VP Debate fact check. Update!

You eyeballing me boy?

As we all know the Romney/Ryan ticket is quite disinterested with facts or truth telling. So one might expect that last night Ryan simply pulled facts out of his ass all night long and plopped them on the table for Biden to sanitize.

However to be fair our Vice President is known to fudge numbers in the heat of battle as well. So how did it go lat night, you know factually?

Here is how Salon reported the facts:  

10:15 — Taxpayer funding for abortion: Ryan says Democrats support taxpayer funding for abortion, pointing to Obamacare. That’s completely false. The bill never contained taxpayer funding for abortion, but it was nonetheless held up for months to appease pro-life Democratic Rep. Bart Stupak and the bloc that he lead. 

10:10 — Troops in Libya: Ryan said “nobody is considering sending troops to Syria.” In August, Gov. Romney told CBS News that he would send U.S. troops to Syria if necessary to prevent the spread of chemical weapons. In his interview with CBS, Romney said, “I think we have to also be ready to take whatever action is necessary to ensure that we do not have any kind of weapon of mass destruction falling into the hands of terrorists and whether that requires troops, or whether that requires other actions by our friends and allies.” 

10:00 — Small Navy? Paul Ryan says Obama would reduce the Navy to its smallest size since World War I. Politifact gave that claim a Pants on Fire and called it ridiculous. 

9:55 — Sequester two-step: Ryan attacks Biden for automatic defense cuts that will go through if Congress does not act. Those cuts come from the “sequester,” the automatic trigger mechanism created by the congressional deal to raise the debt ceiling. You know who voted for that plan? Paul Ryan. 

9:50 — Tax plan adds up? Asked by the moderator if he can “guarantee” that Mitt Romney’s tax plan adds up, Ryan says, “Six studies have verified this plan adds up.” Among the “studies” included in that figure are two Op-Eds and white papers written by the campaign or economists connected to the campaign. The most comprehensive and well-respected study done so far from the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center finds that the numbers do not add up. Not by a long shot. 

9:45 — Social Security and Medicare are not going broke: “Social Security and Medicare are going bankrupt. These are indisputable facts,” Ryan says. Actually both are disputable and neither are facts. People have been saying Social Security is going to go bankrupt for decades, it hasn’t yet, and it’s not going to. It’s currently projected to be fine for at least 40 years. Medicare is in more peril, but it is still nowhere close to anywhere near going bankrupt anytime soon. And Obamacare actually extended the life of the Medicare trust fund.

There is much more at the link, but you get the general idea.

There was one fairly sensitive topic that it appears that Joe Biden got wrong.

Martha Raddatz asked about the attacks on Benghazi and why there was not more security considering that there had been a request made to beef up protection. This is how Biden responded:

Biden: "We weren't told they wanted more security. We did not know they wanted more security."

However, while it may be true that the President and he were not PERSONALLY aware of the request, others in the administration were:

On Wednesday, the State Department's former point man on security in Libya told the House Oversight Committee that he asked for additional security help for the Benghazi facility months before the attack, but was denied. 

Various communications dating back a year asked for three to five diplomatic security agents, according to testimony at Wednesday's hearing. But Eric Nordstrom, the one-time regional security officer, said he verbally asked for 12 agents. 

The request for 12 agents was rebuffed by the regional director of the State Department's Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, Nordstrom testified.

I don't know exactly why Biden was so passionate in his denial that the administration knew of this request, but you have to KNOW that this is the one flub that the Right Wing is going to focus on with laser like precision, while simply ignoring the numerous misstatements made by Ryan last night.(Update: Now the White House is clarifying that yes Joe Biden was speaking ONLY about his and the President's knowledge of the request, NOT the entire administration's.)

That is of course after they are done being pissed off that Joe Biden spent much of the debate laughing at their candidate.


STEPHEN HAYES: "When he thanked Joe Biden, Biden was smirking. And I just think that came across as very disrespectful." 

BRIT HUME: "It looked like a cranky old man, to some extent, debating a polite young man." 

GRETA VAN SUSTEREN: "The smiles, the sneers ... it made Vice President Joe Biden -- someone who I typically like -- I thought he was very unlikable." 

CHRIS WALLACE: "I don't believe I have ever seen a debate in which one participant was as openly disrespectful of the other." 

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: "It was so disrespectful." 

SEAN HANNITY: "At times, it was so uncontrollable, I was beginning to worry about him [Biden]."

Yeah, that has to suck for you when the sitting Vice President cannot keep a straight face while dealing with the lies being told by the candidate that you support.

Well for the Democrats I think last night provided a huge shot of adrenaline, and I think it was a big win for the Obama/Biden ticket and I hope that the President takes this momentum and runs with it.

Update 2: Here is perhaps the MOST iconic image form the debate last night.

It appeared to me that Biden, the devout Catholic, was literally pleading with his God to rescue him from the stupidity issuing forth from his opponent.

You know another thing occurred to me somewhat after the fact.

Let's not forget that Joe Biden was sitting next to one of the men who met, on the night of the President's inauguration, to hatch a plan to block every single policy that Obama and Biden put forward in order to ensure that they only had one term in office.

Now imagine you were sitting next to somebody who had dedicated the last four years to sabotaging your attempts to solve the financial crisis and improve the lives of your constituents, SOLELY for political gain. Do you think you could have handled it as well as Joe Biden did?

I know I wouldn't have. I would probably have knocked pipe cleaner legs right the fuck out of his chair!