washingtonpost.com: Second Presidential Debate — President Bush and Sen. John Kerry
Washington University, St. Louis, Mo.
October 8, 2004

Links to a transcript of the second presidential debate between between President Bush (R) and Sen. John F. Kerry (D). The moderator of the nationally televised debate is Charles Gibson of ABC News. The questions came from an audience of “soft” voters selected by the Gallup polling organization.

[Includes annotated fact checking. See also:]

FactCheck.org Cheney & Edwards Mangle Facts
Example: Bush forgets he owns a tree-growing company.

Both candidates played loose with the facts at the second Presidential Debate in St. Louis Oct. 8. Bush claimed Kerry’s health-care plan would lead to rationing and “ruin the quality of health care in America,” a claim unsupported by neutral experts. Kerry claimed the Bush administration had forced the Army Chief of Staff to retire for pushing to send more troops to Iraq, but in fact he retired on schedule.

We offer a sampler of the dubious and sometimes false statements made by each of the candidates.