July 6, 2004
From the desk of Jane Galt:A fine bit of ranting
Let me rant, please.
Democrats who have been saying that Michael Moore's new movie is misleading drivel that will convince voters of things that are patently untrue (and evidently it's working, to judge by the people I was sitting near on the fourth of July), but that that's okay, because after all, well, y'know, I really, really hate George Bush . . .
Well, I know y'all don't care about my opinion, but I'm going to give it anyway, because frankly, I'm ashamed of some of the people I've heard taking this position. I expected better.
Is it okay because George Bush does it? I dunno, if I find John Kerry making up all sorts of ridiculous nonsense about how his policies will make every American taller, smarter, and sexier, lying to voters about some fictional secret plan to get us out of Iraq by getting Europe to contribute money and troops they don't have, and wouldn't give us if they did, falsely claiming that his platform will reduce the budget deficit, covering up his family's financial activities in order to prevent embarassment--well, y'all just gave me carte blance to make up whatever ridiculous nonsense I can. I don't want to hear any complaints when I dredge up that veterans group Kerry was associated with that plotted to assassinate a few people, and then just accidentally--oops!--forget to mention that Kerry had nothing to do with the plot, and tried to quash it when he found out. All's fair in love and war, baby.
But I wouldn't do that, even if I were supporting Bush for re-election, which, as I explained here, I am not. I wouldn't because it's dishonest. And because when you lie to people all the time, eventually they notice.
But what about Bush? the Democrats wail. He lies all the time!
Children, gather round. I have something very, very difficult to tell you. You aren't going to like it, I'm afraid. None of us likes it -- it makes us all very unhappy. But it must be faced, just the same.
You see, difficult as you will find this to believe, politicians lie. All of them lie. Even nice politicians who agree with us, and are smart, and have really good hair and a nice speaking voice, lie. They lie frequently. They lie about the outcomes of their policies, and they lie about their reasons for enacting them. They lie about their past accomplishments, and they lie about their future plans. In the vast soulless meat market that is our political process, the guy who gives the most misleading impression, without actually getting caught in an out-and-out falsehood, generally wins.
Welcome to adulthood. Sorry I couldn't break it more gently.
If you want to sign off on Michael Moore's tactics because George Bush misled people, you will have not a leg to stand on when your guy misleads people. As he will. Of course, you and everyone who agrees with you will stand around yelling very loudly that what your guy did wasn't lying, not a bit like what those scurrilous bastards on the other side got up to. However, as you may have already noticed, no one except people who already agree with you pays any attention when you say things like this. And the reason that they pay no attention is that it is not true. If you'd step outside the college pep rally atmosphere that passes for partisanship these days, you would already have figured this out.
Politicians lie, and people know they lie, which is why their speech is so aggressively discounted by everyone except their campaign workers. But the reason I don't get worked up over this, the way I do about journalists and movie makers who lie, is that politicians lies are balanced. Every Republican out there alleging that he singlehandedly saved 90,000 orphans from forest fires while in office has an equal and opposite Democrat claiming that said Republican likes to eat babies for breakfast, and invented scurvy.
Michael Moore's two hours of venom-laden innuendo has no counterpart on the right. Oh, you'll complain about Fox News (and I find the relentless cheerleading a little wearing myself), but you'll find just as many conservatives complaining about CNN. Castigate Rush all you want -- you've got Al and Randi now. There's no right wing Michael Moore, though, and when there was, (that Clinton whatever-thingy I couldn't bring myself to watch), I don't recall y'all saying it was okay because Clinton, y'know, lied.
What about me? I say things that are misleading all the time, don't I? I hope not, but I have certainly unwittingly promulgated half-truths in my time.
But here's the difference: I don't have a couple years to work on this stuff. I write off the cuff, and y'all know I write off the cuff. I dredge facts out of dim memory, rely on speaking to experts whose names I'm too lazy to look up, and otherwise am carrying on a conversation, rather than a journalistic enterprise.
But I also do journalism. And when I do journalism, I check stuff. So, of course, does Michael Moore, which makes it even worse, because he knows that what he's saying is true in only the most legalistic sense of the word.
I don't, for example, invite you to draw hazy inferences from the fact that the Saudis gave a defense contract to a firm that was a subsidiary of the Carlyle Group, an organization Bush pere joined -- without mentioning that Mr Bush joined the Carlyle Group only after it had already disposed of the subsidiary. Both facts are, of course, true in one sense -- but putting them together without the third fact gives a completely false impression. Perhaps this is technically not lying. But had I tried to pull such a stunt with my mother, I'd have been walloped just the same.
What Moore does is not journalism--but it is taken as journalism by a significant portion of the audience. He wants it to be taken as journalism. And apparently, so do a lot of people who think they can't win the election without dressing up their campaign ads as documentaries.
I have no stirring closer to wrap this up with, except that I'm disappointed. I mean, are we trying to figure out what the truth is here, in this great social experiment we're all running, or are we just trying to delude people into going along with us? Because while I've certainly, in my time, said stuff that wasn't true, I've never knowingly done so. Everything I write, I pretty much believe -- not in some "larger truth" sense, where I feed you a bunch of completely false statistics in order to convince you to support something I favour, but in the smaller, terribly bourgeois sense that if I tell you that marginal income tax cuts don't measurably increase work hours, it's because I believe that marginal ncome tax cuts don't measurably increase work hours. I may be wrong, and certainly my beliefs about things like taxation are influenced by my beliefs about larger issues of personal liberty and so forth. But I do at least try to tell y'all what I think is true, without leaving anything important out. I would like to think that most people out there feel the same way.
