Fact-checking McCain and the RNC

One of the great information resources in this high-octane, spin-heavy campaign season is the non-partisan fact-checking website. Three in particular stand out: The Washington Post's fact-checker; PolitFact, run by the St. Petersburg Times and Congressional Quarterly; and FactCheck.org, a project of the Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania.

All three have taken John McCain and Barack Obama to task for misleading statements, speeches, and TV ads. But McCain has had a particularly rough go of it lately, especially from FactCheck.org.

For the fourth time in a week, the Annenberg folks targeted McCain and the Republicans for their misleading rhetoric. The latest critique is of a Republican National Committee ad claiming that Obama offers "no new solutions" on energy, when Obama "actually proposes $150 billion worth." FactCheck.org calls it a "false accusation."

Some other recent blurbs:

-- "A Spanish-language McCain radio ad gets nearly all its facts wrong."

-- "The McCain campaign falsely claims that Obama voted to raise income taxes on individuals earning "as little as $32,000 per year."

-- "Republicans claim Obama 'voted 94 times for higher taxes.' But their count is inflated and misleading."

FactCheck.org's last entry on Obama came last week, when it took issue with claims in one of his TV ads that he had worked through college and law school and was responsible for an Illinois law getting people off welfare.