During the November 15 edition of CNN's The Situation Room, CNN national news correspondent Jeanne Moos compiled “the top 10 debate zingers” of the 2008 presidential campaign and included a video clip of Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) attacking Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's (D-NY) support for a $1 million earmark for a museum at the Bethel Woods Center for the Arts, located “at the site of the original 1969 Woodstock Festival” in New York. However, as CNN reporters have done on multiple occasions, Moos did not report that McCain skipped the vote on removing the earmark. Nevertheless, CNN hosts and reporters have at least twice noted that Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) missed a vote on legislation for which he has criticized Clinton.

As Media Matters for America has noted, although McCain is listed as a co-sponsor of the amendment to remove the earmark, he was one of six senators to miss the vote to “table” -- or kill -- that amendment. The motion to table the amendment failed by a vote of 52-42, and the Senate subsequently passed the amendment by unanimous consent. The McCain campaign website states that McCain had a town hall meeting scheduled in Greenville, South Carolina, at noon ET on October 18, the same day as the 3:37 p.m. ET motion to table.

Media Matters has noted that the November 2, October 22, 25, and 26 editions of The Situation Room all included reports on McCain's attacks on Clinton over the earmark without noting that McCain missed the vote on that earmark. But CNN has at least twice noted that while Obama criticized Clinton for her vote in favor of a sense of the Senate amendment urging President Bush to designate Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a foreign terrorist organization, he missed the vote himself, most recently in a question from moderator and CNN host Wolf Blitzer during the November 15 Democratic presidential debate in Las Vegas.

Further, during a November 2 Situation Room segment on Obama, CNN congressional correspondent Jessica Yellin reported on the voting records of Democratic presidential candidates who are also current U.S. senators. Yellin stated that Obama has missed “nearly 80 percent [of Senate roll-call votes] since September” and that Sens. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (DE), Chris Dodd (CT), and Clinton “don't have great voting records, either.” However, Yellin left out the fact that, according to washingtonpost.com's U.S. Congress Votes Database, McCain -- the only current Republican presidential candidate who is a sitting U.S. senator -- has missed more votes than any other senator since Congress convened in January, with the exception of Sen. Tim Johnson (D-SD), who spent months recuperating from a brain hemorrhage.

From the November 15 edition of CNN's Situation Room:

BLITZER: Tonight's key Democratic presidential debate is only about an hour or so away, and one thing you can count on, some verbal jabs will be landed.

As we continue the countdown, Jeanne Moos takes a most unusual look back at some of the most memorable lines from earlier debates.

[begin video clip]

MOOS: Electrifying, no, but after more than 20 debates, we've managed to compile the top 10 debate zingers.

Number 10 -- by a hair.

MIKE HUCKABEE: We've had a Congress that's spent money like John Edwards at a beauty shop and it's high time --

MOOS: Number nine was out of this world.

[...]

BIDEN: Rudy Giuliani -- there's only three things he mentions in a sentence -- a noun, and the verb, and 9-11. I mean there's nothing else.

MOOS: Number five was when Mitt Romney compared the debate process to Law & Order.

ROMNEY: It has a huge cast, the series seems to go on forever, and Fred Thompson shows up at the end.

MOOS: John McCain liked his own witticism so much that he put it in a campaign commercial. He zinged Hillary for wanting to spend money on a Woodstock museum.

McCAIN: Now, my friends, I wasn't there. I'm sure it was a cultural and pharmaceutical event.

[applause]

MCCAIN: I was tied up at the time.

MOOS: One of our favorite zingers came post-debate -- not from a candidate, but from a snowman.

[...]

MOOS: Jeanne Moos, CNN, New York.

[end video clip]

BLITZER: We'll see if there are any zingers tonight. I suspect there will be some.

Thanks very much for joining us. I'm Wolf Blitzer in The Situation Room.

Up next, Lou Dobbs Tonight -- Lou, we're only an hour away from the start of this debate.

