rayboyusmc
Senior Member
Debate Live Fact Check
11:02 p.m.
Obama made an arresting and frequently repeated claim near the end of the debate--that the U.S. has lost considerable respect in the world over the course of the Bush administration.
"We are less respected now than we were eight years ago or even four years ago," Obama said.
That's a subjective assessment, of course, but the Pew Center has been tracking anti-Americanism in the world since 2001 and has found that favorable opinions of the United States have declined precipitously in Europe and in the Muslim world since the Iraq war was launched.
Opinion has declined less markedly in key Asian countries, by contrast. A majority of people in India and Japan still had favorable perceptions of the United States in 2006, according to Pew.
--Michael Abramowitz
10:37 p.m.
Obama said that "I was called naive when i suggested that we need to look at exploring contacts with Iran, and, you know what? President Bush recently sent a senior ambassador, Bill Burns, to participate in talks with the Europeans around the issue of nuclear weapons."
This comment both overstates the case and does not accurately reflect Obama's position. Obama has said he would begin direct talks with Iran on its nuclear program without preconditions, a stance that has worried key European allies.
In fact, European officials are increasingly concerned that Sen. Barack Obama's campaign pledge to begin direct talks with Iran on its nuclear program without preconditions could hurt relations with key European allies early in a potential Obama administration.
The U.N. Security Council has passed four resolutions demanding that Iran stop enriching uranium, each time highlighting the offer of financial and diplomatic incentives from a European-led coalition if Tehran suspends enrichment, a route to producing fuel for nuclear weapons. But Obama, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, has said he would make such suspension a topic for discussion with Iran, rather than a precondition for any negotiations to take place.
European officials, however, are wary of giving up a demand that has been so enshrined in U.N. resolutions, particularly without any corresponding concessions by Iran.
Over the summer, the Bush administration sent Undersecretary of State William Burns to join the European-led talks, a major tactical shift. But Burns joined the talks with the Europeans; it was not a bilateral discussion.
--Glenn Kessler
10:29 p.m.
On Afghanistan, Obama once again twisted McCain's words when he said, "at one point, while you were focused on Iraq, you said, well, we can muddle through Afghanistan."
That was a reference to comments McCain made in 2003 in which the Arizona senator expressed concern, but cautious optimism, about the long-term prospects of Afghanistan. "I believe that if Karzai can make the progress that he is making, that - in the long term, we may muddle through in Afghanistan," McCain said.
--Michael Abramowitz
10:24 p.m.
Both Obama and McCain are twisting the record somewhat on the question of whether or not Obama would sit down with dictators like the leader of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, "without preconditions." This debate goes back to a comment made by Obama in a Democratic debate with Hillary Clinton back in July 2007. On that occasion, the Democratic candidates were asked whether they "would be willing to meet separately, without precondition, during the first year of your administration, in Washington or anywhere else, with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea."
Obama's reply was as follows:
"I would. And the reason is this, that the notion that somehow not talking to countries is punishment to them -- which has been the guiding diplomatic principle of this administration -- is ridiculous. "
Several days after the debate, Obama amended his statement somewhat to say that preparations were necessary for summit-level meetings. "Nobody expects that you would suddenly just sit down with them for coffee without having done the appropriate groundwork," Obama explained.
In subsequent months, the Democratic candidate has been seeking to draw a distinction between "preconditions" and "preparations." He now says that any meetings with other leaders must be carefully prepared, a distinction that he failed to make when the question first came up.
On the other hand, McCain has played down the willingness of former presidents, including President Reagan, to meet with America's enemies. While it is true, as McCain claimed, that Reagan did not meet with Soviet leaders prior to the election of the reformist Mikhail Gorbachev, this was not for want of trying. Reagan attempted to organize meetings with Gorbachev's predecessors but complained that the leaders "keep dying on me." He met with lower-level Soviet leaders, including Soviet foreign minister Andrei Gromyko, at a time when U.S.-Soviet relations were very strained.
--Michael Dobbs
10:20 p.m.
McCain seriously mistated his vote concerning the marines in Lebanon. He said that when he went into Congress in 1983, he voted against deploying them in Beirut. The Marines went in Lebanon in 1982, before McCain came to Congress. The vote came up a year into their deployment, when the Marines had already suffered 54 casualties. What McCain voted against was a measure to invoke the War Powers Act and to authorize the deployment of U.S. Marines in Lebanon for an additional 18 months. The measure passed 270-161, with 26 other Republicans (including McCain) and 134 Democrats voting against it.
--Glenn Kessler
10:12 p.m.
McCain accused Obama of wanting to stage "military strikes" inside Pakistan, which is a misleading account of what Obama famously said in 2007: That he would be willing to go after Al Qaeda targets inside that country with or without the approval of the Pakistani authorities.
"If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won't act, we will," Obama said.
--Michael Abramowitz
10:02 p.m.
