Accuracy Report Card—Second Debate

Al Gore and George W. Bush spent 90 minutes exchanging facts, figures and accusations during their second presidential debate in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, Wednesday night. But some of their charges and numbers were a little fuzzy. The CBS News Political Unit sets the record straight.

Analysis: There has been a hate crimes statute on the books in Texas since 1991. The original law only required counting hate crimes incidents. Then in 1993, the law as amended to add punishments for crimes "motivated by bias or prejudice." In addition, first-degree felonies, such as murder, are exempt from the law. On top of that, prosecutors and legal experts say the law is too vague to be properly enforced.

Last year, when the legislature considered a bill that would have strengthened and clarified the statute, Bush did not support it. The bill failed as similar measures did in 1995 and 1997.

Bush said: "The three men who murdered James Byrd ... are going to be put to death."

Analysis: Actually, only two of the three are on death row for killing Byrd, a black man, by chaining him to the back of a pickup truck and dragging him for three miles. The third man is serving a life sentence.

Fact Check #2: MILITARY
Bush said Haiti would be one of the places he'd remove U.S. troops if he was president.

Analysis: President Clinton brought almost all U.S. troops home from Haiti. According to the Defense Department, there were only 34 active duty military personnel in Haiti as of March 31, 2000.

Fact Check #3: YUGOSLAVIA
Gore said: "Just today the members of his political party said that they were going to ignore the orders of the new president of Serbia, and that they question his legitimacy."

Analysis: Gore was referring to Vojislav Kostunica, who is actually the new president of Yugoslavia, of which Serbia is the largest and predominant part.

Fact Check #4: HEALTH CARE
Gore referred to a bill in Texas that would have increased the number of children covered under the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP), claiming Bush was against it. Gore said: "But what my friends there tell me is that the governor opposed a measure put forward by Democrats in the legislature to expand the number of children that would be covered, and instead directed the money toward a tax cut, a significant part of which went to wealthy interests."

Analysis: Bush eventually signed the bill, therefore the money was never taken away from children's health care and directed toward a tax cut.

Gore said: universal health care, but I'm not for a government-run system."

Analysis: Gore certainly supports Medicare and Medicaid, which are government-run systems. And some would argue that the health care plan proposed early in the Clinton administration was government-run.

Bush said: "... the percentage of uninsured in Texas has gone down while the percentage of uninsured in America has gone up."

Analysis: According to the Census Bureau, the percentage of uninsured in the U.S. has gone down, not up, from 16.3 percent in 1998 to 15.5 percent in 1999.

Jane Ruvelson and Candice Berry contributed to this report. It was written by Steve Chaggaris.