Two of McCain/Palin's most effective (and vile) smears about Obama are are that he voted to raise taxes on those making $42,000 a year, and that he voted to "cut off funding for our troops in the field." Obama refuted McCain on the later in the first debate, but he let the second one slide. Obama can learn a lot from Biden about how to diasrm this line of attack.

First on taxes:

The charge is absolutely not true. Barack Obama did not vote to raise taxes. The vote she's referring to, John McCain voted the exact same way. It was a budget procedural vote. John McCain voted the same way. It did not raise taxes. Number two, using the standard that the governor uses, John McCain voted 477 times to raise taxes. It's a bogus standard.

Now, on funding for the troops:

With regard to Barack Obama not quote funding the troops, John McCain voted the exact same way. John McCain voted against funding the troops because of an amendment he voted against had a timeline in it to draw down American troops. And John said I'm not going to fund the troops if in fact there's a time line. [...]

John McCain voted to cut off funding for the troops. Let me say that again. John McCain voted against an amendment containing $1 billion, $600 million that I had gotten to get MRAPS, those things that are protecting the governor's son and pray god my son and a lot of other sons and daughters. He voted against it. He voted against funding because he said the amendment had a time line in it to end this war. He didn't like that.

These smears are so transparently false, it's almost surprising that they're still repeated ad nauseum. Almost because attacks and smears are all the GOP has left. The troop funding one really irks me. While it's technically true that Obama voted no on a funding bill that provided money for the troops, he didn't vote against it on that basis. Biden did a hell of a job pointing out that McCain "voted against funding for the troops" too when he voted against the bill that included a time line. But that's a fundamental difference between Democrats and Republicans. While you can twist and distort a vote to accuse your opponent of hating the military, the Democrats choose not to. I wish McCain's "honorable" campaign compelled him to adhere to the same standard.