Of course, I know that people do stretch the facts and so forth when they're advocating passionately. But endorsing lying as a policy strikes me as really, well, wrong. I'm sure that's terribly naive and outre. But there you are--when the revolution comes, I'll be the first one with my back against the wall.
I have no desire to defend Michael Moore or to see his movie. And I don't think that Bush's fun and games with the truth make Moore's OK. On the other hand, Moore is a propagandist and Bush is president of the United States, so I do care a whole lot more about Bush's truthfulness than Moore's. Yes, politicians lie. But some lie more than others, and lie about more important stuff than others. Bush's war is not the equivalent of Clinton's blow job. And I'm not sure why you're so worked up about a propaganda movie. If you can handle the idea that politicians lie, surely you can tolerate the idea that propagandists do too.
Please name the Democrats who have been saying that Michael Moore's new movie is "misleading drivel".
Please provide examples of the many lies you accuse Moore of perpetrating in Fahrenheit 9-11.
Also, please explain why "everybody does it" is an acceptable defense for George W. Bush. While you're at it, please name the other US Presidents who lied to Congress and the American people in order to manufacture a pretext to invade a country which posed no threat to the United States.
Well, Orbitron, how about we start off with FDR, with his fictitious secret German plans, and his deliberate provocation of Japan in order to get us into a war with Germany, which posed no threat to the US?
Oh, why not.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and Morocco.
But more to the point, I don't think Bush lied. I think he believed there were WMD. He didn't omit the fact that, whatever the evidence of meetings between Saddam and Al-Qaeda, there was no evidence they collaborated on 9-11.
Bush manipulated our fears of something bad happening to get us to support his policies? That's the definition of politics. Clinton manipulated middle-class fears of being uninsured, something that was unlikely to happen to most Americans, in an attempt to get them to support a massive health care system that would, in order to keep the expansion of coverage affordable, dramatically restrict the options of the vast majority of Americans who were already satisfied with their health coverage, and repeatedly misled both them and congress about what would be involved. Said health care plan would have had more impact on most American's wallets and lives than the Iraq war. Are you mad yet?
Didn't think so. This sort of outrage is thoroughly selective, which is why I don't indulge in it. Democrats are willing to countenance Clinton's . . . ahem . . . exorbitant exaggerations . . . because they see them as being in the service of a higher good. They seem emotionally incapable of grasping that Republicans feel the exact same way about Bush's . . . ahem . . . irrational exuberance. And vice versa. I've seen no evidence that this president is any more of a liar than those previous (Carter excepted). I'm willing to listen to arguments that he's incompetent, but whining that he's a big fat liar leaves me utterly cold unless you're willing to work up a similar rage about the large policy lies of the Clinton administration and the Kerry campaign, which so far none of my oh-so-indigant interlocutors have been willing to do.
I'll Bite Orbitron, I thought the whole first half of Moore's movie was drivel. Fun, (since I lean left), but drivil none the less. It's not a lie, but it's all innuendo and inferences and all sorts of really crappy things. Fun, but it's just Democratic masterbation to me.
The second half of that movie is the part I feel was powerful. And not the stupid part where Moore went off an tried to get Senators to sign their kids up for the armed services. The part about what the soldiers have to do, the part about the quiet desperation. It's old news, there is nothing new to see. But I think it is valuable that it is seen.
But I agree with you. All politicians lie, but at least most of them have the respect for the American people to lie convincingly. Bush doesn't even have the respect for the American people to do that. I wouldn't even say he's lying. I'd say the administration lies and twists and turns. I think Bush is given information that he honestly believes it's the truth.
While you may venture to disagree with me I would say Coulter and Derbyshire and Limbaugh and all those right of right pundits are just as bad as Moore. They just don't have movie cameras.
I agree with you that Coulter is just as bad; I don't have an opinion about Rush's veracity, only his style, which I loathe. But you won't catch me saying that we need an Ann Coulter or a Rush Limbaugh because -- waaaaaaaaaaa!!!!! -- those meanies on the left are telling lies!
No, I agree, I don't think we "need" any of them. But they have the right to say whatever stupid thing comes out of their mouth. And it is our responsibility to acknowledge when it is hogwash. Oh, and YOUR responsiblity as a journalist to debunk it without looking like either Coulter OR Moore.
I'm a Lawyer. It is my job to sit on the sidelines and hand people my card in case they want to sue over something. What fun it is to be a bottom-feeder!
JohnL:
"Bush's war is not the equivalent of Clinton's blow job."
It wasn't Clinton's blow job; it was Clinton's lying under oath about his blow job.
JohnL:
"Bush's war is not the equivalent of Clinton's blow job."
It wasn't Clinton's blow job; it was Clinton's lying under oath about his blow job.
Jane, it may be selective outrage, but for me it's a recent development. I generally leaned Republican, disliked Clinton, and voted for Bush in 2000. I strongly oppose him now because I'm disgusted by his administration, not because I'm a died-in-the-wool Democrat. I may be wrong about Bush, but you're just changing the subject with the "OK, if you're not going to defend Moore, defend Clinton" stuff.
IMO, Ray Bradbury's assessment of Michael Moore was dead on target. I believe the translation chain (English to Swedish then back to English; I'm presuming the original interview with Bradbury was in English) gets something just a bit off - but I'm pretty sure the main ideas survive.
Swedish article:
http://www.dagensnyheter.se/DNet/jsp/polopoly.jsp?d=1058&a=272062
Partial English translation:
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=38776
I also think it's quite telling that Moore never even had the common courtesy to ask Bradbury if he minded if Moore appropriated the title of Bradbury's meisterwork before the fact - and apparently is avoiding speaking to him about the matter.
