Just a few days ago the Democratic National Committee (DNC) sent out a letter to its supporters asking for new donations for their campaign to "tell the real story" about John McCain. The Annenberg Political Fact Check posted a critique of the DNC letter and its claims about McCain. According to Fact Check there are three major distortions in the DNC letter:

* The DNC paints McCain as favoring "endless war" in Iraq. What McCain actually said is that he wouldn't mind a hundred-year troop presence "as long as Americans are not being injured or harmed or wounded or killed."

* It says McCain "looked the other way" rather than investigate Jack Abramoff and a Republican "Culture of Corruption." In fact, McCain's investigation led to a prison term for Abramoff and the downfall of several powerful Republicans. His investigators didn't probe members of Congress directly, but that wasn't the job of his Indian Affairs Committee. And in any case, federal prosecutors opposed a competing congressional investigation which might have interfered with their own efforts.

* The DNC message makes criticisms of McCain that could be directed at its own leading candidates as well. It notes that he lacks training in economics, which is equally true of Clinton and Obama. And it accuses him of "staggering" reliance on lobbyists for campaign help, when Clinton also has substantial aid from lobbyists and Obama has some from former lobbyists.

For more on the number of lobbyists that Clinton and Obama have in their campaign, see the recent report from www.whitehouseforsale.org.