Friday, October 03, 2008

FactCheck.org: FactChecking Biden-Palin Debate

Here's another thing that got me steamed last night watching the debates. Thank goodness for FactCheck.org, which, by the way, has happily caught Obama and Biden in their share of misstatements as well.



FactCheck.org: FactChecking Biden-Palin Debate: "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."

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