Professional propagandists deserve far MORE scorn than professional politicians. People know that politicans will stretch the truth and can (if they aren't wearing partisan blinders) pretty much detect the BS. A skilled propagandist, however, is more skilled; his or her lies are generally far less detectable. Without professional propagandists in their employ, politicians would be able to mislead FAR fewer people.
Damn. Next to last sentence of my previous post should have started "A skilled propagandist, however, is much more dangerous; his or her lies . . . ."
Okay, politicians lie. Is there anything we can do about it, other than getting rid of them? If I were to pick one thing that I think the Founding Fathers would be most upset about that we've done with their creation, I think career politicians would be it. My reading of their writings suggests that they almost all felt strongly that holding office was a burden, but that leading citizens would do a term or two out of a sense of obligation.
The arguments that some make that you need people with 30 years of experience because only they understand the complexities of the government seem to me to be wrong-way round -- the solution is not career politicians, the solution is to make things simpler.
But what do I know?
It is interesting to note that Mr. Moore considers F9/11 to be a documentary work, but when he is pressed personally regarding it's veracity, he refers to himself as an entertainer.
When did Jane start with the "y'all" tick?
Jane, poor example. In the long run, Nazi Germany certainly was a threat. The Europeasers were suffering the consequences of not scotching Hitler when a couple of divisions could have done it, and it would have been worse policy to wait while he integrated most of Europe into the Wehrmacht, forced some kind of peace on England, and developed nukes with jets and long range missiles to deliver them, and while Hitler's Japanese allies cut us out of a good part of the resources of the Orient. So FDR exaggerated the immediate danger and cut off Japan's supply of scrap metal? My, that's so terrible I could almost forgive him for his disastrous economic policies and embrace of socialism...
Better examples:
1) Johnson, Tonkin Gulf Resolution, using the overactive imagination of one Navy captain as the excuse to send armies to Vietnam.
2) McKinley(?), Spanish American War, interpreting the explosion of the battleship Maine as an attack (it was really internal and accidental).
OK, Johnson and McKinley didn't absolutely know these incidents were bogus - but they happily latched onto the first excuse without much investigation, and it wouldn't have hurt the USA to walk away from both conflicts. OTOH, it seems like most everyone, including Saddam, thought Saddam had large chemical weapon stockpiles and was actively working on nukes and biological weapons, although there were conflicting reports. And reports that were written with a definite slant - Wilson finding that the Nigerians had rejected informal approaches from Iraqis to buy yellowcake, but writing that Iraq had not tried to buy yellowcake at all... Considering that Saddam was blatantly trying to hide something, I doubt that any unbiased analyst could have reasonably concluded anything but that Saddam probably had a lot of chemical weapons left and was trying to acquire nukes. Hans Blix (of the UN inspectors), for example, repeatedly said that he couldn't find everything.
So what was in disagreement was mainly whether to let Blix bumble around until either he stumbled onto something the Iraqis forgot to hide, or something like a nuke explosion off Manhattan Island removed all doubt. Bush decided to err on the side of caution and take the one way of being sure Iraq never completed a nuke. To sell his war, he selected a few items to make public out of the entire mess of conflicting intelligence assessments. That is, he turned "probably" into "certainly". This was misleading, but as political whoppers go, it's a tiny one.
A wonderful rant, thank you. Let me present a different take.
Our government is not a static entity. Over time, it is evolving. I would hope that it is evolving such that people are becoming more and more empowered by information gathered using information age technology. I am concerned that it is evolving to the point where the political class manipulates the proles with dribs and drabs of information; it is the political class that uses information age technology to know how to mislead the proles (i.e. Clinton's reliance of polls to select policies).
People are animals that think. We think best when we have accurate information. Further institutionalizing lying is taking a step down the wrong evolutionary path.
John -- you are absolutely right. This is the thing that drives me nuts more than anything about Michael Moore: is he a documentarian or a satirist?
When he is pushed to defend claims against Bush, he says that he's a satirist. When he's belittled, he'll shoot back with the "truth" of his documentaries.
Jane:
Let me see if I have this straight: (a) politicians lie, and they offset, so they don't count, (b) news organizations lie (or mislead), and they offset, so they don't count, and (c) Moore misleads, and he has no wingnut counterpart, so THAT's a problem?
First, of course all politician lie. Who cares, as long as we can check it in other ways. I don't recall Clinton's rhetoric about healthcare being particularly disingenous (IIRC, part of the argument was that people would change jobs more often in the "knowledge economy," so they had a greater chance in the future of being briefly without insurance), but let's assume he did. We could check his facts - look to the enormous number of organizations that study HC policy, and ask what they thought, depend on interested parties (insurers, doctors, etc.) to present the opposite view. IIRC, nothing happened on HC for exactly that reason (although Clinton's case (though not his solution) was better than you're admitting).
War is a special case - the Executive tells us "there are things we can't tell you," and we buy it. We're supposed to - it's national security, and it's one of the arenas in which the Executive is meant to be strongest. This is particularly true when you have an Executive that's as secretive about everything as this one. We commit ourselves to actions outside the US that effect others that don't have a voice in the US. (Why does this matter - b/c brokering a compromise after everything's gone to hell is harder when one side isn't particularly represented in US politics). I guess there's no "politics stop at water's edge" nostrom for you. If you want to argue that war is the same as any other large action an Administration might take, do so. But say it Loud and say it Proud.
And if other President's have lied to get us into (or keep us in) war (also LBJ, IIRC) - well, then, they've made a bet on which we should judge them. We forgive FDR b/c we were right to get into WWII. We don't forgive LBJ, b/c we had little business in Vietnam. We have less in Iraq, and Bush should be held to account. Even by you, and even if it's mildly embarassing.