When discussuing what ways he would save money in the federal budget, McCain said, "Look, we're sending $700 billion a year overseas to countries that don't like us very much." This is a line he used in his campaign acceptance speech, but as a matter of context he was not talking about foreign aid. That only amounts to $39 bllion a year, most of which is economic aid. McCain instead is talking about the amount of money that Americans spend on foreign oil, though some experts think that figure is a bit high. It certainly is not part of the federal budget.
--Glenn Kessler
9:58 p.m.
In a contentious exchange, John McCain said Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had called Barack Obama's Iraqi troop withdrawal plan dangerous, a charge Obama strenuously called untrue.
In fact, in July, Mullen, addressing a plan that would remove all combat troops by 2010, did say on Fox News, "I think the consequences could be very dangerous. I'm convinced that making reductions based on conditions on the ground are very important."
--Jonathan Weisman
9:54 p.m.
Obama and McCain got into a little argument over whether the Illinois senator has oversight responsibility for Afghanistan in the U.S. Senate. Obama is the chairman of the Europe sub-committee of the Senate Foreign Relations Comittee. Obama's sub-committee is responsible for NATO affairs. Since NATO has troops in Afghanistan, McCain can claim that Obama's committee has an interest in what is happening in Afghanistan. It is true that he did not hold hearings of the sub-committee while he was out on the campaign trail.
On the other hand, Obama can claim that his sub-committee is not primarily responsible for Afghanistan. Another sub-committee has oversight responsibility for the South Asian region.
--Michael Dobbs
9:52 p.m.
John McCain correctly asserted that in 2003 he began to question the Iraq war strategy, which is correct. In November 2003, he criticized the Bush administration's conduct of the Iraq war, saying the United States should send at least 15,000 more troops or risk "the most serious American defeat on the global stage since Vietnam."
But he has also made later, more rosy pronouncements. After visiting the Shorja market in Baghdad in April 2007, where he was protected by more than 100 soldiers, McCain said, "Things are getting better in Iraq, and I am pleased with the progress that has been made." Privately, according to a recent book by Bob Woodward, he was more critical, telling Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, "We may be about to lose the second war in my lifetime."
--Glenn Kessler
9:50 p.m.
During the debate, McCain once again took credit for his crusade to block a new contract for Boeing for a new fleet of midair refueling tankers. He said he saved taxpayers more than $6 billion while launching a Senate probe that found cozy relations between Pentagon officials and Boeing executives.
But the GAO found significant problems in the rebidding of the new contract, which had awarded the contract to a partnership between Northrup Grumman and the European firm EADS.
"This shows how a sort of naive crusade for good government can actually backfire," Loren Thompson, of the Lexington Institute, a defense think tank, told Newsweek.
--Michael Abramowitz
9:45 p.m.
John McCain raised an old Republican canard, repeated often in the primaries, when he claimed that Obama's health care plan would eventually turn the health care system over to the federal government. The Illinois senator proposes helping individuals purchase health insurance through a system of subsidies and tax credits. He is also in favor of mandatory health insurance for children. But he is not advocating a state-run health system, such as the one that exists in Britain and some European countries. Under the Obama plan, individuals will still be free to choose between different types of health insurance, and will be able to choose their own doctors.
--Michael Dobbs
9:39 p.m.
McCain, rebutting Obama's correct observation that earmarks are a small part of the budget, said, "But the point is, that you see, i hear this all the time. It's only $18 billion. Do you know that it's tripled in the last five years? Do you know that it's gone completely out of control to the point where it corrupts people?"
But while federal earmarks tripled in size from 1996 to 2005, they have actually dropped in recent years. According to the White House Office of Management and Budget, in fiscal year 2005 Congress inserted 13,492 earmarks totaling $18.9 billion for appropriations accounts. In fiscal year 2008, there were 11,524 earmarks totaling $16.5 billion for appropriations accounts.
--Glenn Kessler
9:33 p.m.
John McCain claimed that Obama voted in the Senate to raise taxes on anyone making more than $42,000 a year. This is misleading on several levels. The vote that McCain is talking about was a non-binding resolution on the budget that envisioned letting the Bush tax cuts to expire, as scheduled, in 2011. But these budget resolutions come up every year, and do not represent a vote for higher taxes in future years. In fact, Obama has said that he will continue the Bush tax cuts for middle and low-income taxpayers. He says that he will cut taxes for all but the wealthiest tax-payers.
--Michael Dobbs
9:21 p.m.
John McCain kicked the evening off with a wild exaggeration by describing the allied invasion of Normandy as "the greatest invasion" in history. Such historical comparisons are always dangerous. In scale, the D-Day landings were far exceeded by Operation Barbarossa, the Nazi attack on the Soviet Union, in June 1941, and the Soviet invasion of Germany at the end of World War II.
A total of 326,000 allied troops took part in the initial D-day Landings in June 1944. By comparison, Hitler's sent an army of 4.5 million men into the Soviet Union in June 1941along a 1,800 mile front.
--Michael Dobbs
Fact Checker
