On the Gang of Four blog, ultra-liberal columnist David Sirota went through Friday's McCain-Obama debate offering what he called "fact checking". Unfortunately, David did what all liberals must do when it comes to matters of substance these days: misrepresent and mislead readers.

So, I'm going to offer some fact-checking and criticism of both Sirota and Obama...and then expect to receive the slings and arrows from my favorite leftist commenters.

1) Sirota asserts that measuring corporate taxes as a percentage of GDP is "the real way" to measure whether taxes are very high. The rate that Sirota references is called "ATR" in the Treasury report he uses as reference. The corporate income tax rate is noted as "CIT", and that's where the US is second-highest in the world, just 1% behind Japan. Another measure of tax rates in the study is the Effective Marginal Tax Rate, which is called "EMTR".

The same treasury report which Sirota uses as his reference concludes with this: "Since the relevant rates for cross-border investment and income shifting are the statutory CIT rate and the corporate EMTR, the United States likely experiences some reduction of both foreign direct investment and its corporate tax base due to its above-average CIT rate."

In other words, Sirota says that the one measure he can find which doesn't show the US has having average to far above average tax rates is "the real way" to look at it even though his own reference source says it isn't.

2) Sirota implies that the current financial turmoil is due to deregulation. The truth is the opposite. It's due to regulation which turned Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac into the enforcement arms of the Democrats' "affordable housing" social engineering and vote-buying scheme. There are at least a dozen, probably two or three dozen examples of Republicans trying to get tighter leashes put on those two companies only to be shut down by Democrats who were effectively on the payroll of Fannie and Freddie, given how big the GSE's campaign contributions were.

3) McCain definitely could have done better than to simply say a freeze in everything but spending and entitlements since we know he believes in cutting wasteful pork-barrel defense projects and reforming entitlement programs. I basically agree with Sirota that cutting non-defense discretionary spending won't solve our budget problems. He probably doesn't agree with me that we should cut everything else, including entitlements, to get the job done.

4) Sirota implies that McCain's calls for a spending freeze on non-defense spending is incompatible with his call for "getting cost overruns under control". Obviously those are not incompatible.

5) Nobody seriously believes, as Sirota suggests, that McCain has in any way supported a policy that would allow the US to torture prisoners. He's been one of the loudest voices against waterboarding, for example, and is extremely well known for that.

6) The Department of Energy, like most collaborations of bureaucrats, doesn't understand the real world. The idea that the price of a commodity won't change before the production of that commodity changes is simply stupid. While I don't claim it's the only factor, there is a reason that the biggest drop in oil prices in the history of oil began within two days after President Bush lifted the executive order banning offshore drilling and put pressure on Congress to do the same. Markets anticipate changes in supply well in advance and markets are generally better predictors of the future than bureaucrats are. The bottom line is that the market has already spoken. Again, the progress toward allowing increased offshore drilling is most certainly not the only factor in the 33% drop in oil prices since Bush revoked the executive order, but it's a real factor.

7) I don't know whether we're safer than on 9/11 or not, but one would have to assume we are since we know that the terrorists would have wanted to hit us again (on our own territory) since that time and haven't been able to. Furthermore, there is a substantial logical flaw in saying that because more people may want to hurt us, we are therefore necessarily less safe. It's like saying that between 15 or 20 years ago and now we are less safe while driving on the highway because cars are driving faster now. But it ignores the fact that cars have gotten technologically better and safer. For the record, I realize that we have to be perfect and the bad guys just have to get one attack through, and I would not be surprised if we are hit again here. But even if that happens it would NOT prove the assertion that we are less safe now.

So, all of Sirota's "fact checks" are either wrong or intentionally misleading. I'll leave it at that for Sirota.

Regarding Barack Obama, I'll just make two quick points about his behavior and truthfulness during the debate.

1) While Obama supporters are trying to parse his language to imply that he didn't say that Henry Kissinger said the president should meet with anybody without preconditions, I believe it's clear that Obama did say that. First, McCain accused Obama of saying that and Obama's response was not "I didn't say that" but rather to try to differentiate between "preparation" and "preconditions". When McCain said that he understood Kissinger's views better than Obama does, Obama said "We will take a look." I do think Obama realized he stepped in some deep doo-doo at that point, so when McCain said again that Kissinger "would not say that presidential top level...", Obama then replied "Nobody's talking about that." Yet, Obama's own web site makes it clear that Obama supports meetings at the very highest levels without preconditions.

After the debate, Secretary Kissinger came out saying that McCain was right and Obama was wrong. Even ABC News, spinning as hard as they could for Obama, had to admit that "Kissinger and Senator Barack Obama disagree on what level those talks should occur".

2) During the debate, John McCain told the story of the bracelet he wears that used to belong to a soldier who was killed in Iraq. In a moment that struck me as pathetic (though I'm sure Obama supporters saw it differently), Barack Obama then said "I've got a bracelet too."

In this radio show Brian Jopek, the father of Ryan Jopek, the fallen soldier whose bracelet Obama is wearing, explains that his ex-wife, who gave the bracelet to Obama, did not want the bracelet to become "a big media event" or part of Obama's campaign, and that she has "asked Mr. Obama not to wear the bracelet any more in any of his public appearances."

Mr. Jopek continues: "That's a choice that he continues to wear it despite Tracy asking him not to. She is a Barack Obama supporter, and she didn't want to do anything to sabotage his campaign..."

It's one thing to call on the name of a soldier who has paid the ultimate price as part of a political campaign. It's another thing entirely to do it over the objections of that soldier's family. Obama's behavior is simply disgraceful. Maybe he's the role model for his supporters like David Sirota who have to resort to intentional misrepresentations to try to support their messiah.

(H/T to newsbusters.org for the link to the radio show. Start listening to the radio show at about 11 minutes if you want to hear that specific section.)