Second, if you're seriously arguing that the wingnut media is only as biased as the mainstream media, you've gone completely around the bend. Are you telling me that, even with the all of its scandals, you don't trust the NY Times any more than you trust the NY Post? You don't think that the WP is a better, more accurate newspaper than the Moonie Times? Is this a joke? Tell your employers from now on, when citing to or relying on other media, you'd like to reference the NY Post instead of the Times; then stand back and watch the tears of laughter roll down their cheeks. (For the record - I LOVE the NY Post, b/c its funny).
Fox News is different from Michael Moore? How? Even after the President came out and said there was no evidence to link Saddam to 9/11, IIRC, half of the Fox News viewers believed he was connected to it. Have you ever watched the Bill O'Reilly show? Are you kidding me?
Finally, as referenced above, sometimes we're willing to depart from principles like honesty for the protection of something more valuable. I think you made roughly the same argument about terrorism last year (I just looked at the post, but I don't know how to link). That, it seems to me, is what most people who accept the Moore propaganda are saying. Of course you don't see it this way - protests to the contrary, you seem to suggest that Bush is no worse than most Presidents. A lot of us (more and more every day), think this Administration is an abomination without any recent parallels. That's why you're seeing so many center-right bloggers deserting the Pubs. Your boys in the WH aren't just occassionally wrong on the merits. Whether through incompetence or malice (I vote incompetence), they are, almost across the board on important matters, an object lesson in Garbage In, Garbage Out.
But let's not fight on this day when Kerry did the right thing and picked Edwards. At a minimum, we can all at least hope that, next January, we'll get a chance to start putting things aright.
Bush's illegal war. Lied to make war on a country that didn't iummediately threaten us. blah-blah-blah
Out here in the real world, people watched the WTC fall to the ground. And remembered that this was the second time that muslim/arabs tried to knock it down.
Out here in the real world, we don't want to find out if a threat is immediate or not the hard way. We'd rather take care of an incipient threat now, rather than after Boston or San Francisco have a new, glowing shoreline.
And we want a President who thinks the same way.
Kate, even in the second part, he is playing with bs. Take the congressman he shows. Mike Castle is presented one of the Congressmen who would not sacrifice his children. Mike Castle (on the cell) has no kids. He interviewed Mark Kennedy who had one son on the way to afghanistan and currently has one in Iraq. He cut the interview so as to show that Kennedy is another a**hole. Take the congress. There are 102 veterans there. Isn't that a message in itself.
Take for example the greiving mother. He sounds so compassionate. What did he write in April 14 this year, " I’m sorry, but the majority of Americans supported this war once it began and, sadly, that majority must now sacrifice their children until enough blood has been let that maybe -- just maybe -- God and the Iraqi people will forgive us in the end."
He viewpoint is that families deserve the deaths they suffer. Moore is a sad, sad, fat man. No wonder the new term for Moore afficinados is Moore-on.
"Our results show a very significant liberal bias. All of the news outlets except Fox News’ Special Report received a score to the left of the average member of Congress. Moreover, by one of our measures all but three of these media outlets (Special Report, the Drudge Report, and ABC’s World News Tonight) were closer to the average Democrat in Congress than to the median member of the House of Representatives."
Imagine that!
The paper linked below was published last October by Yale Univ and the paper was prepared by researchers from UCLA/Stanford and Univ of Chicago. Read the whole thing here:
http://www.yale.edu/isps/seminars/american_pol/groseclose.pdf
Check your premises, Tim. The British media is vehemently, unabashedly partisan. Personally, I don't cite either the Village Voice or the NY Post, but I would if they had a scoop. But my employers don't cite much of anyone; our style book doesn't even like direct quotes unless absolutely unavoidable.
I don't like the Moores, Coulters, etc. of the world. My problem is not that they exist -- they have a right to be [expletive deleted]s if they want, and I wouldn't want to do anything to shut that right down. My problem is that people who are willing to give Moore a pass, would not give the same pass to a Moore of the right. Their claims that Bush is a unique brand of liar are transparently silly. War is special? HEalth care is pretty [censored] special too, my friend, and a lot more people will die from a botched health care plan than the war in Iraq. Everything's special to someone, and crafting these ultra-fine distinctions about what we will or will not tolerate in order to write your own side a pass while slamming the other guy is just as transparent to others when you do it as it is to you when the other side does. You also generally eventually get hung up, as when NOW et. al. had to explain how behaviour that they had advocated making illegal for CEO's was actually laudable when performed by someone they liked--and Clinton had to explain why a law that he himself had advocated and signed didn't apply to the Chief Executive of the US, even though he clearly thought it should apply to the Chief Executive of GM.
Am I okay with the fact that politicians lie? No, but they all do. Unless I'm willing to hop up and down all the time, screaming "he's lying!", I have to give most of them a pass. When the candidates stop calling each other big fat poopyheads and actually publish some, y'know, policies, I shall endeavor to point out their egregious exaggerations. But I'm not going to get all morally outraged about it, because I just don't have the energy to spend my entire life being morally outraged -- nor the hypocrisy to pretend that the folks I like aren't every bit as guilty of it as the folks I don't.
Ray:
You watched the WTC fall down - that's your justification for the current idiocy in Iraq? That the world is uncertain and scary, so we should go beat the hell out of any country that doesn't like us and might be able to scrape together enough cash to buy a nuke and a delivery system? We're going to be busy for a long, long time.
Here's a cheaper alternative solution (which should warm your Republican heart). Take five bucks and go down to the local Safeway. Buy two Superballs and packet of tape. Use the tape to affix the Superballs between your legs. Realize that the world is an uncertain and dangerous place. Then practice walking like you've got a pair.
(Any invective in above paragraph not meant, Ray. The image just occurred to me when I read your post, and, well...the meter of the matter made me do it).
