Maybe the great wizard hambirg can get these facts for us! Both Fred Thompson and Karl Rove (no boos please! lol) cited factual errors by Biden. Karl Rove said he had 10 and he stated them on Hannity and Colmes. I couldn't write them down fast enough. Actual errors, not debatable errors that Alan brought up against Palin. Interesting.

I thought it was very interesting, as well. And you're right - they were undeniable.

I always tune out when a candidate on either side says, "You voted to raise taxes..." blah blah. I do that because a bill may be good on the surface but full of fluff - or full of good things but bad on the front face of it - and a congressman may have chosen not to vote for a *bill* even though there were elements of the bill that they *did* support.

But the things Biden said that were incorrect weren't debatable, "You voted against the cut!" They were things like specific *bills* that he claimed McCain voted for or against, and they were times he said Obama voted on the opposite side of McCain when in reality they both voted for whatever bill it was.

I'll be anxious to hear that list again.

I'm the same way because i know that bills have fluff and may be voted down to get rid of that, not the major bill issue. That's why I like to listen to the people that know the facts and can point out the errors.

Here's a link to mistakes made by both sides. I realize you're probably not interested in Palin's errors, but you can just skip those.

Some facts adrift in vice presidential debate - Yahoo! News


Maureen

I found this link so far. :

Facts go adrift in Biden-Palin debate - The Debates - MSNBC.com

ETA:Woops, it's the same AP article as the previous link.

The ones I've read so far are more misleading, than anything else, which is not a surprise at all. . .lots of that has been going on. The only one I thought was kind of a whopper was when Biden said that McCain voted on that tax increase with Obabma, when in fact he didn't vote.

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"No one believes more firmly than Comrade Napoleon that all animals are equal. He would be only too happy to let you make your decisions for yourselves. But sometimes you might make the wrong decisions, comrades, and then where should we be?"
- George Orwell Animal Farm

Yeah, I saw the Hannity and Colmes exchanges and they were a lot of fun to watch. I taped the debate on Fox along with the after shows.

KellyJef, weren't you fascinated by the Frank Luntz stuff? I realize his history is as a Republican pollster (correct?), but he certainly doesn't always end up with the Republican candidate coming out on top. Last week he had Obama over McCain in that debate. I think he appears to do a solid job getting a 50/50 split of undecided voters who have a left-leaning history and a right-leaning history, and I was truly astounded at their perception that she won handily.

Personally, I was afraid it would come out the other way. Biden has lived through so much in the senate that he talks easily and wtihout hesitation about where we've been and the issues that have occurred with other nations. I tend to be impressed by those kinds of things, and so I found it worrisome that she didn't have the command of those issues that he seemed to, and thought it would work against her.

I flat out disagree with him on pretty much every social issue down the line that could be considered controversial. I wouldn't vote for him. But I did worry that by comparison, watchers would find him more credible. So... I was relieved to see that by and large, while he may have won on points her spirit and enthusiasm and outsider attitude that was guided by a philosophy of just doing the right thing and being able to see the forest for the trees won people over.

Speaking of social issues... I was very surprised that they were asked about gay marraige. I thought Biden's answer - he went first on that one - was pure fluff. He went on and on about how he was for gays having the same civil rights as others, which included the right to visitation in the hospital, the right to enter contracts and share property, etc. He was shaking his head as though his opponant would disagree and as though those things are currently illegal or something. IIRC, her initial question had to do with health care benefits and I think that got lost in the rhetoric, and that, in my mind, was the issue that actually counted. Anyone can co-own property with anyone. Anyone can will their property to anyone. Anyone can go see anyone else in the hospital provided the sick person allows the visitor in. Things get muddy when the government forces a private business - especially one owned by someone who has religious objections to gay relationships - to pay for the health care benefits of a gay lover. Nobody addressed that. I did find it interesting that Biden was essentially forced to come out and say marriage should continue to be a union only between one man and one woman.

No not everyone can visit in the hospital. A family member had cancer and non family members were not alloweed in,that included her boyfriend of several years. That is one of the issue that gay people have been trying to get. Also if you are in a gay relationship and the next of kin say they do not want your partner to see you, they will not let them in. My boss is gay and she just had this happen with the mother of her girlfriend.

