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Letter to the editor

Politics

He hypes the language, the numbers

By ANGIE DROBNIC HOLAN, Times Staff Writer
Published December 22, 2007

The statement

"Sixty-five percent of the Iraqi people now say it's okay to shoot an American soldier."

Bill Richardson, Nov. 15 in a debate in Las Vegas

The ruling

Where did that number come from? Katie Roberts, Richardson's deputy communications director, points to a BBC-sponsored poll of Iraqis in September 2007. But the poll does not directly support the 65 percent figure. Nor does the poll put the question as starkly as Richardson stated. "Thinking about the political action of other people," the question says, "do you find each of these items to be acceptable or not acceptable?" The first item was "attacks on coalition forces," and 57 percent of the respondents found them "acceptable." Among Sunnis, 93 percent said "acceptable;" among Shiites, it was 50 percent, and among Kurds, it was 5 percent. It's not at all clear that the same number would have said it is acceptable if people had been asked, "Is it okay to shoot an American soldier?" So Richardson is at least casting the response in more dramatic terms than the question asked. Polling expert John G. Geer, professor of political science at Vanderbilt University, theorized that Richardson excluded Kurd responses to get his number. Sure enough, if you subtract the 354 Kurd responses from the 2,212 total, the math supports him. But removing the Kurds exaggerates the results and does not reflect Richardson's statement, which referred to "the Iraqi people."Neil Skene, Politifact.com

Bama was sworn in on his Bible

The statement

When Obama was sworn into office, "he DID NOT use the Holy Bible, but instead the Kuran."

Anonymous chain e-mail

The ruling

An anonymous e-mail says Sen. Barack Obama took the oath of office for the U.S. Senate on a Koran, the holy book of Islam. We thought this would be odd if it were true, since Obama is a Christian. In fact, it is wrong. Also, the e-mail spells the book's name "Kuran," though usually it is spelled Koran or Quran. Two press reports from Obama's swearing-in ceremony in January 2005 mention specifically that Obama took the oath of office by placing his hand on his own copy of the Bible. The Obama campaign also confirmed that it was a Bible and that the book belonged to Obama. Vice President Dick Cheney, in his role as president of the Senate, administered the oath. After being raised outside of any particular faith tradition, Obama became a Christian in his mid 20s and is a member of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago. We suspect this false claim was inspired by the 2007 swearing-in of Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., an American convert to Islam and the first Muslim elected to Congress. Ellison used a Koran that once belonged to Thomas Jefferson, borrowing the rare book from the Library of Congress. It goes without saying that Ellison is not Obama. And with its intent to inflame, we find the e-mail's allegation not only false, but Pants-on-Fire wrong.

Angie Drobnic Holan, Times staff writer

For more rulings on the candidates' statements, go to Politifact.com

[Last modified December 22, 2007, 00:46:51]