Tomorrowist:
The McKinley example re: the Spanish-American War may not be a very good one. McKinley bent over backwards to keep us out of that war; public pressure literally forced his hand. The Maine was widely thought at the time to have been mined by the Spanish. It was only recently shown likely to have been a coal bunker explosion that sank the Maine. (However, McKinley does seem to have engineered us taking possession of the Philippines as a Pacific colony.)
Orbitron:
Regarding examples of US presidents misleading the public to get (or keep) us involved in a conflict with a country that didn't pose a threat to the US: it really depends on whether you define "threat" as short-term or long-term.
If you require a threat warranting use of military force to be "an immediate threat of attack on the US homeland", here's a list:
1. Polk and Mexico
2. McKinley and Spain
3. Wilson and Germany
4. FDR and Germany/Italy
5. Truman and Korea
6. Eisenhower and Lebanon
7. JFK and Cuba (Bay of Pigs)
8. JFK/LBJ/Nixon and Vietnam
9. LBJ and the Dominican Republic
10. Reagan and Grenada
11. Bush pere and Panama
12. Bush pere and Iraq
13. Clinton and Somalia
14. Clinton and Haiti
15. Bush fis and Iraq
(And yes, I know Bush pere began the Somalia intervention - as a humanitarian operation intended to end a famine. Under Clinton, it became a military operation intended to support the UN and restore Somalia as a state.)
There are probably also some others I can't think of off the top of my head. None of these foreign nations at the time posed an immediate threat of attack on the US homeland. With sufficient research, I believe we could find at least one example of each of the presidents listed above making misleading statements concerning the above conflict(s) occurring on their watch.
If you require an immediate threat of attack on the US homeland to justify use of force, since the American Revolution we've had precisely three conflicts with foreign nations that qualify: the War of 1812 (Britain still wanted her colonies back), World War II (Japan only), and Afghanistan (al Qaeda and their Taliban hosts/protectors).
However, if you take a longer-term view of threat - that is, that these nations and/or instability in them posed a long-term threat to US security - then nearly all of the above conflicts were/are arguably justifiable. (I won't make that argument for some of these conflicts - but one can argue that they were justified.)
Using “immediate threat of attack on the US homeland” would IMO be an incredibly shortsighted and foolish criteria for deciding when to use military force. Using this criteria, we would NOT have become involved in World War I or the European part of World War II. Moreover, war is incredibly destructive. I'm selfish; I think it infinitely preferable that wars be fought on someone else's homeland vice allowing an enemy to become strong enough to bring war to me.
Sometimes it’s also better to deal with a threat early on vice later when it’s become a worse threat. It’s easier to remove a splinter than deal with blood poisoning.
SomeCallMeTim:
"Kerry did the right thing"? What, he withdrew from the race and endorsed Lieberman as his replacement?
Damn, I knew I should have checked the news sites more often today . . . .
Tim: I hope for your soul's sake that you're not telling me what I think you're telling me: that you've decided to prove your own manhood by bragging about how impassively you can watch while your own countrymen are killed.
capt joe wrote:
Kate, even in the second part, he is playing with bs. Take the congressman he shows. Mike Castle is presented one of the Congressmen who would not sacrifice his children. Mike Castle (on the cell) has no kids. He interviewed Mark Kennedy who had one son on the way to afghanistan and currently has one in Iraq. He cut the interview so as to show that Kennedy is another a**hole. Take the congress. There are 102 veterans there. Isn't that a message in itself.Point of information, it was Congressman Mark Kennedy’s nephew and the son of his cousin not his sons that are serving in the armed forces as his oldest son is not yet old enough to enlist (but reportedly is planning on joining the Navy).
somecallmetim
Buddy, there are alot of people that view international relations as a Hobbesian state of nature, not one of morality. Just as tribes on the steppe only survived if they went and kicked ass if they perceived a possible threat, nations only survive as long as they are aggressive and pre-emptive in their own defence. Because the US (and France and UK) was passive in the 30s, we had to fight WWII and it was a damn close run thing. Because the US folded its tent after the defeat of Germany rather than rearming the Germans and driving to Moscow (or else just nuking it) we had the Cold War, which was also a close run thing.
I don't like close run things, I much prefer the Pax Romana, Pax Britannica, and Pax Americana. So, when the Islamists showed that they were serious about their war between the west and their vision of Islam, well that was enough for me. The islamists (i.e. those that want to impose Wahabbi Islam by main force on the world) must be eliminated. It won't be pretty, short, or cheap, but it has to happen.
Now you apparently don't believe the same thing. Be thankful that your forefathers and their neighbours and countrymen thought like me, for it is the only reason you exist.
It's a war to the knife, and their is no place or time for morality. Kill or be killed, and if you're not willing to be part of it, move to Saudi.
Jane and Others:
Here is an article that discusses the movie The Clinton Chronicles, which Jane mentions in her post, and compares it to Fahrenheit 9/11. The article is not particularly partisan, is well written, and is fun to read, so I recommend it for your information and enjoyment. A point of the article is that while the movies are similarly tendentious, The Clinton Chronicles was rejected by all except a small group of nutcases, whereas Fahrenheit 9/11 has been embraced by many establishment figures.
The author's point echos a concern of mine. In the 1990's the hatred of Clinton lead to some truly crazy rantings on the right, but these rantings were never mainstream. I lived in the Washington D.C. area at the time and most of the Republicans that I knew had not even heard of The Clinton Chronicles. Now the hatred of Bush has lead to some truly crazy rantings on the left, and something like half the Democrats in Congress attended the first day screenings of Fahrenheit 9/11. Among much the mainstream left the sane, healthy criticism of a Republican President has been replaced by an insane, unhealthy hatred which I normally associate with extremists. This mainstreaming of intense poltical hatred is recent and frightens me.
