Fackcheck.org's a great spot!

If you haven't heard of Factcheck.org, you need to check it out. They go hunting down what's true and what's not in much of what the politicians have to say. In particular, they've written about the most recent debates that happened here in NH on Saturday night.

Alot of the latest postings for the Republicans are about things I heard and wrote about in the events I went to. The writeup is about the debate, but there was much repeated from their talking points. More info here. These are a few of the info bites that relate to things I also reported:

- Giuliani falsely blamed President Clinton for cuts in the military that occurred in large part under President George H.W. Bush and Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney. He said that “the Army had been at 725,000; it’s down to 500,000.” That’s true, but it was down to 572,423 by the time Clinton took office.

- Giuliani claimed that "economists" say health insurance rates would fall by up to 50 percent if millions more shopped for policies individually. Once again, his campaign was unable to produce a single economist who supports that figure.

- Romney claimed his Massachusetts state insurance program had reduced the number of uninsured in Massachusetts by 300,000. That’s the number who have gained coverage under the system, but many were covered previously through other means.

The Democratic Fackcheck.org article about the debate doesn't match up with specific talking points I heard in my event-attending (I wonder if it's because I saw them weeks before the debate so the talking points have changed), though it's still interesting. Here's a few of them, more are on the dem debate article page.

- Clinton repeated a misleading claim that the 2005 energy bill was "larded with all kinds of special interest breaks" for the oil industry. Actually, the bill resulted in a net increase in taxes on the oil industry, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service.

- Obama stated that U.S. medical care costs "twice as much per capita as any other advanced nation," which is incorrect. U.S. spending is double the average, but not double that of all others.

- Richardson said the price of gasoline in New Hampshire is at a record high. It's close, but lower than he said, and lower than it was a few weeks ago.