John McCain’s new ad criticizing Barack Obama’s education record earned three “Pinocchios” out of four in a Washington Post “fact checker” analysis.

In the Post’s rating system, that means the ad contains “significant factual error and/or obvious contradictions.”

“Nobody expects television ads to be fair and objective analyses of public policy,” the analysis of Senator McCain’s education ad reads. “Almost by definition, the ads are partisan sales pitches, designed to promote one political brand while running down the rival brand. But they should not misrepresent the record of the other side and should clearly distinguish quotes from nonpartisan news sources from standard political rhetoric. The McCain ‘education’ ad fails this test.”

The Post says the ad implies that its critique of Senator Obama has been endorsed by Education Week when “in fact it is a hotch-potch of quotes from a variety of sources stitched together to form a highly partisan political attack.” The nonpartisan journal, in fact, ran a “generally positive” article about Senator Obama, the Post said.

The analysis also takes issue with the ad’s characterization of Senator Obama having only “one accomplishment” in the education field, which the ad describes as “legislation to teach ‘comprehensive sex education’ to kindergartners.”

“While it is true that Obama supported the bill, he was not one of the sponsors,” the Post said. “As far as kindergartners were concerned, the principal purpose of the bill was to make them aware of the risk of inappropriate touching and sexual predators. Other states, including California and Massachusetts, have passed similar legislation.”