Jane:
(Quick aside - I think I'm actually starting to be fond of you launching into me. I've grown accustomed to your screeds, the way they tend to make me bleed...).
1. You're referencing the British press? Have you moved? Just because you spell like'em doesn't mean you live over there. But if NYC is now a part of the British Isles, I think this supports my argument that we shouldn't be wasting military time in Iraq.
2. Yeah, I suspected such a sourcing rule, but I was inflamed, dammit. Put it to you this way, and answer honestly: if for the rest of your life you could only get your news from Group A (NY Times, WP) or Group B (NY Post, Wash Times), which would you choose? I think I know the answer, but maybe I'm wrong.
3. Point me to your rants about Limbaugh or Coulter and their various lies ("libs are traitors", etc.) and let me at 'em. I only want to read and learn.
4. List the hearings and commissions that Hillary had to go for before prior to HC reform passing (it wasn't?) beside those that the Bush Administration had to go before prior to invading Iraq. Include information about time spent answering questions; if possible, include time answering non-fawning questions.
Do you really think we had the same sort of thorough debate about going into Iraq that we did about HC reform? Really? No, seriously, really?
I note also that, for the longest time, foreign policy was where the big guns went in the Executive, b/c that was where the Executive had freedom to act. (See books on Acheson, et. al., McGeorge Bundy, et. al., Kissinger, etc.). Congress interfered a lot on the domestic side, but much less so on foreign policy. So yeah, where we can't count on Congress to check the Executive (partly out of cowardice, but partly structurally), the Executive has a special responsibility to be responsible. The idea's a bit like "personal responsibility." You guys used to at least pay lip service to that idea.
5. I don't remember arguing that politicians don't lie. I don't think I've ever accused you of being too cynical - too naive a number of times, but never too cynical.
6. I'm not sure you responded to the "more extreme times allow more extreme measures" argument, unless it was by inference (specifically, Bush isn't particularly bad, just part of the normal lot of politicians). Did I miss something? (Not snarky).
Ooh, what fun! I love this fight!
Jane, you act as if lying is a binary condition: liar/not liar. By this test, yes, of course, all politicians fail. But we have to be able to make judgements based on degree and frequency. Now, we can (and I'm sure this thread will continue to) hash out just who and why is the worst liar, but the reasoning "All politicians lie, therefore Bush is not the worst in recent memory" doesn't stand.
But what's so extraordinary about Bush is that, despite a couple of verifiable whoppers, he's too smart to lie. That's right, George W. Bush is too smart to lie. This administration has crafted hundreds of dissembling, misleading un-lies that, on semantic examination, turn out to actually be true.
There's something, if not quite honest, at least ballsy about a real, true-to-life lie. It's why Cheney is so exhilirating to watch when he shows up to repeat, again and again, that Saddam and Al Qaeda were working together. That is just a good old lie, because Cheney knows it's his job to be a mean old bastard whom you either love or hate, depending on where you live. What fun! You go fuck yourself too, big guy, I am gonna MISS you in one or five years.
But for the most part, this administration seldom has the sack to just lie. "Contact with Al Qaeda going back ten years" is, strictly, true. But it's not at all true in the way that the administration hopes you will find it true; it could perhaps more accurately be phrased "Contact with Al Qaeda, the last verifiable instance of which happened ten years ago." "Ansar al-Islam was active in Iraq" is also, strictly, true. But they were active in an area of Iraq over which we flew air cover and over which Saddam exerted no control. But "Ansar al-Islam was active in the no-fly-zone, the area of Iraq that we currently control" wasn't as convincingly, dissemblingly true as the first phrasing.
This administration knows exactly what it's doing. It wants to convince us of things that aren't true without having to belly up to the untruth itself. It just hopes that enough of us will get the intended, and not semantic, meaning of its words. That's my problem with Bush; if you phrased his facts in their most obvious ways, most of them fade into insignificance.
If Bush wanted to foster democracy and remake the Middle East, then that's the conversation we should have been having. Was it a worthy goal? A realistic one? Hard to say, because I seem to remember the debate being about Al Qaeda and weapons of mass destruction (with brief pauses to mention democracy so it could refer to it afterwards). The only people talking about democracy in 2002 and 2003 were the National Review and the Heritage Foundation. No, the administration didn't lie (much) about Iraq; they just didn't trust us enough to really tell us what they were doing.
Thank you, philosopher kings. What, I wonder, in your second term, is going to be true in the very special way that you'll hope I'll find it to be true?
Joe:
"that you've decided to prove your own manhood by bragging about how impassively you can watch while your own countrymen are killed."
You've misread me. 9/11 was awful, and, as I've said before, if you lost someone then, I don't know how you get up again. Just terrible. I think we all feel that way. I think that's the reason I literally don't know anyone who opposed the invasion of Afghanistan. And, in the spirit of fair is fair, I admit that Bush impressed me by the relative temperateness of our response in Afghanistan. I wanted a lot more blood at the time; I see now that his way was better.
But going into Iraq was a different thing. We didn't go into Iraq to avenge our losses (though, if you're a regular Fox watcher, I suppose that is news to you). We went to prevent the remotely contingent possibility that Saddam might present a threat in the future. And we did that b/c Bush told the country to be afraid.
Are there things out there that go bump in the night? Yeah. But that doesn't mean we should beat the hell out of everyone we find on the streets after dark.
"When did Jane start with the "y'all" tick?"
What wrong with "ya'll", Robert?
Jane, you are right. I hate to generalize, but I agree: Politicians wouldn't know the truth if it slapped them on their butts.
