Convention Rhetoric vs. Reality

Will Sen. Barack Obama extend health-care coverage to all Americans? Did Sen. Joseph Biden put an extra 100,000 police officers on the streets? Will Sen. John McCain cut taxes while Obama raises them? Did Gov. Sarah Palin oppose the "bridge to nowhere" in Alaska?

A political convention is a license if not to lie then at least to tell the truth creatively. During the past two weeks, Democrats and Republicans presented their records and their platforms — and those of their opponents — through typically partisan lenses that blurred or distorted the real picture.

In Denver last week, Democrats depicted the Clinton years as halcyon days of peace and prosperity and the Bush era as a period of unremitting catastrophe at home and abroad. In St. Paul, Minn., this week, Republicans more or less ignored President Bush's tenure and focused instead on projecting disaster if the opposition were to recapture the White House. Along the way, both sides filled the airwaves with dubious claims, exaggerations and selective statistics.

So much for the rhetoric. Now for a little reality.

DEMOCRATIC CONVENTION

Barack Obama

Claim: "We measure progress in the 23 million new jobs that were created when Bill Clinton was president when the average American family saw its income go up $7,500 instead of go down $2,000, like it has under George Bush."

Context: The number of jobs grew substantially during Clinton's presidency, as did median income, but the numbers depend on the category and year cited. An August Census Bureau report shows median household income fell by $324 from 2000 to 2007, not the $2,000 Obama cited. The $2,000 figure probably referred to median non-elderly household income, which has dropped by $2,010 since 2000. If counting from 2001, the year Bush took office and the last recession ended, overall median household income increased $778 by 2007. While it is true that incomes grew far more under Clinton (by $5,312 from 1993 to 2001), the median household income adjusted for inflation in 2007 was still the third highest on record.

Claim: "And when one of his chief advisers, the man who wrote his economic plan, was talking about the anxieties that Americans are feeling, he said that we were just suffering from a 'mental recession' and that we've become, and I quote, 'a nation of whiners.' "

Context: Obama correctly quotes former Texas Sen. Phil Gramm, who resigned as McCain's campaign co-chairman amid the ensuing controversy. But Obama, in trying to make McCain guilty by association, is exaggerating to call Gramm the author of a McCain plan. McCain's proposals come mainly from Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a former Bush White House economist and congressional budget director who is the campaign's chief economic adviser.

Claim: "Now, I don't believe that Senator McCain doesn't care what's going on in the lives of Americans; I just think he doesn't know. Why else would he define middle class as someone making under $5 million a year?"

Context: This refers to McCain's answer at a forum last month when the Rev. Rick Warren of the Saddleback Church asked the candidate to give a specific number for the income level that divides the rich from the middle class. "How about $5 million?" McCain initially answered. The audience laughed, and McCain went on to say, "But, seriously, I don't think you can" cite a number. He also foresaw how the opposition would use his answer. "I'm sure that comment will be distorted," he said.

Joseph Biden

Claim: "Barack Obama will bring down health-care costs by $2,500 for the average family and, at long last, deliver affordable, accessible health care for every American."

Context: The $2,500 figure is based on assumptions that have provoked debate among experts. The Obama campaign says his plan would save more than $200 billion in health-care spending each year and that would average $2,500 for each family. But aides acknowledge that a lot of those savings would go to the government or private employers, and there is no guarantee they would be passed along to families. Some experts also say the Obama plan is overly optimistic about how quickly and deeply it can cut health-care spending. Some say the savings Obama envisions would not be realized for a decade or more, rather than by the end of his first term, as he has suggested.

Hillary Rodham Clinton

Claim: "I cannot wait to watch Barack Obama sign into law a health-care plan that covers every single American."

Context: Clinton spent much of her primary campaign pounding Obama because she said his health-care plan would not cover 15 million people. Unlike her plan, Obama's program would not include a mandate that every American obtain health insurance. But like hers, it would make it possible for everyone who wants to have insurance to get it. While the Obama campaign quarreled with the 15 million estimate, it agreed that, under its plan, there would be people who would not seek out health insurance, including well-off people who do not want it, young people who do not think they need it and lower-income people who would qualify for Medicaid but for whatever reason do not enroll in the government program.

REPUBLICAN CONVENTION

John McCain

Claim: "I will keep taxes low and cut them where I can. My opponent will raise them."

Context: This drastically simplifies what the candidates' tax plans would do. McCain would preserve all Bush tax cuts, while Obama would let those for people making more than $250,000 a year expire. McCain also would double the child tax exemption to $7,000 and reduce business taxes, most notably by reducing the corporate-income-tax rate to 25 percent from the current 35 percent. Obama would reduce income taxes and provide credits for people earning less than $250,000 a year. The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center found that Obama's plan would amount to a tax cut for 81 percent of all households, or 95.5 percent of those with children. The center calculated that by 2012 the Obama plan would let middle-income taxpayers keep about 5 percent more income on average, or nearly $2,200 a year, while McCain would give them an average 3 percent break, or about $1,400. The richest 1 percent would pay an average $19,000 more in taxes each year under Obama's plan but see a tax cut of more than $125,000 under McCain.

Claim: "Senator Obama thinks we can achieve energy independence without more drilling and without more nuclear power."

Context: Obama at first flatly opposed lifting long-standing restrictions on offshore drilling, but suggested a month ago that he would be open to additional drilling if it were part of a broader energy plan. Obama also says he supports nuclear energy, although he has not been as specific as McCain, who wants to build 45 reactors by 2030. Obama has said that issues of storing waste and guarding against proliferation must be addressed before nuclear energy can be expanded.

Sarah Palin

Claim: "I told the Congress, 'Thanks, but no thanks' on that bridge to nowhere. If our state wanted to build a bridge, we were going to build it ourselves."

Context: This refers to a $220 million federal allocation for a bridge to the tiny Alaska island of Gravina, with the Ketchikan airport but a population of only a few dozen people. As governor, Palin was for it before she was against it. Asked about that bridge and one other in an October 2006 television debate in her campaign for governor, she said, "I do support the infrastructure projects that are on tap here in the state of Alaska that our congressional delegations worked hard for." She repeated her support later that month. She abandoned the project in September 2007, citing lack of interest in Congress, but kept the money and diverted it to other projects.

Claim: "I got rid of a few things in the governor's office that I didn't believe our citizens should have to pay for. That luxury jet was over the top. I put it on eBay."

Context: Yes, she put the $2.7 million Westwind II jet on eBay. The plane got one bid, which fell through. The Alaska House speaker then arranged its sale to a businessman for $2.1 million, not the profit McCain claimed Friday.

Rudy Giuliani

Claim: "Obama's first instinct [during Russia's invasion of Georgia] was to create a moral equivalency, suggesting that both sides were equally responsible, the same moral equivalency that he's displayed in discussing the Palestinian Authority and the state of Israel. After discussing this with his 300 foreign-policy advisers, he changed his position and he suggested the United Nations Security Council could find a solution. Apparently none of his 300 foreign-policy advisers told him that Russia has a veto power in the United Nations Security Council. By the way, this was about three days later. So he changed his position again and he put out a statement exactly like the statement of John McCain's three days earlier."

Context: Obama never called both sides equally responsible, declaring flatly on the first day of fighting that "Russia has invaded Georgia" and condemning what he termed "the violation of Georgia's sovereignty." He also called for the United States to work with the Security Council to stop the conflict just as McCain did the same day.