FactCheck.org: Obama's Distortions

In separate, 30-minute question-and-answer sessions sponsored by The Politico and a Washington, D.C., television station, Obama and Clinton for the most part stuck to the facts – or, often, to statements that were matters of judgment and thus out of our bailiwick.

But, our mission being to point out the diminutive distortions as well as the big, fat slabs of baloney, we bring you flubs we found in last night's non-debate:

* Obama boasted of his Latino support in Illinois and Iowa – not mentioning that he won a much smaller share of the Illinois Latino vote in this year's presidential primary than in his 2004 Senate primary, or that there are exceedingly few Latinos in Iowa.

* Obama overstated the number of Iraqis displaced inside the country's borders.

* Obama made it appear that his "most liberal" ranking by the nonpartisan National Journal was awarded because he voted to create an outside ethics office for the Senate. Actually, there were 99 votes that formed the basis of the magazine's analysis.