The First Presidential Debate

I thought the first presidential debate was an awesome victory for Barack Obama. Barack was poised, articulate, looked at McCain when speaking to him, and all in all was very "presidential." McCain on the other hand seemed discombobbled at times, had too many military examples and analogies, hardly looked senatorial let alone presidential, and NEVER looked at Barack!! Furthermore, what were his handlers thinking when they put that skinny stripped tie on him?? On HDTV the stripes ran together and blinked like a neon sign!

Both candidates made some errors according to factcheck.org. Here is a short summary of some of their factual mistakes --

1. Obama said McCain adviser Henry Kissinger backs talks (not to be confused with backtalk or talks back) with Iran without preconditions, but McCain disputed that. The fact is that Kissinger did recently call for "high level" talks and said that he didn't believe we should make conditions. After the debate the McCain folks issued a statement quoting Kissinger saying he didn't favor president-level talks with Iran. (I personally liked the part when Obama said that preconditions usually meant agree with us then we will talk to you! He made a very good distinction between preconditions and preparation.)

2. McCain and Obama contradicted each other on what Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mullen said about troop withdrawals. Mullen did say a timeline could be dangerous, but was not specifically talking about Obama's plan as McCain said he was. (In my mind, this is a good example of the kind of change McCain is good at -- if reality is against you, change the reality!)

3.  McCain said that earmarks had tripled in the last five years when in fact they have sharply decrease! (Well, there goes that bogus campaign issue!)

4. Obama said Iraq has a $79 billion surplus. It once was that high, but currently less than $60 billion. (I'm not sure the difference between 79 and 60 is all that great when you are talking billions!! Same point holds true -- they should be paying us to keep the peace for them rather than the American people footing the bill!)

5.  McCain claimed that the US pays $700 billion a year for oil to hostile nations. Actually, imports run about $536 billion and a third of it comes from Canada, Mexico and the UK!!! (Whoa, now that was a really, really big whopper! That's the liar, liar, pants on fire kind.)

6. Obama said 95% of people would see a tax cut under his proposal. Factcheck.org says it will be 81%. (Not sure where the discrepancy lies.... I need to look into this one.)

7.  Obama said under McCain's health care plan employers would be taxed on the value of health benefits provided to workers. Actually not employers, but WORKERS would be taxed! (How bad is that!!)

8.  McCain claimed Obama would hand the health care system over to the federal government. Actually Obama would expand some government programs, but would allow people to keep their current plans or chose private ones.

9. McCain claimed Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower had crafted a letter of resignation from the Army to be sent in case the 1944 D-Day landing at Normandy turned out to be a failure. Ike prepared a letter taking responsibility, but he didn't mention resigning. (Another military history example, but he fucked it up!! Military History -- that must have been one of the courses at the Naval Academy that McCain failed!)

The full article with analysis, images, citations is available at Factcheck's website.