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Fact-Checking Friday's Debate

Here are a few of the claims made by Senators McCain and Obama in Friday's presidential debate, and resources for checking their accuracy.

Factcheck.org and the Washington Post's Fact Checker blog each have their fact-checking for the whole debate on a single page, so those two links are only provided here. PolitiFact has separate pages for each claim, which are linked to individually.

- The kerfuffle over whose position on talking to Iran is most like Henry Kissinger's.
The answer is nuanced. Here is Kissinger's reaction.

- Obama's tax plans. Obama said that he would give 95% of people a tax cut. McCain said that Obama had voted to increase taxes on people making as little as $42,000 per year.
The answer to the latter depends on whether a vote on a budget resolution counts.

- McCain: "The average South Korean is 3 inches taller than the average North Korean."
This is true.

- McCain: Pakistan was a "failed state" before Musharraf came to power.
This was not answered by any of the fact-checking sites mentioned, but using "a country in social and economic collapse where the government no longer exercises authority" as a definition for a "failed state," this AP article calls the statement false.

Several more claims are fact-checked on the sites mentioned.

Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

Full post as published by Virtual Library Cat's Eye View on September 29, 2008 (boomark / email).