Topic: Newsmax
A July 2 Newsmax article by Rick Pedraza repeats the Washington Post's claim that Barack obama got a "highly favorable home loan," asserting that "Obama joins Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., and Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., on the list of high-profile public figures who received 'VIP' loans that some now are scrutinizing as alleged trade-offs for political favors."
But the Post article doesn't claim that Obama received a "VIP" loan like Dodd and Conrad (and, Pedraza fails to mention, scandal-ridden Bush HUD secretary Alphonso Jackson). While Pedraza misleadingly described the interest rate on Obama's mortage as "unusually low" loan rate was actually just 3/10 percent below the average rate available at the time, and the Post never described it as "unusually low." Indeed, as Media Matters points out, "average" means that a substantial number of loans were below the average interest rate, and the Post offers no evidence that evidence that the interest rate Obama received was in any way out of the ordinary or the result of preferential treatment.
Further, as one blogger notes, evidence shows that the Obamas had excellent credit at the time of the house purchase and, thus, would likely have been eligible for below-average loan rates.
Will Pedraza this factual information on to his Newsmax readers? Don't count on it.
