate sexual advances that might be made against them. KAYE: The campaign's response?

BOUNDS: Our ads are based on honesty and truth and a true reflection of Barack Obama's records.

KAYE: But what about Sarah Palin's records? On the campaign trail, she keeps hammering home one point: "I told Congress, thanks, but no thanks, to that infamous bridge to nowhere."

But that's not true. Congress has already killed that project.

NOVAK: She never said, "No thanks, Congress."

KAYE (on camera): Opposing the bridge plays into a bigger theme of the McCain campaign, that Sarah Palin is the perfect crusader to help McCain rid Washington of its addiction to earmarks and wasteful pork barrel spending.

(voice-over): This is what McCain said on "The View."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "THE VIEW")

MCCAIN: First of all, earmark spending, which she vetoed a half- a-billion dollars worth in the state of Alaska.

(CROSSTALK)

BARBARA WALTERS, CO-HOST: She also took some earmark spending.

(CROSSTALK)

MCCAIN: No, not as governor, she didn't. She vetoed...

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KAYE: The truth? Governor Palin cut Alaska's earmark requests in half. But, this year alone, the state asked for $197 million.

NOVAK: She says that she vetoed a lot of legislation that would have called for earmarks, but that doesn't get rid of the fact that she actually did ask for earmarks for the state of Alaska.

KAYE: On energy policy, Palin said, Alaska provides 20 percent of the energy produced in the U.S. Is that true? Nope. The U.S. Energy Information Administration says, it's 3.5 percent.

NOVAK: It's big deal because Sarah Palin and John McCain have been claiming that Palin is an expert on energy in the United States, because Alaska has a good bit of oil. But the figures she's citing are simply wrong.

KAYE: And what about Palin's international credentials, the extent of her travels abroad?

BOUNDS: The Alaska National Guard has confirmed, just like we had confirmed at the campaign, that she has traveled abroad. She went to Kuwait. She entered Iraq. She underwent and presided over a -- over a ceremony. So, here we are, trying to bat down something that was completely true, 100 percent accurate.

KAYE: Apparently not. We checked with the Army National Guard. And they told us they are 100 percent sure Palin never made it past the Iraq-Kuwait checkpoint, that she never entered Iraq.

And her trip to Ireland, originally billed by the campaign as a visit to a foreign country, campaign spokeswoman Maria Comella says, it was a refueling stop.

Some Republicans are uneasy. Bush White House strategist Karl Rove, on "FOX News Sunday" criticized both the McCain and Obama campaigns.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "FOX NEWS SUNDAY")

KARL ROVE, FORMER SENIOR ADVISER TO PRESIDENT BUSH: McCain has gone, in -- in some of his ads, similarly gone one step too far in sort of attributing to Obama things that are, you know, beyond -- beyond -- beyond the 100 percent truth test. Both campaigns ought to be careful about -- they ought...

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KAYE: Still, political expert Larry Sabato says, mistruths can work well with the party base, which is conditioned to believe the campaign.

LARRY SABATO, DIRECTOR, UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA CENTER FOR POLITICS: A smear campaign can succeed. If it's completely outrageous, and it's completely contrary to the facts, then, probably the truth will catch up with it before the end of the campaign. But, if the unfairnesses or the mischaracterizations are subtle enough, then the campaign will probably succeed.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KAYE: Now, our expert, Larry Sabato, telling us tonight that, if the McCain campaign can't win pretty, it will try and win ugly.

And, Anderson, you know it's getting pretty ugly on both sides.

[H/T to C&L]