Im still waiting for someone to comprehensively break down and point out Moores lies in Faranheit 911. Ive read Hitchens typical contrarian rant on F-911 at Slate, and was surprised at what a poor piece of work it was. I have only seen the movie once, but many, many, bigger issues than poppa Bushs job at Carlyle are addressed. Incidentally, the only specific contract I remember Moore referencing in reguard to Carlyle was 8000 new Humvees type vehicles bought by the US military, specifically for Iraq. In Hitchens rant he wrongly states that Moores movie focuses on poppa Bushs role in Carlyle as the primary source of the billion + dollars the Saudis have paid the clan Bush, it in fact traces the Bush jr -Saudi connection to his early days in the National Guard. The movie points to another NG member, AWOL at the same time as Bush jr, by the name of Booth. Booth managed the Saudis Texas business intrests, and was an investor in all of jrs failed prospecting Co.
The single thing I want to see answered from Faranheit 911, is the news clips of Powell and Rice saying that Iraq had no wmd, no capacity to produce wmd, and were a threat to noone, in 2001. This means all these old Clinton and Kerry Iraqi wmd quotes are nothing more than a distraction and a lie, as this administration had to be privey to at least two 'new' intelligence reports on Iraqi wmd after Clinton. The first new intelligence to account for why Powell and Rice disagreed with the previous administrations opinion on Iraqui wmd. The second set of intelligence data has to exist to account for their 180 on Iraqi wmd. With the CIA now claiming that they knew Chalibi was lying about wmd, but didnt 'think it important enough to tell the President', despite it being the only source for Powells wrong, wrong, wrong speech to the UN, and all Bushs error- filled, attack Iraq at all costs speeches, is to ridiculous to be believed.
Tim,
I think it's all a matter of perspective and background. From my point of view, as influenced by my time in the military, the first thought I had when Bush announced the War on Terror was, my goodness, but that's ambitious. I wonder if he really means it? My second thought was, well, I wonder just how long before we go into Iraq?
You see, it was obvious to me that conducting a war on terror included going into Iraq as one of the first steps in prosecuting that war. Yeah, we had to go after Al Qaeda and the Taliban first, but that's because that's where the perpetrators of the 9/11 attack were headquartered. But Iraq is/was a hotbed of terrorist activity, a lot of which is directed at US interests. No, there is no direct connection between Iraq and the 9/11 bombing, but I know of no one who claims there is. But there are direct connections, and a lot of indirect connections, between Iraq and Al Qaeda, and between Iraq and Abu Nidal, and between Iraq and the PLA, etc.
We did not go into Iraq "to prevent the remotely contingent possibility that Saddam might present a threat in the future" but rather because going into Iraq was a necessary step in the War on Terror. It was obvious to me as soon as the War on Terror was announced, and it's still obvious to me even in hindsight. You just don't have my background or perspective. I know I'm "right", but I know of no way of convincing you--your background and perspective are just too different.
I can agree that politicians will tell lies. However, I think the media is exaggerating the problem and adding to it with its own spin on things.
Many of these arguments seem to hinge on the flawed media, which is bent on finding the exciting story, not informing the public. I recommend reading the book Out of Order to find out what the media has done to the electoral process and then decide its role in politics. Journalism isn't the most reliable tool for judging someone's character.
Sometimes the media exaggerates -- Kerry is being accused of "waffling" and turning his back on his own beliefs. What the press leaves out is that his decisions came nearly 10 years apart, during which the context of the vote changed, like Iraq. The two different wars occured both in different decades and in different contexts. This should've been a non-issue.
Sometimes the media skips a big deal -- Bush, in his original campaign speech, said that "we cannot be the world's policemen" and promised that "every single American will have affordable health insurance" by the end of his term. Now a large number of Americans are uninsured, and we still have troops all over the globe. This is a boldfaced lie, and should've been a major issue.
I recommend comparing voting records to statements and speeches before accusing any politician of lying. Journalism distorts the real picture. Not all politicians lie. That's a media attention-grabber and a turn-off to young voters.
Believe it or not, some politicians actually tell the truth!
Bush jr isnt lying when he says there were ties between Saddam and Al Qaeda, if 'ties' mean contact between any member of the Iraqi government and Bin Laden. But what he isnt saying is that by that definition of 'ties' every single Islamic state has 'ties' to Bin Laden. There are no authenticated documents or even detailed descriptions of Iraqi/Al Qaeda meetings, but what is known for certain is that Iraq rejected any overtures of collaberation with Al Qaeda.
A guy like Saddam is far better for the West than the radical Islamic theocracy likely to be voted in when/if they have elections. Saddam couldnt coexist with radical Islam, or trust them in any way, because radical Islam hates secular dictators. Saddam had to squash radical Islam for self preservations sake. Al Qaeda has even tried to assasinate Pakistans Mushariff twice, and he is less brutal to Islamic fundelmentalists than Saddam and far more powerful. The sad truth is whoever eventually consolidates power in Iraq will have to be every bit as brutal as Saddam.
SomeCallMeTim:
Personal responsibility includes knowing when it is necessary to act as well as when it is necessary to refrain - and having the stones to act when it is politically dangerous.
Contributor B:
So, it's OK for politicians you approve of to parse carefully and insist on the literal ("What is the definition of 'is'?"), while politicians you disapprove of get slammed for doing the same? I expected better.
And I'd appreciate no gratuitious insult about me being "in over my head" this time.
"It's why Cheney is so exhilirating to watch when he shows up to repeat, again and again, that Saddam and Al Qaeda were working together. That is just a good old lie"
Here's another shocker for you: non-politicians lie too. You're distorting what Cheney has said.
Some of you really need to grow up and face reality as it is. Bush has made certain judgement calls based on what he knew (always an imperfect proposition.) He was not going to let Saddam continue to be a gathering threat for a vulnerable, post-9/11 America.
