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September 07, 2012
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Did Obama’s speech play fast and loose with the facts?

A fact check shows that most of the references in President Obama’s acceptance speech were accurate. But there were a few caveats.

Obama took out of context a statement by Romney about the end of the Iraq war, and while Obama sidestepped discussion of his mother’s fight with insurance companies over her cancer coverage - an issue that tripped him up with fact checkers earlier this year - Biden resurrected the subject.

Read on for a full fact check of the issues Obama mentioned in his speech.

Photo: President Barack Obama arrives on stage to address the final session of the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina September 6, 2012. REUTERS/Eric Thayer

Photo
May 23, 2012
President Obama staunchly defended his foreign policy record against Republican election-year criticism that he has overseen a decline in American power in the world. Mitt Romney has accused the Democratic president of weakening America on the world stage, chiding Obama for setting a timeline for leaving Afghanistan and has called the Iraq withdrawal last year a premature move. The Iraq pullout followed a timetable put in place by former President George W. Bush. Obama, in a weekend NATO summit in Chicago, acknowledged there were risks in withdrawing U.S. and allied forces from Afghanistan by the end of 2014. But while addressing graduating cadets of the Air Force Academy, he pushed back hard against Romney’s claim that America had lost ground under his leadership. “Let’s start by putting aside the tired notion that says our influence has waned, that America is in decline. We’ve heard that talk before,” he said, declaring that his policies were seeding the way to a new “American Century.” Credit: President Obama salutes as he arrives for the Air Force Academy commencement ceremony in Colorado Springs, Colorado, May 23, 2012. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

President Obama staunchly defended his foreign policy record against Republican election-year criticism that he has overseen a decline in American power in the world.

Mitt Romney has accused the Democratic president of weakening America on the world stage, chiding Obama for setting a timeline for leaving Afghanistan and has called the Iraq withdrawal last year a premature move. The Iraq pullout followed a timetable put in place by former President George W. Bush.

Obama, in a weekend NATO summit in Chicago, acknowledged there were risks in withdrawing U.S. and allied forces from Afghanistan by the end of 2014. But while addressing graduating cadets of the Air Force Academy, he pushed back hard against Romney’s claim that America had lost ground under his leadership.

“Let’s start by putting aside the tired notion that says our influence has waned, that America is in decline. We’ve heard that talk before,” he said, declaring that his policies were seeding the way to a new “American Century.”

Credit: President Obama salutes as he arrives for the Air Force Academy commencement ceremony in Colorado Springs, Colorado, May 23, 2012. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque