From the new west blog: Presidential Election
Fact Checks and Polls: VP Debate
By Jill Kuraitis, 10-03-08
 |
|
 | |
|
UPDATE: Another site, FactCheck, has its own list of checks from the debate.
CBS News’ “Reality Check Team” filed this report Thursday night after the Vice-Presidential debate between Democrat Sen. Joe Biden and Republican Gov. Sarah Palin. Among the questions which CBS fact-checked are, “Did McCain Vote to Cut Off Funding for the Troops?” “Obama Voting 94 Times to Increase Taxes?” and “McCain’s Health Care Plan.”
Here is Fox News’ “Fact Check” piece, which draws slightly different conclusions from CBS’. It includes checks on statements the two candidates made, such as PALIN: “We cannot afford to lose against al-Qaida and the Shia extremists who are still there, still fighting us.” And BIDEN: Warned that Republican presidential candidate John McCain’s $5,000 tax credit to help families buy health coverage “will go straight to the insurance company.”
CNN’s poll which showed “Biden Won; Palin Exceeds Expectations” is parsed and analyzed here. “The CNN/Opinion Research Corp. said 51 percent of those polled thought Biden did the best job, while 36 percent thought Palin did the best job.”
“On the question of the candidates’ qualifications to assume the presidency, 87 percent of those polled said Biden is qualified and 42 percent said Palin is qualified.”
And this: “Respondents overwhelmingly said moderator Gwen Ifill was fair during the vice presidential debate, repudiating critics who said that Ifill, of PBS, would be biased because she is writing a book that includes Biden’s running mate, Sen. Barack Obama. Ninety-five percent of those polled said Ifill was fair.”
The Pew Research Center has excellent analyses about the race for the White House.
Like this story? Get more! Sign up for our free newsletters.
Comments
McCain did vote against funding the troops through an "emergency" appropriation. The bill was H.R. 1591. The date was March 29, 2007. In addition to funding troops in Iraq, it added $1 billion to Veteran's Affairs.
Here is the the vote tally:
http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=110&session=1&vote=00126
As you see, McShame is listed as "nay".
Here is the statement McCain released that day:
http://mccain.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=PressOffice.PressReleases&ContentRecord_id=f199ef61-5499-469b-b45e-bda6137dbe3e&Region;_id=&Issue;_id=
I really hate our broken press corps.
How can anyone read MCCain's statement and be so devoid of inteligence as to imagine he doesn't support our troops?
That is really the point I am making.
In the same time frame as McCain voted against a troop funding bill, Obama voted against a different one. The net result is they both are technically on the record as being "against" funding the troops at one point.
The key difference is that McCain dishonorably keeps bringing up Obama's vote in his speeches, commercials, and during the debates as some sort of evidence that he doesn't support the troops. Obama could do the exact same thing, but he doesn't do this.
That is why McCain has earned the McShame nickname.
Biden told some real whoppers adn he is supposed to be the expert. Without a doubt Palin won. I can think of little worse than having a pair of lawyers in charge. I personally think that lawyers shoudl be automatically disqualified from being in congress in any capacity.
Her folksy act is very well practiced. arrowpm1, you missed those charming half dozen winks that would have won you right over.
http://townhall.com/columnists/AmandaCarpenter/2008/10/03/biden_tells_14_lies_during_vp_debate
Blogging about news stories requires that information that appears elsewhere is cited as "what this source says" rather than "this is true information."
You wrote "He said Hezbullah was forced out of Israel," but this did not happen last night that I remember, or from looking at the transcript. You can't get facts right with all the time in the world, you shouldn't be surprised that someone misspeaks in the heat of a live debate.
So, should we gloss over Palin's misspeech? It's not the same thing: she doesn't confuse facts and assemble things out of order, she's simply ignorant of so many of the salient facts, or juggling them from the cram sessions the campaign has been giving her to bring her up to speed on the 98% of the country's concerns that she hadn't had to care about before that surprise call this summer.
"As we send our young men and women overseas in a war zone to fight for democracy and freedoms, including freedom of the press, we've really got to have a mutually beneficial relationship here with those fighting the freedom of the press, and then the press, though not taking advantage and exploiting a situation, perhaps they would want to capture and abuse the privilege. We just want truth, we want fairness, we want balance."
Sounds like Lincoln, eh?
Looking forward to a spirited debate on Tuesday!