Fact Check Responds

Check out the newest Fact Check article weighing in on the Republican/Byrd ads.

"Summary

With 15 months to go before election day 2006, the National Republican Senatorial Committee unleashed an attack ad in West Virginia in an attempt to soften up Democratic Senator Robert Byrd for an eventual GOP challenger. Byrd responded immediately with a TV ad of his own.

Both ads contained shopworn distortions.

The NRSC ad accused Byrd of voting "against body armor" and "for higher taxes for the middle class" – as misleading now as when Bush used the same attacks against Kerry last year.

And Byrd responded by claiming he was being attacked by "out-of-state special interests" with an "agenda" that includes "tax breaks for companies that ship our jobs overseas." In fact, the ad was run by a political party and not by a "special interest," and the tax breaks Byrd mentions have been in place for decades, even when Democrats had a majority in the Senate and Byrd was their leader. Few economists see those tax breaks as a serious drain on US jobs."