On July 18th, the McCain campaign released a 30-second TV spot. The narration of that ad claims:
Barack Obama never held a single Senate hearing on Afghanistan. He hasn't been to Iraq in years. He voted against funding our troops.
Let's examine this piece by piece.
This is literally true; as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee's subcommittee on European Affairs, Obama never held any hearings on Afghanistan. However, he did attend one of the three Afghanistan hearings held by the committee as a whole. McCain, on the other hand, attended zero of the six meetings held by his Senate Armed Services committee in the last two years.
Let's recap: The Senate Foreign Relations Committee, of which Obama is a part, held three hearings on Afghanistan; Obama attended one of them. The Senate Armed Services Committee, of which McCain is a part, held six hearings on Afghanistan; McCain attended none of them.
Afghanistan Hearings Attended By The Candidates In The Last Two Years:
Obama: 1 out of 3
McCain: 0 out of 6
This is also literally true: Obama traveled to Iraq in January 2006; then, as McCain's ad was released, was en route to Iraq. He arrived four days later, and news of the trip first first broke on July 11th, six days before McCain released that ad. So, yes, technically, there was a two year and five month period during which Obama had not been to Iraq. But it doesn't mention that Obama was in the process of going to Iraq, and if McCain had released that ad five days later, his statement would have been patently false, instead of just intentionally misleading.
Again, the absolute most literal interpretation of this, devoid of any context, is correct. But when you look at the facts that it omits, the deceptive nature of it becomes evident.
Obama did vote against funding out troops - on one occasion (measure H.R. 2206, the U.S. Troop Readiness, Veterans' Care, Katrina Recovery, and Iraq Accountability Appropriations Act, in 2007). On every other war funding bill that went through the Senate, Obama voted yes. FactCheck.org has the whole story, complete with links to the US Senate website that back up Obama's voting record.