So what was true from last night's debate...

According to factcheck.org, here's what was and wasn't true in the candidates statements at last night's debate:

• 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.

You can read a full analysis of these claims here: http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/factchecking_debate_no_1.html

The tally? By my count:

• False statements by Obama: 5
• False statements by McCain: 11
• Call it a push: 3

Some interesting things from the analysis...

• For all of McCain's bluster about earmarks, earmark spending is actually down.
• Obama's tax cuts would help 95% of families with children, not people. The real number is actually 81% of Americans. Still, that's a high percentage.
• McCain's health care plan would tax your health benefits. Right now Americans don't have to pay any taxes for their health care. Under McCain's plan you would, meaning even less take home pay. There is talk of a tax credit to offset this, but what if you have to pay more now than what you get back in a tax credit. I'm sorry for not remembering where I read it, but I did read that in the long run this would mean that Americans would have to pay more for health care because as health care costs rose, the tax credit would remain the same. Does that seem like a good idea to anyone? I don't think so.
• McCain boasted that he killed a contract to Boeing, saving tax payers $6.8 billion. Of course, what he failed to mention was that the contract later when to EAD/Airbus. So read this paragraph:
  
  Further, the New York Times reported that "McCain’s top advisers, including a cochairman of his presidential campaign, were lobbyists for EADS. And Mr. McCain had written to the Defense Department, urging it to ignore a trade dispute between the United States and Europe over whether Airbus received improper subsidies." A liberal campaign finance group ran an ad hitting McCain on the connections back in July and our colleagues at PolitiFact found their attacks to be true, saying: "Center for Responsive Politics prepared a report for PolitiFact that backs [the charge] up. U.S. employees of EADS/Airbus have contributed $15,700 in this election cycle to McCain’s campaign."
  
  Interesting, huh? McCain has connections to Airbus and helped kill a contract for their rival!