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Rudy Giuliani Uses EdWeek to Lash Out at Obama

By Michele McNeil — September 15, 2008 1 min read
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The controversial attack ad John McCain launched against his Democratic opponent—which says Sen. Barack Obama’s one accomplishment is a bill that would have taught sex ed to kindergartners—has been labeled dishonest, misleading, and off-base by many newspapers and fact-checking web sites.

But that didn’t stop former New York City Mayor Giuliani, representing the McCain campaign, from defending the ad on Sunday’s Meet the Press, even declaring the ad gave Obama too much credit. And Giuliani takes a line from the ad: “Education Week said that he basically had no record on education, which is why maybe Senator McCain’s idea of an accomplishment in that ad goes a little bit too far.” (The link takes you to page 3 of the transcript, and scroll down about one-quarter of the way to see the EdWeek reference.)

No, not quite. As we’ve detailed on this blog, the McCain campaign and its supporters continue to cherry-pick a quote and take it out of context.

Writer and fellow blogger David Hoff wrote: “In his eight years in the state Senate and two years in the U.S. Senate, Mr. Obama hasn’t made a significant mark on education policy.” But he also wrote in the next sentence: “In Illinois, his biggest accomplishments were in reforming state ethics rules and capital punishment. He did promote early-childhood initiatives that advocates considered ‘innovative and progressive’.”

And EdWeek has said plenty else about his education policies besides this one story back in 2007.

EdWeek has also examined the record and proposals about John McCain, and has pointed out that McCain’s track record on education isn’t anything to write home about either.

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