Fact-Check Gives Obama 'Upside-Down Pinocchio'

The Washington Post's "Pinocchio Rating" has become a fixture in politics, but it's pretty rare to see the iconic wooden liar standing backward and on his head. But you can see him that way today. In light of Obama's combative press conference yesterday, the paper decided to turn its gaze on Senator Obama's 2006 floor speech against raising the debt limit, and awarded him the rare "upside-down Pinocchio" rating, which signifies a "major flip-flop."

While 2013 Obama has been loudly decrying Republicans who oppose raising the debt limit as irresponsible and worse, 2006 Obama sounded downright "Tea Partyish," the paper says. He called raising the limit "a sign of leadership failures," bemoaning the need to borrow money from foreign countries—both comments that are eerily similar to ones made by Mitt Romney during his presidential campaign. Obama has since admitted that his 2006 vote was a "political" one, but the fact-checker isn't letting him off the hook. "This," he writes, "is why many Americans hate politics." (More Barack Obama stories.)