The nonpartisan truth factory known as Factcheck.org is as good a  place as any to get your Wednesday night debate-watching detectors in gear. (It’s also a decent tool for setting some ground rules for a debate-watching drinking game, but the New Mexico Independent isn’t outright endorsing such potentially irresponsible behavior.)

Of late, the fact-checkers have been as busy as a spin doctor putting truth to the powers-that-might-be — i.e., John McCain and Barack Obama. Big sympathies to all those out there who’ve picked a candidate and think he’s a champ, but reality proves, time and again, they lie. Both of them. A lot.

Though partisans might consider their indiscretions merely misleading, or a simple stretch, or yet another attack by the liberal elite or the neocon right, the wary voter deserves to carry some basic understandings into the polls. Here’s a brief primer on the most-oft-told fibs of Campaign ‘08 (and the drinking challenge for each successive utterance):

McCain: Obama will raise your taxes. (Sip of Average Joe Six-pack beer)

Over and over, McCain and running mate Sarah Palin have trotted out battle-weary Republican bromides, including claims that Obama has voted to raise taxes on families earning as little as $32,000 a year, has voted for higher taxes 94 times and will raise taxes for small-business owners.

According to Factcheck:

Obama’s tax plan … would raise rates (including capital gains and dividend rates) only for couples earning at least $250,000 per year, or singles earning $200,000 or more. Any investments held in Individual Retirement Accounts, 401(k) plans or other tax-deferred retirement accounts would remain just that, tax-deferred. Nor would Obama’s plans affect 23 million small-business owners; most, in fact, would see a tax cut. At most, a few hundred thousand of the most affluent business owners would see rates go up. And those 94 votes for “higher” taxes? We count 23 that would not have raised taxes at all, but were merely votes against tax cuts. Seven of them would have lowered taxes for many. As for Obama’s actual plan: The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center says that 81.3 percent of all American workers and families would see a tax cut.

Obama: McCain will cut Social Security (Shot of Metamucil)

Scary, huh? Especially if your 401(k) and pension plan just went the way of a $700 billion bailout. Obama uses this one to catch the ears of that senior voting bloc that might otherwise see a kindred spirit in McCain.

According to Factcheck:

McCain did support Bush’s Social Security plan. But that plan would not have cut benefits at all. Everybody who gets a check now, or who is nearing retirement, would have remained in the current system. For younger workers who retire in the future, Bush proposed to slow the rate at which benefits grow — keeping pace with the rise of prices but not with the faster rise in wages, as is now the case. Compared with what today’s retirees get, that’s a smaller increase, not a reduction.

McCain: Sarah Palin opposed the “Bridge to Nowhere,” thanks but no thanks (Gargle with saltwater)

Both McCain and Palin trumpet this supposed opposition as a sign of the Chosen One’s political independence.

According to Factcheck:

Palin supported the Gravina Access Project (the formal name of the Bridge to Nowhere) during her run for governor, even as McCain was denouncing it repeatedly as pork-barrel spending. When she finally changed her position in 2007, it was only after Congress had removed the earmark. She complained at the time that there was too little money for the bridge and griped about “inaccurate portrayals.” She didn’t say who was making these portrayals, but the portrayer-in-chief was, well, you know who. As for saying “no thanks,” Palin still received all of the funds originally earmarked for building the bridge but was free to spend them as she wished.

Obama: McCain wants to fight a 100-year war in Iraq. (Shot of foxhole hooch)

Both Obama and the Democratic National Committee have clung to this potential budget-buster. Not to mention life- and limb-buster.

While McCain has mentioned keeping troops in Iraq for 100 years, according to Factcheck:

McCain is referring to a peacetime presence in Iraq, as the full context of McCain’s remarks makes clear. Here’s what McCain actually said, in a Jan. 3 town hall meeting:

Maybe a hundred. … We’ve been in Japan for 60 years. We’ve been in South Korea for 50 years or so. That would be fine with me, as long as Americans, as long as Americans are not being injured or harmed or wounded or killed. It’s fine with me and I hope it would be fine with you if we maintain a presence in a very volatile part of the world.”

McCain: Obama lied about his association with so-called terrorist William Ayers. (Dram of hemlock)

McCain in an Internet ad and Palin on the stump have made hay over Obama’s supposed ties to Ayers’ long-gone history with the Weather Underground. Back then, Obama was in second grade and not exactly “palling around” with dissidents stronger than the anti-beanie-weenies cafeteria crowd.

According to Factcheck:

… (S)o far as is known, their (Obama’s and Ayers’) relationship was never very close. An Obama spokesman says they last saw each other in a chance encounter on the street more than a year ago.

McCain says in an Internet ad that the two “ran a radical ‘education’ foundation” in Chicago. But the supposedly “radical” group was supported by a Republican governor and included on its board prominent local civic leaders, including one former Nixon administration official who has given $1,500 to McCain’s campaign this year. Education Week says the group’s work “reflected mainstream thinking” among school reformers. The group was the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, started by a $49 million grant from the Annenberg Foundation, which was established by the publisher Walter Annenberg, a prominent Republican whose widow, Leonore, is a contributor to the McCain campaign.

Obama: McCain opposes stem-cell research. (Two gulps of a Virgin Bloody Mary)

Obama and running mate Joe Biden have chastised McCain in radio ads for opposing the embryonic stem-cell research that even former first lady Nancy Reagan supports.

According to Factcheck:

McCain has been known for supporting federally funded stem cell research since 2001 …

In 2004, McCain was one of 14 GOP members of Congress who signed a letter to Bush asking him to lift restrictions on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research, citing its potential to lead to treatments or cures for deadly and crippling diseases and conditions. In 2006, he was one of 19 Republicans to vote for federal funding for embryonic stem cell research, a bill that Bush vetoed. The bill allowed use only of embryos that were frozen or slated for destruction anyway by fertility clinics. There was a similar vote in 2007, in which McCain voted the same way.

McCain and Obama: He’ll ruin health care. (Three aspirins and a bottle of cold, clear water)

The pretzel-twists of accusations each candidate has hurled at the other regarding your future ability to get a check-up earned a special posting all on its own from Factcheck. The down-and-dirty bottom line from experts is that Obama’s plan covers more people, but there’s little agreement on whose plan would cost more and whether either would do much at all to reduce the uninsured rolls.