Asymmetrical Information

Bush claimed: "We've upheld the doctrine that said if you harbor a terrorist, you're equally as guilty as the terrorist."

Mistake: "The terrorist backgrounds of Posada's three comrades-in-arms are as well documented as their leader's. Guillermo Novo once fired a bazooka at the U.N. building; in February 1979, he was convicted and sentenced to 40 years for conspiracy in the 1976 assassination of former Chilean diplomat Orlando Letelier and his American colleague, Ronni Moffitt, in Washington. (His conviction was subsequently vacated on a legal technicality.) Gaspar Jimenez was convicted and imprisoned in Mexico in 1977 for murdering a Cuban consulate official; he was released by authorities in 1983. Pedro Remon received a 10-year sentence in 1986 for conspiring to kill Cuba's ambassador to the United Nations in 1980. These are violent men. Panamanian prosecutors said they had planned to detonate 33 pounds of explosives while Castro was speaking at a university in Panama. Had they not been intercepted by the authorities, the blast not only would have killed the Cuban president but quite possibly hundreds of others gathered to hear him speak during the inter-American summit." cite
Country they're currently being harbored by? None other than the US.

Bush claimed: "The A.Q. Khan network has been brought to justice."

Mistake. It hasn't.

Bush claimed: "And that's what people are seeing now is happening in Afghanistan. Ten million citizens have registered to vote. It's a phenomenal statistic."

It is indeed, especially as Afghanistan only has a voting age population of about 9.5 million. (cite)

Bush claimed: "Let me first tell you that the best way for Iraq to be safe and secure is for Iraqi citizens to be trained to do the job. And that's what we're doing. We've got 100,000 trained now,..."

Twenty thousand, last I heard.

Kerry said: "Secondly, when we went in, there were three countries: Great Britain, Australia and the United States."

Bush claimed: "Well, actually, he forgot Poland."

Well, actually, Poland hadn't contributed troops to the Iraqi invasion, only to the Iraqi occupation.

And last I heard, Poland was planning to pull its 2500 troops out.

Contra Kerry, the NYC subway wasn't closed during the GOP convention

A co-blogger and I have started a trio of threads on debate facts.

1) A list of the facts under consideration. http://www.deadparrots.net/archives/politics/0410debate_fact_check_master_list.html

2) A detailed examination of of Kerry's assertions from the trivial -- that Dean Rusk showed DeGaulle photos during the Cuban Missile Crisis -- to the important such as the discussion on Iranian sanctions, the $200b, or the 4-7 Nuclear weapons we only THINK North Korea has.

http://www.deadparrots.net/archives/politics/0410fact_checking_kerry_debate_1_2004_election.html

3) A detailed examination of Bush's assertions.

It's a work in progress, of course, but there's lot's of good information, some of which backs the candidates up, some of which doesn't.

Some key political bloggers, who have so effectively proven their ability to hold the press accountable, will tonight be posting their own debate fact-checks -- and will be asking their readers to find and document substantively incorrect statements by the candidates, as well.

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