From CNN's November 15 broadcast of the Democratic presidential debate in Las Vegas:

CATHERINE JACKSON (mother of Marine who served in Iraq): I finally got my son home after three tours of policing Iraq's civil war. Now members of the Bush administration and neoconservative members of Congress are beating the drums of war again. My son is still part of the Marine Individual Ready Reserve, and if President Bush starts another unnecessary war, there will be a chance that he'll likely be recalled for war.

All of you on the stage have either -- I'm sorry -- have formal political power or significant informal power, and have the ability to stop the rush to war.

Please tell me, how are you going to show us your leadership so -- on this issue now so I can decide who I think would be the best leader for tomorrow?

SUZANNE MALVEAUX (CNN White House correspondent): To Senator Biden please.

BIDEN: The way to do that, ma'am, is to not ratchet up the winds of war here. We had a vote in the United States Senate on declaring the Quds Force, their special forces, and the Revolutionary Guard to be a terrorist organization. A lot of people voted for that -- 70-some voted for it -- it's a serious, serious mistake, because what it does, it was completely counterproductive.

What it did was, ma'am -- what it did was, it convinced the rest of the Muslim world this is really a war against Islam and not a war in Iraq, and number two, it rose the price -- it caused the price of oil to head to $100 a barrel. We're paying $30 a barrel for what they call a risk premium and it helped destabilize the situation both in Iran -- I mean Afghanistan -- and Pakistan. So, the way to do this is keep quiet, hush up, and do what I told the president personally when I said as chairman of Foreign Relations Committee: If he takes the country to war in Iraq [sic] without a vote of Congress, which will not exist, then he should be impeached.

BLITZER: Senator Clinton, you voted for that resolution, you're the only one on the stage who did vote for that resolution. Do you want to respond to Senator Biden?

CLINTON: I do.

BIDEN: I wasn't attacking Senator Clinton.

CLINTON: No, no, no.

BLITZER: I know, but she did vote for the resolution. If you could address this young man and his mother --

CLINTON: Yes.

BLITZER: -- about their fear that because of your vote, he might have to go fight in Iran.

CLINTON: Well, there is no basis for that fear. There is, however, a deep concern that is well justified about this president. That's why what I've tried to do is oppose a rush to war, I started speaking out against it back in February because I was worried about President Bush, working with members of Congress to do exactly what Joe is saying, which is to make it absolutely clear, there is no legal authority whatsoever.

[...]

BLITZER: Very quickly, Senator Obama.

OBAMA: Well, Chris, we appreciate your service, and your mom, I can only imagine what she went through when you were away, so we're glad you're back home.

But understand the problem with this vote on the Iranian Revolutionary Guard: It wasn't simply that it was identified as a terrorist organization; it was also that in the language of the resolution it said we should maintain our forces in Iraq with an eye towards blunting Iranian influence. So it's not just going to have an impact in terms of potentially having a war against Iran. It also gives this administration an excuse to perpetuate their failed strategy in Iraq, and that could mean that you could be redeployed in Iraq. That's why this was a mistake, and that's why not only do we have to bring the war in Iraq to a close, but we have to change the mindset that got us into war, which means we initiate -- yes, I agree with Hillary -- that we've got to initiate bold diplomacy. I think the next president has to lead that diplomacy. It can't just be envoys.

And one of the reasons I'm running for president -- and Hillary and I had a disagreement with this -- on this. I said I would meet with not just our friends, but also with our enemies because that's what strong countries and that's what strong presidents do is meet with our adversaries, tell them where we stand.

BLITZER: Senator, I want to go back to Suzanne Malveaux, but this was an important vote, and you missed that vote. You weren't present in the Senate when that vote occurred.

OBAMA: No, this is true. And it was a mistake. This is one of the hazards of running for president. But the -- but what I've -- but what I have consistently said, and I said at the time of the vote, was that we should not take steps that would increase troop presences inside Iraq with an eye towards blunting the impact of Iran. I always think that's a mistake.

BLITZER: Thank you, Senator.