"We find McCain's claim to be False"

A new television ad by Sen. John McCain's campaign seeks to exploit anger over gas prices by directing it toward his opponent.

[...]

The ad culminates with this question: "Who can you thank for rising prices at the pump?" Then we hear a chant familiar to anyone who has watched a fevered Obama rally: "O-ba-ma! O-ba-ma! O-ba-ma!" So the central claim of the ad, and the one we decided to check, is that Obama is to blame for rising gas prices.

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...Obama has only been in the U.S. Senate since 2005, and the congressional moratorium prohibiting oil and gas leasing on most of the outer continental shelf dates to 1982.

Granted, Congress has renewed it every year since. But there was also a presidential order banning oil exploration off the coasts from 1990, when the first President Bush issued it, until July 14, 2008, when his son lifted it.

[...]

What the ad pins on Obama - and others who are "saying no to (new offshore) drilling in America" - are the price increases the country is currently enduring. That saddles the Illinois senator with a lot more influence than he has had. If one were to line up all the leaders in Washington who share some responsibility for the offshore drilling moratorium - the first President Bush, the Republican leadership of Congress, the Democratic leadership of Congress, the Florida delegation - there would be quite a few people ahead of Obama. We find McCain's claim to be False.

Another example of "straight talk" from Johnny McSame, apparently.

Sunnis? Shi'ites?  "Mental" recessions? The economic factors behind $130 per barrel oil prices? Negotiations with Iran constitute "appeasement?" We should stay in Iraq for 100 years, even if the Iraqis and the American people want us out of there by 2010?  What a campaign!

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