Robocall Invents Bogus Obama-Netanyahu Debate

Ah, the closing days of a tight, bitter election, when robocalls send fact-checkers' blood pressure through the roof. Case in point, one playing in swing states from the Emergency Committee for Israel that not only invents a debate between President Obama and Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu that never existed, but also dramatically twists the meaning of every out-of-context audio snippet, reports the Washington Post. "Obviously there are some differences between us,” says Obama in the message, followed by an announcer saying, "Americans and Israel cannot afford four more years of Barack Obama." (You can listen to it here.)

The robocall makes three audio clips from Obama and Netanyahu sound like a debate, but in fact the quotes were made 2009 and 2012. In context, the Obama quotes were from speeches cracking down on Iran and expressing solidarity with Israel. But when confronted with the deception, the executive director of the Emergency Committee for Israel only joked and promised more. "[T]here is no excuse for such an Orwellian descent into falsehoods and misrepresentation," writes Glenn Kessler at the Post's Fact Checker blog. "This is one of those days when we wish we were not limited to just Four Pinocchios." (More robocalls stories.)