Dobbs does a pretty good job fact-checking McCain's erroneous statements. He's a little softer on McCain than he has been on other politicians, but overall, he doesn't give McCain a pass. And it isn't a trivial mistake. There were two pretty egregious mistakes there, one was about troop levels and the other about violence in Mosul. Dobbs treats the two gaffes as one, in order to save McCain from the dreaded four Pinocchio's.

Dobbs challenges Mccain's troop numbers claims with facts from an official source, the Congressional Research Service. He also parses the claim that reporters were being picky about McCain's verb tense, noting that it is important whether McCain specify that troops are not currently at pre-surge levels. The only objectionable bit of reporting is when Dobbs implies that Obama's misstating of a concentration camp (Auscihiwitz for Buchenwald) is equivalent to McCain's misstatement about troop levels.

This is an even-handed, well documented analysis of another gaffe and spin by a presidential candidate.

Like Newstrust is to articles, The Fact Checker is holding the candidates to higher standards in their speeches and campaign statements.

This a very good journalism, it is a pity fox news does not choose to cover it, but what can you expect from fox. Dobbs really exposed McCains knowledge of how many soldiers were in Iraq before the surge and how many there are at present time.