Best of the Web today notes that CNN and ABC draw opposite conclusions when fact-checking a McCain statement from the last debate:
In Lebanon, I stood up to President Reagan, my hero, and said, if we send Marines in there, how can we possibly beneficially affect this situation? And said we shouldn’t. Unfortunately, almost 300 brave young Marines were killed.
CNN says it’s true and ABC says it’s false, while agreeing on the same underlying facts. Best of the Web explains:
Here is CNN explaining why McCain’s statement was true:
The U.S. Multinational Force operated in Beirut, Lebanon, from August 24, 1982, to March 30, 1984, as part of an international peacekeeping operation in the war-torn country
McCain was a freshman member of the House of Representatives in September 1983 when it approved legislation “that would invoke the War Powers Act in Lebanon and authorize the deployment of American Marines in the Beirut area for an additional 18 months,” the New York Times reported.
The resolution had the backing of House leaders of both parties and President Reagan, and it passed by a vote of 270 to 161, the Times report said. But McCain “argued that his military training led him to oppose the continued deployment of troops in Lebanon,” the Times reported.
But here is how ABC concluded it was false:
This is an issue that came up in the first presidential debate, as well. And in both cases, McCain exaggerates his position. Marines were already in Lebanon when McCain arrived on Capitol Hill in 1983, and his vote was to prevent invoking the War Powers Act to extend the Marines already deployed. McCain did vote against that, but as he did in the first debate, McCain is wrong to imply that he opposed sending the Marines to Lebanon.
Note that these two “fact checks,” despite reaching opposite conclusions, agree on the underlying fact, namely that McCain voted against what CNN calls the “continued deployment” in Lebanon.
ABC has a niggle–that the vote was not on the initial deployment, which occurred before McCain took his seat in the House. ABC does not mention that when Reagan deployed the Marines in August 1982, he did so on his own authority. Congress’s 1983 vote on “continued deployment” was the first time lawmakers weighed in on the subject.
I would add that if you accept ABC’s reasoning, then Barack Obama is lying every time he says he opposed the war in Iraq. We were already in Iraq when Obama took office in 2005. If you accept Obama’s statement (as everyone does), you have to accept McCain’s as well.
(Via Instapundit.)
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