An interesting exchange

I thought this was an interesting enough exchange in the 'comments' section to warrant front page placement:

You said you would publish it if I could produce some lies told by John McCain. I did a quick search. I used Politifact and some other programs. I included only the statements that are demonstrably false, and I excluded those instances in which McCain could have misspoke or where the issue was so petty it didn't even matter. Here's what I have (and I'm sure I could compile more)

There is a BIG difference between a lie and something you disagree with. Allow me to respond point by point:

Obama's health care plan is going to fine small business...That's a lie...it doesn't

It probably will. If only Obama would define what a "small business" is. The SBA generally defines a small business as having less than 500 employees with revenues ranging anywhere from a few million to ten of millions of dollars per year.

Obama seems to classify small business as any schmuck who fills out a Schedule C at tax time.

"I have never asked for a single earmark..." Yes, McCain has a pretty good earmark record, but "never" is stretching it. He asked for $10 million for the University of Arizona and $5 million for a waste water facility. These may be good things, but they are earmarks.

While this may a bit technical and nit-picky, neither of these are 'earmarks' - and they were intentionally designed that way. These were presented as stand-alone bills for the Senate to vote up or down on. They are not allocations of money hidden in a bigger bill so that the people don't get to see what's going on. I can't imagine being more transparent than this. However, if some want to call these earmarks, I won't quibble. I simply disagree.

"I have a perfect voting record from veterans of foreign wars, American Legion and all other veterans groups." Perhaps he wasn't aware that Disabled American Vets gave him a 20%, Iraq and Afghanistan Vets of Am. gave him only 58% and even Vietnam Vets of American state he voted their way around 50 percent of the time.

I'm not sure how an organization ratings are proof of someone lying but since there are no facts here to check - who knows? Perhaps we could ask the folks that rated Obama the most liberal member of the Senate and Biden number three...
(update: had to go back and re-read this one, my bad... I'll do some homework and check on this)

He claimed to have won the majority Republican vote in NH and SC...He didn't. Ron Paul and Mitt Romney did.

You're joking right? Perhaps he mis-spoke and should have siad "plurality" but that is a very common mistake. If you think adding Romney's 32% to Paul's 8% beats McCain, then Ross Perot and Bob Dole won the popular vote in 1996. In any case, Romney and Paul STILL didn't get a "majority" when added together. A majority is 50% plus one. A plurality is the most votes - which McCain received.

We spent $223 billion on a bridge to nowhere. That's not true. The earmark for the bridge was not approved.

Wrong again, the earmark for the bridge was approved by both houses of Congress and, only later, was the earmark for the actual bridge removed - even then they still allocated the money to Alaska to use as it saw fit until it was later stripped out. Whether the money was actually "spent" depends on how you define the term but Congress most definitely approved it.

Bill Ayers and Obama ran a radical education foundation. Not true. The foundation was started by a former Reagan supporter and was certainly not radical by any stretch of the imagination. And Ayers was not an officer on the board.

There is a BIG difference between the Annenburg Foundation (started by the Reagan supporter) and the Chicago Annenburg Challenge (which received a grant from the foundation), run by Ayers and Obama and - yes - Obama WAS on the board of the CAC and - yes - he was approved as Chairman of that board by William Ayers. How do we know? Because in the documents granting the $49 million to the CAC, William Ayers is the only person who had the legal right to approve him. No one else could have done it. William Ayers received the grant appointed Barack Obama was the Chairman of the Board and President. I'm sure this is purely coincidence since Ayers is just a guy in his neighborhood. Man I wish some guy in my neighborhood wouldgive $50 million to play with...

Obama voted 94 times to raise taxes. That's not true...at least not really. The way the McCain campaign counted them it comes out to 94 times, but this includes bills that deal with multiple taxes and also includes voting against tax cuts. By the same methods used by the McCain campaign, their own candidate voted 477 times to raise taxes (true, McCain's been in the senate longer).

