I am not a republican or democrat; I am simply a grateful immigrant that wishes the best for the United States. And the best, in my opinion, is definitely not four more years of the Republican Party in charge of the White House. I also believe in democracy and such belief demands that in order to make an intelligent choice in the vote booth I must be well informed about the candidates and the issues. I truly believe that.
Like most Americans, I watched the debate last evening. And because the truth really matters I took notes and afterwards I checked into Google, CNN, The Washington Post and the New York Times looking for the facts. Thanks to the Internet doing so is entirely possible nowadays if you don’t want to be fooled by phony accusations and claims.
And here is what I found and concluded:
Sarah Palin is not, not even under the most charitable evaluation standard, ready to be Vice President and much less President of the United States. She is attractive, friendly and eloquent, and in last evening Vice Presidential debate she certainly scored points with her theme: I’m a mom. The week of debate-coaching worked, but, pretty much like Senator McCain, she more often than not stretched out the truth or outright lied on a whole array of issues (rapidly sounding like most Washington politicians). For instance:
In criticizing Barack Obama's Iraq policy, she said that President Bush’s Iraq troop “surge” plan had worked and that U.S. troop levels in Iraq are now back at pre-surge levels.
In fact, there are 152,000 troops in Iraq. There were 137,000 troops there before the surge.
She said that Obama has refused to acknowledge that the surge worked.
In fact, in an interview last month, Obama said, "The surge has succeeded in ways that nobody anticipated . . . I've always said it's succeeded beyond our wildest dream."
Talking about Iraq, she said, "We’re getting closer and closer to victory," and "victory is within sight" because of the surge.
While the level of violence in Iraq is much improved, military commanders - and a report this week from the Pentagon - caution that the gains are fragile and threatened by a number of worrisome developments Most analysts also say that, while adding the extra troops in Iraq last year helped, other changes may have had more impact. These included the decision by radical Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr to agree to a cease-fire and a U.S. program that paid Sunni tribesman to fight Islamic extremists in their midst.
On domestic issues, she accused Obama of voting 94 times to either raise or fight against tax cuts.
FactCheck.org, a non-partisan watchdog Web site, called the claim "misleading." According to Fact Check, Obama voted against proposed tax cuts 23 times. He also voted 11 times for increasing taxes on families earning more than $1 million a year to help pay for Head Start school nutrition programs. Moreover, 53 of his votes were on non-binding resolutions on allowing scheduled tax cuts to expire.
That claim, too, is misleading. Obama voted for a non-binding resolution on budget guidelines assuming that the Bush tax cuts would expire on schedule in 2011. The resolution was not a vote to raise taxes.
In a huge blunder Palin overstated Alaska's contribution to America's oil and natural gas needs. She said her state has "billions of barrels of oil and hundreds of trillions of cubic feet of clean, green natural gas."
Natural gas is cleaner than oil or coal, but it still emits hydrocarbons when it's burned. Alaska produces 3.5 percent of all U.S. energy, 13.7 percent of U.S. oil and 2.3 percent of U.S. natural gas, according to the Department of Energy's Energy Information Administration
She also said that Alaska is building a "nearly $40 billion natural gas pipeline which is North America's largest and most expensive infrastructure project ever to flow those sources of energy into hungry markets."
In fact, no building has begun, no federal pipeline approval has been issued and actual construction is years away - if it ever happens. This summer the Alaska Legislature, at Palin's request, passed a law under which the state will issue a "license" to a Canadian energy company, TransCanada Corp., and pay it up to $500 million as an incentive to attempt this enormous project, which Alaska politicians have long sought with little success. The license is not a construction contract.
She put the price tag for the project at nearly $40 billion.
That is an exaggeration. This is roughly $10 billion more than most cost estimates industry players and consultants have made to date.
She also mislead when she said that when she and others in the state legislature found out that Alaska had some millions of dollars investment in Sudan, they called for divestment "to make sure we weren't doing anything that would be seen as condoning the activities there in Darfur."
There's no evidence whatsoever that Palin had any part in the divestiture legislation and one legislator who was involved said there's been no sign of her.
Although Senator Biden also made some phony claims and accusations towards Senator McCain, those were fewer and less outrageous. But if you want to know exactly what they were, I humbly suggest that you go and do your own home work.
HZ
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