The Final Presidential Debate

The third and final debate of the 2012 Presidential election finished up around 10:30 p.m. tonight, and as per usual a lot of accusations were thrown between the candidates. Although this debate was intended to focus on foreign policy, there were several moments of going off track in to the economy and health care and education. As with previous Presidential debates, I was on Politifact keeping track of the issues they have fact checked already. Here’s the list of some of the interesting points I’ve found tonight:

• ·         Obama’s score on foreign campaign promises so far is 27 kept, 11 broken, 11 compromised, 19 in the works, and 12 stalled (http://bit.ly/RR44wA ).
• ·         Did Romney refer to Russia as our “number one enemy”?  This was rated as a half true on Politifact and goes back to an event in March of this year. Obama was overheard discussing missle defense issues with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on a “hot mic” stating that he would have more flexibility over the issue after the election in November.  In an Op-ed piece in Foreign Policy magazine and stated the Russia was our number one Geopolitical enemy, and after 5 months changed his language to “adversary” (http://bit.ly/RRURCC).
• ·         Obama never promised that he would have unemployment under 8% in his first term, but rather, that was a projection by “his Council of Economic Advisors”; it was never a promise (http://bit.ly/TE05bq).
• ·         Is Romney trying to put $2 trillion in to the military that they never asked for? To quote Sarah Palin, “You Betcha!” (http://bit.ly/VFD3zT)
• ·         Romney claims our Navy is smaller than it was in 1917 and our Air Force is smaller than in 1947. While this is true, it is extremely misleading and holds a “Pants on Fire” rating (http://bit.ly/zDdsKf)
• ·         Did Obama “Water down sanctions on Iran”? According to the Politico’s ruling “there’s now so much economic pressure on Iran that Congress’ research arm reports Iran may soon decide to seek a nuclear compromise.” (http://bit.ly/TnO1pC)
• ·         Romney criticized Obama for never visiting Israel. This is true, but not just of Obama. Out of the last 11 presidents that have been in office since Israel existed, 7 have not visited while in office. (http://bit.ly/P4ehbf)
• ·         Obama reminded the public that Romney said persuing Bin Laden “wasn’t worth moving heaven and earth”. While Romney did say this, in the larger context he was referring to tracking down all al-Qaida members, not just its leaders (http://bit.ly/Ihf8O4)
• ·         Obama claims that Romney is a “pioneer of outsourcing.” This isn’t exactly a fair assessment. There were companies that outsourced that we can call Romney’s companies, but to hold him directly accountable is misleading (http://bit.ly/OkgQjz).
• ·         Finally, Obama claimed that Romney thought it was a good idea to let the Auto Industry go bankrupt. Meanwhile, Romney says he was for a managed bankruptcy. From what I can see, the op-ed that Romney wrote on the subject in 2008 says that the Auto Industry would disappear completely under a government bailout and doesn’t provide a believable argument for how a managed bankruptcy would work (http://nyti.ms/Pyda0b)

This was the final debate in this election season, and the big game is only two weeks away. The primary concern to most media outlets is the focus on the undecided voter. If you are an undecided voter, and this debate didn’t help you decide, hopefully this fact checking session helped. In the end, all that matters is that you get out and vote on November 6^th for whoever you believe is the proper choice for this country.