And Biden and Palin said the exact same thing. They think that gays should have those rights, but they do not support gay marriage.

I wonder if those rights will carry over to heterosexuals who choose not to marry? You know, people who have been in long-term relationships that haven't married. I don't know. . .just something to think about.

__________________
"No one believes more firmly than Comrade Napoleon that all animals are equal. He would be only too happy to let you make your decisions for yourselves. But sometimes you might make the wrong decisions, comrades, and then where should we be?"
- George Orwell Animal Farm

I thought Senator Biden expressed his and Senator Obama's support of "civil unions" which to me implies some sort of legally binding ceremony/contract. They oppose the use of the word "marriage" but ultimately they leave that up to the determination of the couple's religious organization/affiliation. I'm not sure Governor Palin knew what she was saying when she said she agreed with Senator Biden.

Don't most states call long-term heterosexual relationships common law marriages? Thinking the same should/would apply to long term homosexual relationships.

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Ana
The Republicans have been putting lipstick on a pig for 8 years. Is a pitbull wearing lipstick an attempt to keep us from noticing the pig?

I think that there are some some states that recognize common law marriages.

What they're talking about are civil unions where either a homosexual or heterosexual couple have a legally sanctioned civil union which would convey the same rights as marriage.

Yes that's what Biden said. I don't know if Palin used the term "civil unions" but she said that she thought homosexual couples should have those same rights. I think they were agreeing. I was surprised when Biden said that he and Obama didn't support gay marriage. I thought they did.

I thought of common law marriages after I posted. Yes, I think it should apply to homosexual couples as well. But all states don't have common law marriage laws, do they?

__________________
"No one believes more firmly than Comrade Napoleon that all animals are equal. He would be only too happy to let you make your decisions for yourselves. But sometimes you might make the wrong decisions, comrades, and then where should we be?"
- George Orwell Animal Farm

I think it should be like Germany I guess. Everybody is required to have a civil ceremony and then you can choose to have a church marriage as well. I guess if you choose not to have a civil union that you would choose to give up those rights. To me it's all the same anyway. I don't have a problem with calling it "gay marriage."

__________________
"No one believes more firmly than Comrade Napoleon that all animals are equal. He would be only too happy to let you make your decisions for yourselves. But sometimes you might make the wrong decisions, comrades, and then where should we be?"
- George Orwell Animal Farm

If we adopted a similar policy, it should settle the matter for once and all. Each church could decide for itself whether or not to perform marriage ceremony.

No, it really doesn't settle it. Or at least, not to everyone's satisfaction.

As I said above, the issue is the legal rights afforded people that obligate *others* to financially support a gay union.

Right now, if a business offers a group insurance policy that allows spouses to be part of that plan, the business may foot the bill for the spouse as well, and I believe *has* to provide that option for all employees if it provides them for *any* of their employees. For instance, my husband's employer pays 60% of our premium, and that premium is more than double the cost for our *family* over what it would run if he were a single. It costs his employer about $300 extra a month because they are covering 60% of a family policy.

They are not legally required to extend that benefit to a gay lover or a straight lover.

If gay *marriage* becomes legal then organizations must then offer those same financial benefits to gay partners, even if an organization is a religous one and for religous reasons is not on board with homosexuality.

The same goes for pension plans and social security survivor benefits that a *spouse* gets but someone not legally *married* to the deceased is not entitled to.

Visiting someone in a hospital creates no encumbrance for anyone else.

Jointly owning property does not encumber anyone else.

Willing your owned posessions to someone of any gender at all does not then create an encumbrance.

If a man dies, generally speaking his wife then assumes full ownership of *their* property without inheritance tax consequences. A live-in who has not committed to marriage doesn't necessarily get a free pass for such property.

It's a lot more complicated than just hospital visits and neither of the candidates really addressed where they come down on the legalites of all that.

Personally, I think it's a dangerous precedent to force anyone to finance something that violates their religious conscience. In order to keep from violating their conscience they might decide they have to nix family health benefits for *all* their employees if they are going to be forced to financially sanction the ones they cannot in good religious conscience support.

We are guaranteed the freedom to practice religion. I'll have to ask Joe Biden specifically *where* that is, because he is my new favorite constitutional law scholar.