Mailbag: Readers celebrate freedom of expression

The Fourth of July is a great time to celebrate our First Amendment freedoms! Here are our readers' latest opinions on the Truth-O-Meter and the Obameter.Obama's Birth certificateWe recently looked again at the controversy surrounding President Obama's birth certificate. An ad from the owners of the conservative Web site WorldNetDaily said that White House spokesman Robert Gibbs "lied" when he said President Obama's birth certificate was posted to the Internet. We found WorldNetDaily's statement False. Obama's birth certificate is on the Web, and it shows he was born in Honolulu. We didn't get much thanks for revisiting the issue, though.• ... >>More

Obama's birth certificate: Final chapter. This time we mean it!

Back on June 27, 2008, PolitiFact published a story we hoped would put the whole Obama birth certificate controversy to rest. It ran under the now-laughable headline, "Obama's birth certificate: Final chapter." Oh, how naive we were. More than a year later, the debate continues to rage on the Internet among the "Birthers" movement, people who doubt that President Obama is a natural born citizen of the U.S., and is therefore ineligible to serve as president. Or at least, they say, Obama has yet to sufficiently prove things one way or the other. Today, we examine two claims: •   WorldNetDaily's ... >>More

When in-your-face is off-the-air

Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, was angry that ABC News hosted a town hall meeting with President Barack Obama on health care, but wouldn't let opposing groups buy commercials during it. We dug into the issue and found that broadcast networks don't take issue advocacy ads, at least most of the time. It was definitely the case for Obama's town hall. We rated Smith's statement True and explain  the nuts and bolts of buying political advocacy advertising on television. >>More