It seems Sen. John McCain is not backing away from his widely debunked education ad attacking Sen. Barack Obama’s record on education.
The Republican presidential nominee told National Public Radio yesterday that the ad was accurate. Here’s the exchange:
NPR: Have you come back to your advisers at any point and said — for example, the ad that ran with your name on it saying that Barack Obama supported comprehensive sex education for primary school students, something that factcheck.org said was wrong. Have you ever gone to your staff and said, "Take that ad off. It's not right"? McCain: It's factually correct. It's absolutely factually correct, and you can go on my Web site and you can see the exact language of the bill that Senator Obama sponsored. ... And if someone named factcheck.org or anybody else doesn't agree with it, I respectfully disagree with their conclusions.
McCain also defended the ad to the Des Moines Register’s editorial board.
Here’s a link to Edweek’s analysis of the ad, and to the bill itself.
The long and short of it is that the Democratic nominee was not the main sponsor of the measure, although he did vote to support it. The bill, which ultimately did not pass, would have authorized comprehensive, age-appropriate sex education for students in grades K-12. Parents could opt out of that instruction. Obama said during his U.S. Senate race that the lessons for kindergartners would have been aimed at helping kids avoid sexual predators.