The First Debate: Analysis and Fact Checking

The dust from the first debate has settled and several things have become clear.  First and foremost, as I touched on last night before the debate, almost clairvoyantly,  McCain's temperament was perhaps his biggest downfall last night.  At times, the Senator from Arizona would grunt and gesture awkwardly with his hands; his face often was shown on national television displaying disturbing expressions.  Moreover, McCain's dismissive attitude toward Obama, although surely making Republicans smile, might not play so well in this country with the undecided voters who will decide this election; indeed, several focus groups conducted during and after the debate showed that Obama won the debate by a significant margin among undecideds and that McCain's attacks labeling Obama as "naive" and "unprepared" were among the audience's least favorite moments of the entire hour and a half.

As far as who won the debate, it truly is in the eye of the beholder.  For my money, for whatever it's worth, Obama won by a landslide; he appeared Presidential; he had complete dominance over the economic portion of the debate; he demonstrated a great volume of knowledge on foreign affairs, and most importantly, he kept his cool.

Fact Check Time: As with any debate, one or both of the candidates end up lying on their or the other's records.  Last night was no different.  Here are some of those moments along with the fact checking.

Charge: One of the most memorable moments was the exchange between the two candidates on former Secretary of State and current McCain adviser, Henry Kissinger.  Obama claimed that Kissinger encouraged meetings with foreign leaders without preconditions; McCain said Kissinger would never suggest such a thing. 

Facts: At a forum last Saturday with former Secretaries of State, Henry Kissinger agreed with the other former Secretaries and said:

"I am in favor of negotiating with Iran....What is it going to do if we can't achieve what we're talking about? But I do not believe that we can make conditions for the opening of negotiations. We ought, however, to be very clear about the content of negotiations and work it out with other countries and with our own government."

Charge: Another moment of contention was when Obama charged that McCain's plan wold give $4 billion in tax breaks to oil companies.  McCain attempted to dodge the charge.  Here are the facts as reported by the Associated Press:

Facts:

"The $4 billion in tax breaks for the oil companies is simply part of McCain's overall corporate tax reduction plan and does not represent an additional tax benefit. In other words, the corporate tax reduction applies to all corporations, oil companies included."

Charge: McCain and Obama argued over whether or not Obama voted to cut off funding for U.S. troops.  Here are the facts, again as reported by the AP:

Facts:

"Despite opposing the war, Obama has, with one exception, voted for Iraq troop financing. In 2007, he voted against a troop funding bill because it did not contain language calling for a troop withdrawal. The Illinois senator backed another bill that had such language and money for the troops."

Charge: At one point in the debate, McCain claimed that Dwight Eisenhower wrote a resignation letter on the eve of D-Day to be sent if the invasion did not go well.  The AP has the facts:

Facts:

Eisenhower prepared to take responsibility in the note to be delivered in the event of D-Day disaster but did not offer to resign.

John McCain: Not Maverick; Erratic

"The fundamentals of our economy are strong."

Who said this?  When did they say it?  If one was watching the news as of late, the guess could be made that Bill Clinton said this during the 1990s when the economy was prosperous and both Wall Street and Main Street were satisfied. 

But it wasn't Bill Clinton who said this.  And the person who said this wasn't talking about the '90s.  John McCain said the above quote on Monday, September 15, when Lehman Brothers collapsed and the stock market had its worst day since 9/11.  The American economy, ever since that fateful Monday, has been in a steep dive with no end in sight, leading many to believe that a depression is on the way.

Yes, on Monday the "fundamentals of our economy" were "strong", but by Tuesday John McCain reinvented himself as a the modern day Teddy Roosevelt, rallying against the corruption of Wall Street Barons.  

John McCain continued that theme through last week and into this week when talk of a $700 billion bailout plan was proposed by the White House.  John McCain, sensing a political gold mine, decided to suspend his campaign, call off the debate, and fly to Washington to save the day.  

There was, of course, a few issues to be had with the above statement.  For one, is it really fair to say that your campaign is suspended when your television ads are still playing, your campaign personnel are going on cable news 24/7 to attack Barack Obama, and Sarah Palin, your Vice-Presidential pick, is holding campaign rallies across Pennsylvania?  Secondly, why call off the debate?  Isn't a crisis time like this a time when the American people most need to hear from their leaders, especially the two men who could inherit this economic crisis?  More on the calling off of the debate in a minute.  Finally, John McCain was not needed in Washington.  He is not on the Senate Banking committee, the Senate committee negotiating with the White House.  John McCain, putting it bluntly, went to Washington to look pretty.  He accomplished nothing, and, sadly, Congress is now further away from settling on a plan than they were before John McCain came to their rescue. Why are they further behind?  Well, according to several members of the House and Senate, John McCain did what he said he wouldn't: politicize the event and in turn make a bipartisan effort into an extremely partisan one.  

The debate, as we now know, is back on.  No solution has been reached, but John McCain is, as usual, going back on his word.  It's clear to me and should be obvious to all why McCain attempted to postpone the debate.  Just a few hours after making his "I'm not going to the debate" statement, McCain suggested that the Vice-Presidential debate next week should just be replaced by a Presidential one.  How convenient!  Sarah Palin, the least qualified and knowledgeable VP candidate in history, wouldn't have to face tough questions yet again. Thankfully, Barack Obama and Joe Biden stood firm; Friday's debate would go on, with or without John McCain, and the Vice-Presidential debate would be next week no matter the circumstances.  Left with the option of either going back on his word or leaving Obama with one and a half hours of free national exposure, McCain chose the latter.  

So the debate will go on and we'll finally see McCain and Obama face-to-face confronting each other on the crucial issues facing America, but the happenings of the past two weeks surely brings into question McCain's judgment and rationality.  Perhaps even more than the debate, these last two weeks have drawn a clear contrast between Obama and McCain:  Obama is cool under pressure, while McCain acts erratically. 

The Presidential Debate Moderators

The moderators for the three Presidential debates have been named and are Jim Lehrer of the Lehrer News Hour, Tom Brokaw, former NBC News anchor, and Bob Schieffer of CBS and moderator of Face the Nation.

 

All three have been around for a long time and John McCain is one of their fair head boys and has appeared many times with Schieffer and Brokaw.  In my judgement, all three leave a lot to be desired as debate moderators.

 

Jim Lehrer has appeared as a moderator in past presidential debates and really showed his bias as a moderator in the 2000 debates when he questioned Al Gore's character.  He soft balled questions to Bush and now after almost 8 years of Bush we know whose character he should have questioned.

 

Tom Brokaw is now doing Meet the Press on a temporary basis and his performance with his questions are silly at best.  He is a Republican supporter that comes through when he questions Democrats.  You can count on that showing up during the coming debates.

 

Bob Schieffer is a McCain supporter and his questions on Face the Nation are soft.  Several weeks ago Schieffer used the Republican talking point and asked the question: "Why can't Obama acknowledge the surge in Iraq is working?", as if the Iraqi government has accomplished all the things  the surge was supposed to have them accomplish.

 

The voters are faced with so much propaganda by the news media.  First, on all the regular news programs, journalists interview the same 10 or 12 members of Congress over and over and the people never get the opportunity to hear the thoughts of the other 400 plus members.

 

Then we have moderators for the debates whose questions will favor one candidate over the other, instead of neutral questions that will bring about answers that inform the American people of what the candidate would do if elected.  It is time for the people to stand up and be counted in this election.  The news media, journalists, and moderators offer no help.