"Doing away with the Dept. of Education"

Obama's new ad hits McCain on education. The ad is fairly bland, like many of his previous ads but a one thing stands out. In the ad, Obama claims that McCain proposed abolishing the Dept. of Education. If you think that this is an exaggerated claim or that it is taken out of context, read the original McCain quote after the video clip.

McCain's Original Quote

Greg Sargent notes that in a 1994 interview, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) suggested that the U.S. should abolish the Department of Energy and the Department of Education:

FRANK SESNO: Senator McCain, would you favor doing away with the Department of Housing and Urban Development or the Department of Energy?

McCAIN: I would certainly favor doing away with the Department of Energy and I think that given the origins of the Department of Education, I would favor doing away with it as well. HUD had experienced many failures under both Republican and Democrat administrations and I would certainly want to revamp it from the bottom up, because, clearly, public housing in America is almost as big a disaster as the welfare program…

Source: Think Progress