LOBSTER PLZ
Well, this has been an interesting-if-uneventful weekend. First, the debates: I checked Google news to see what they’re reporting and… well, according to the news, it’s almost a consensus in favor of Obama. The bloggers/wingnuts will disagree, naturally.
Honestly, I was surprised to hear that. Overall, I thought they both performed well. I mean, some things were obviously less-than-straightforward, but the only observations I had to share were basically the same as those of others: Obama seemed angry (it’s about damn time) and McCain was a condescending bastard. I also noticed Obama was on the defensive much of the night, correcting this or denying that. Today, I found out why.
From factcheck.org:
McCain and Obama contradicted each other repeatedly during their first debate, and each volunteered some factual misstatements as well. Here’s how we sort them out:
- Obama said McCain adviser Henry Kissinger backs talks with Iran “without preconditions,” but McCain disputed that. In fact, Kissinger did recently call for “high level” talks with Iran starting at the secretary of state level and said, “I do not believe that we can make conditions.” After the debate the McCain campaign issued a statement quoting Kissinger as saying he didn’t favor presidential talks with Iran.
- Obama denied voting for a bill that called for increased taxes on “people” making as little as $42,000 a year, as McCain accused him of doing. McCain was right, though only for single taxpayers. A married couple would have had to make $83,000 to be affected by the vote, and anyway no such increase is in Obama’s tax plan.
- McCain and Obama contradicted each other on what Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Admiral Mike Mullen said about troop withdrawals. Mullen said a time line for withdrawal could be “very dangerous” but was not talking specifically about “Obama’s plan,” as McCain maintained.
- McCain tripped up on one of his signature issues – special appropriation “earmarks.” He said they had “tripled in the last five years,” when in fact they have decreased sharply.
- Obama claimed Iraq “has” a $79 billion surplus. It once was projected to be as high as that. It’s now down to less than $60 billion.
- McCain repeated his overstated claim that the U.S. pays $700 billion a year for oil to hostile nations. Imports are running at about $536 billion this year, and a third of it comes from Canada, Mexico and the U.K.
- Obama said 95 percent of “the American people” would see a tax cut under his proposal. The actual figure is 81 percent of households.
- Obama mischaracterized an aspect of McCain’s health care plan, saying “employers” would be taxed on the value of health benefits provided to workers. Employers wouldn’t, but the workers would. McCain also would grant workers up to a $5,000 tax credit per family to cover health insurance.
- McCain misrepresented Obama’s plan by claiming he’d be “handing the health care system over to the federal government.” Obama would expand some government programs but would allow people to keep their current plans or chose from private ones, as well.
- McCain claimed Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower had drafted 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.
For full details, as well as other dubious claims and statements, please read our full Analysis section.
Notice anything peculiar? I did. The vast majority of those points are against McCain. Not only does the guy play dirty, scumbag politics, he lies right to our faces. It blows because I actually want to like the guy.
Before this morning, I would have considered it a tie. I still think they both performed well, but now it’s clear who the victor was. This is why it’s important to check facts.
Ollie has a great take on the outcome.
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Other than feel like crap all weekend, I ended up saving the group I was assigned to in my Saturday class from utter failure. The assignment was to pick a state, then pick a category of statistics for that state. In that category, we were to choose various statistics that best describe that category for the state.
We picked our category, and our understanding of the assignment seemed to fit with what was on the sheet describing it. Then I re-read it and while it didn’t specifically say “each person in the group gets a category,” the language in the rest of the sheet suggested it was more specific.
Long story short, I was up until three in the morning (the night before my 8am class) pulling off the statistics for 9 other categories for our state, then comparing each of them to where Illinois ranked. This ended up saving our ass, hardcore. One person in the group didn’t bother showing up. Another looked up the correct statistics, but didn’t use the website we were instructed to use. The other looked up the stats for our category, but for the wrong state.
I ended up handing each of them a category sheet of Illinois statistics, our assigned state’s stats, and a third sheet comparing the two. I took three categories because dammit, I did the work, might as well use it.
In other news, I picked my topic for my final report. Fortunately, it’s interesting. On the downside, it’s going to require tons of footwork and probably some original research due to lack of information. Anyone know how to cite that?
I deserve a lobster.
Tags: 2008 General Election, debate, McCain, Obama
September 29th, 2008 at 9:45 am
plz is not a word. :P
As far as the citation goes, I had to cite my grandparents in an interview that I gave them in high schoo, but I don’t remember how I did it. It was something like, “Last name, first name; Interview, date of interview, etc.” I don’t think it had to be very formal, just enough details to show that you didn’t make the shit up.
There are lots of useful appendices in those writing/composition books (downstairs in the basement) for citing sources, too, from interviews to newspapers to TV, etc. Look in those books, that might help.
September 29th, 2008 at 4:06 pm
ALA/MLA Handbook, dude.