FactChecking Biden-Palin Debate

Scheunemann, September 2008: The questioner asked several times about Senator McCain's willingness to meet Zapatero—and id'd him in the question so there is no doubt Senator McCain knew exactly to whom the question referred. Senator McCain refused to commit to a White House meeting with President Zapatero in this interview.

That's not a refusal to meet with Zapatero, as Biden said. It's simply a refusal to commit himself one way or the other.

Palin's Small Business Balderdash
Palin repeated a falsehood that the McCain campaign has peddled, off and on, for some time:

    Palin: But when you talk about Barack's plan to tax increase affecting only those making $250,000 a year or more, you're forgetting millions of small businesses that are going to fit into that category. So they're going to be the ones paying higher taxes thus resulting in fewer jobs being created and less productivity.

As we reported June 23, it's simply untrue that "millions" of small business owners will pay higher federal income taxes under Obama's proposal. According to an analysis by the independent Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, several hundred thousand small business owners, at most, would have incomes high enough to be affected by the higher rates on income, capital gains and dividends that Obama proposes. That counts as "small business owners" even those who merely have some sideline income from such endeavors as freelance writing, speaking or running rental properties, and who get the bulk of their income from employment elsewhere.
Defense Disagreements

Biden and Palin got into a tussle about military recommendations in Afghanistan:
Biden: The fact is that our commanding general in Afghanistan said today that a surge—the surge principles used in Iraq will not—well, let me say this again now—our commanding general in Afghanistan said the surge principle in Iraq will not work in Afghanistan, not Joe Biden, our commanding general in Afghanistan. He said we need more troops. We need government-building. We need to spend more money on the infrastructure in Afghanistan.

    Palin: Well, first, McClellan did not say definitively the surge principles would not work in Afghanistan. Certainly, accounting for different conditions in that different country and conditions are certainly different. We have NATO allies helping us for one, and even the geographic differences are huge but the counterinsurgency principles could work in Afghanistan. McClellan didn't say anything opposite of that. The counterinsurgency strategy going into Afghanistan, clearing, holding, rebuilding, the civil society and the infrastructure can work in Afghanistan.

Point Biden. To start, Palin got newly-appointedGen. David D. McKiernan's name wrong when she called him McClellan. And, more important, Gen. McKiernan clearly did say that surge principles would not work in Afghanistan. As the Washington Post reported:

    Washington Post: "The word I don't use for Afghanistan is 'surge,' " McKiernan stressed, saying that what is required is a "sustained commitment" to a counterinsurgency effort that could last many years and would ultimately require a political, not military, solution.

However, it is worth noting that McKiernan also said that Afghanistan would need an infusion of American troops "as quickly as possible."

Killing Afghan Civilians?
Palin said that Obama had accused American troops of doing nothing but killing civilians, a claim she called "reckless" and "untrue."

    Palin: Now, Barack Obama had said that all we're doing in Afghanistan is air-raiding villages and killing civilians. And such a reckless, reckless comment and untrue comment, again, hurts our cause.

Obama did say that troops in Afghanistan were killing civilians. Here's the whole quote, from a campaign stop in New Hampshire:

    Obama (August 2007): We've got to get the job done there and that requires us to have enough troops so that we're not just air-raiding villages and killing civilians, which is causing enormous problems there.

The Associated Press fact-checked this one, and found that in fact U.S troops were killing more civilians at the time than insurgents: "As of Aug. 1, the AP count shows that while militants killed 231 civilians in attacks in 2007, Western forces killed 286. Another 20 were killed in crossfire that can't be attributed to one party." Afghan President Hamid Karzai had expressed concern about these civilian killings, a concern President Bush said he shared.

Whether Obama said that this was "all we're doing" is debatable. He said that we need to have enough troops so that we're "not just air-raiding villages and killing civilians," but did not say that troops are doing nothing else.

Out of Context?
Biden claimed a comment he made about "clean coal" was taken out of context:

    Biden: My record for 25 years has supported clean coal technology. A comment made in a rope line was taken out of context. I was talking about exporting that technology to China so when they burn their dirty coal, it won't be as dirty, it will be clean.

Was it really taken out of context? Here's the full exchange, which took place while Biden was shaking hands with voters along a rope line in Ohio.

    Woman: Wind and solar are flourishing here in Ohio, why are you supporting clean coal?
    Biden: We're not supporting clean coal. Guess what? China's building two every week, two dirty coal plants, and it's polluting the United States. It's causing people to die.

Obama-Biden campaign spokesman David Wade later said that "Biden's point is that China is building coal plants with outdated technology every day, and the United States needs to lead by developing clean coal technologies."

Whatever Biden meant or didn't mean to say on the rope line, he has supported clean coal in the past. When the McCain camp used this one remark from Biden as the basis for a TV ad saying that Obama-Biden oppose clean coal, we said the claim was false. Obama's position in favor of clean coal has been clear, and pushing for the technology has been part of his energy policy.

McCain in the Vanguard of Mortgage Reform?
Palin said that McCain had sounded the alarm on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac two years ago.

    Palin: We need to look back, even two years ago, and we need to be appreciative of John McCain's call for reform with Fannie Mae, with Freddie Mac, with the mortgage-lenders, too, who were starting to really kind of rear that head of abuse.

Palin is referring to a bill that would have increased oversight on Fannie and Freddie. In our recent article about assigning blame for the crisis, we found that by the time McCain added his name to the bill as a cosponsor, the collapse was well underway. Home prices began falling only two months later. Our colleagues at PolitiFact also questioned this claim.