Lies and Misleadings

So we're watching the Republican Convention, since we watched the Democratic Convention last week. Perhaps there were just as many lies and misleading statements last week, but tonight was horrible. Just two tidbits:

Mike Huckabee put forth the "fact" that Sarah Palin had received more votes for mayor of Wasilla than Joe Biden had for president:

"And speaking of Gov. Palin, I am so tired of hearing about her lack of experience. I want to tell you folks something. She got more votes running for mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, than Joe Biden got running for president of the United States."

The numbers? By my personal quick count using google's primary map shows Joe Biden with 6206 votes in the 2008 presidential primary. Sarah Palin received 651 votes for Wasilla mayor in 1996 and 909 votes in 1999 (from the Wasilla, Alaska website).

Rudy Giuliani took Obama to task for too many "present" votes in the Illinois state legislature:

"Then he ran for -- then he ran for the state legislature and he got elected. And nearly 130 times, he couldn't make a decision. He couldn't figure out whether to vote "yes" or "no." It was too tough. He voted -- he voted 'present.'"

First of all, this is a tired story. Obama has already defended himself with respect to this claim, stating that these votes were generally with purpose and with a block of other legislators to make a statement (See this article from the Boston Globe, for example). (And, by the way, that's 129 votes out of around 4000 that Obama cast in the Illinois legislature.) Second, in the 110th Congress, Obama has missed 45.5% of the votes (a lot, to be sure). McCain has missed 63.8%. That's more missed votes than Tim Johnson, who suffered a brain hemorrhage in December. (Numbers from the Washington Post.)

Correction: Apparently Biden got 79,754 primary votes. That's what you get for counting by hand... :)

Update: And if you want the facts checked, this website is interesting.

Alright. Back to our regularly scheduled programming...