Messing with statistics may be sneaky politics, but it isn't a lie. If it were, most "news" organizations would have no credibility...come to think of it...

Every objective observer knows that Iran is trying to build a nuclear weapons program...if by objective he means nobody actually involved with understanding anything about Iran.

You may disagree with this statement - in which case, I most certainly disagree with you - but that doesn't make it a lie.

We must start drilling for oil to "deal with the hear and now." McCain knows as much as anyone else who is paying attention that we could start drilling for oil right now and it would take at least ten years before it influences the market. Drilling is not dealing with the hear and now.

When should we start drilling then? 10 years ago? How, exactly do we do that? And the 10-year estimate is out to lunch. It could take "up to" 10 years to reach full capacity but there most certainly would be positive results very quickly. Since solar and wind are nowhere near efficient enough yet and wont be for decades, does that mean we shouldn't do it? Using your standard - that would be the case.

It's common knowledge that Iran is training Al Qaida. It isn't. Al Qaida and Iran have conflicting religious ideologies and will not cooperate.

I would consider this more a mistake than a lie but I'll let you have it. Iran is most certainly training terrorists but they are, most likely, not al Qaida (quaeda, qaeda, whatever...) as you have pointed out. Sunni or Shia - a terrorist against the U.S. is the same.


He lied last night when he said that "vouchers work." Well, to be fair, maybe he just wasn't familiar with the research, but they don't. (to be fair, Obama supports charters, and there's no proof that they work either).

Once again, disagreeing with someone doesn't make them a liar. Vouchers absolutely DO work.

He is lying in the face of history when he claims that cutting taxes for the wealthy will stimulate growth and result in greater pay for everyone. We've been cutting taxes on the wealthy pretty consistently since Reagan and yet working Americans are no better off, and are in many ways worse off than they've ever been. McCain is either lying or is so isolated in (how many houses does he have?) his own universe that he doesn't know what is going on with working Americans.

Once again, your opinion. Where do you think all the VC money for the technology companies' development came from in the 90's? Do you think the middle class dumped their nickles in a bucket together and the companies just took off?
No, that investment money came for the uppper class (yes I said UPPER class) getting tax breaks from Reagan and investing that money in the future of our country.
It was only when people got greedy in the late 90's (yes, I said 90's!!) that these companies became overvalued and the tech bubble burst.
Whether you like it or not, "trickle down" economics works. Of course you probably think people got to be better off in the 90's because Clinton raised their taxes?
By the way, McCain doesn't own any houses. His wife is the wealthy one and he signed a pre-nup so he doesn't get any of it.

He was lying when he said that nuclear power offers "no problem." there are many problems. So many that there are almost no investors in nuclear energy unless the government is willing to subsidize huge percentages of the cost and guarantee that the companies will not be sued in the event of a NUCLEAR ACCIDENT like for instance a meltdown that kills a whole city.

Again, your opinion and, in my opinion, wrong. I have worked in nuclear power plants before and they are safer than ANY other forms of electricity production currenty in use. You are partially correct about the investors though, they are afraid of getting sued but they have no fear of ACTUAL danger from nuclear power, nor should anyone else. Meltdowns don't kill whole cities unless your shooting a Jane Fonda / Michael Douglas film. Meltdowns don't kill anybody. We have no plants like Chernobyl here and never will.People fear nuclear power because they do not understrand nuclear power.

These are lies. There are many instances where the things that McCain says are kinda sorta true in a way. By the standards that you've offered to me, those count as lies. Yet I do not include those here.

And yes, I know I could have come up with a similar list for Obama, but you are on that. I'm sure you won't let any slip. I really wish you would go to my blog. I have a write up on Obama's and McCain's honesty that I think you would like. I'm sure that I can come up with more lies from McCain. I don't know your standards for confirmation. I have a feeling they would be much lower if I were coming up with a list for Obama, but it is your blog.

Now that we're done, feel free to provide some actual lies with proof - or simply prove me wrong - I don't mind.