There's this powerful inclination to denial on the part of the left and some libertarians in America. It's as if, faced with post 9/11 realities, instead of adapting they went into a stateof unreality. The irony is that people here who want "the truth" really can't HANDLE "the truth".
Tim--Believe it or not, some people who watch Fox understand fully that 9-11 was not directed by Saddam or any of the malevolent scumbags in his employ.
Seriously, we take our fingers out of our noses long enough to figure this stuff out.
I understood fully that the war was about--at bottom--setting up an embryonic democracy in the ME. I understand fully that the next move is the real hammerstroke--the showdown with Iran.
See Tim, I put down my comic books and stopped having relations with my cousin long enough to figure something out: We will be engaged in the ME for a long time.
Some states, like the repressive butcher regimes of Saddam or the Taliban, will be defeated militarily. Some, like libya, will fold their hand voluntarily. Others will begin the program of cooperation because we are twisting their balls so hard that they really dont have much option. Im thinking Saudi Arabia and Pakistan here.
And the Others? well the others get the time to think about things a wee bit. Like when you were a kid and were walking in the dark and you heard and saw things that scared you but you didnt know what the next move was. You were alone and didn't have many friends nearby. You decided to change things so that didnt happen again. That's probably going to be Syria and Lebanon real, real soon.
Oh and Tim, I think I also saw on Fox that Israel has drastically cut down on suicide bomber efficacy and attempts. That they're killing a lot of Hamas guys too.
Bottom line Tim: the cost-benefit construct of being a bad guy has changed pretty much since about 9-12-01, regardless of who you are.
Not bad for a 'tard in office 33 months, no?
well, back to Nascar for me. ANd damm, that cousin sure is looking purdy......
I defy anyone to come up with ONE lie that Bush told. (Just One). That is all. I read politics and have an excellent memory and I do not recall one lie that Bush told. Bush is not subtle, he is not brilliant, he wouldn't know a nuance from a spruce, but he is honest. I live in Texas and when he was governor he did the best he could. I believe he is doing what he thinks is right, regardless of the polls. I am sick and tired of hearing about Bush's lies. He never said we invaded Iraq because of weapons of mass destruction. He never said Iraq was an eminent threat.
I will also agree he never gave the exact reason we invaded Iraq, but that is OK, the reason should be obvious to any intelligent human being. Strategic positioning in the Middle East.
Period.
Most folks don't realize that on the day France surrendered to Nazi Germany in July, 1940, they had more men under arms; more amour; more artillery and more planes than the conquering Germans. What they didn't have was the will to win.
Some folks wonder how the French lost in a mere six weeks to an invader with fewer troops, tanks, artillery and planes. The terrorists and their allies cannot beat us on the battlefied now - but like the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese before them, they working to undermine our will to win; and seek to win in our politics. Kerry can't deliver allies who have nothing to give; worse yet, his base is stridently anti-war. Elect Kerry and find out for yourself how we lose - and give the terrorists their best chance ever to win. You scoff now - but in a year so so, if events play out as they appear to be headed, and you're honest, you'll realize the critical mistake we've made.
I get miffed more each day as most don't even seem to understand what the meaning of the word 'lie' is. To lie, one must be intentionally attempting to mislead - tell a known falshood. Something along the lines of wagging one's finger and stating unequivically "I did not have sexual relations with that woman.....' comes to mind. That is clear and distinct. If the weather man states this evening that it is supposed to rain tomorrow - based on all the information he/she has - and it does not, did he/she 'lie'? Of course not. Just as an exercise - can anyone out there identify just ONE western Intel service that did NOT believe that Iraq possessed WMDs before the war? Just one? If GWB believed, with the information that was available to him at the time, that we must act on a percieved threat - he may have been woefully mistaken, but did not lie.
" somecallmetim' should really sign his name as "mostcallmeschmuck" -- what a twit.
Jane--when I first started reading your BLOG I thought you were quite intelligent and perceptive. but latley you have been showing your youthful inexperience in the statements and conclusions you have been making about a large number of topics. I will have to rethink my opinion of your ability to think things out. You write well but what you write is becoming more and more insipid.
thedaddy
Fred:
Ask and you shall receive. Actually, this should be good if you live in TX. From The Poor Man (http://www.thepoorman.net/)
Lie: "No."
President George W. Bush
When asked by a Dallas Morning News reporter if he had ever been arrested after 1968
1998
Truth: "Operating Under The Influence"
Arrest Record Card
Recording George W. Bush's arrest in Kennebunkport, Maine
7/6/1976
Thanks Thorley Winston,
I mistated the relationship. But the central point still holds.
Begbee, you want a break down blow by blow?
try this one: http://www.davekopel.com/Terror/Fiftysix-Deceits-in-Fahrenheit-911.htm
I am still waiting to see precisely where Bush (43) lied. In order to show that he lied, please supply the following:
1. The statement(s) by Bush that you believe were false. Be specific. Please give date, location, occasion, and hopefully, URL.
2. The facts that you base your belief that at the time that Bush made statement #1, he believed it to be false.
Merriam Webster defines the verb "lie" to be
"1 : to make an untrue statement with intent to deceive"
Another definition by the Cambridge dictionary
"something that you say which you know is not true"
This implies that the lyier knew that the statement was false. Just making an untrue statement is not sufficient, as long as the one making the untrue statement does not know of its falsity.
A good example of this are WMD in Iraq. Everyone knew that Iraq had WMD, including Bush (41), Clinton, Gore, the French, Germans, British, the Russians, the UN, the CIA, etc. Either, everyone was lying, or Saddam Hussein hid them and/or got rid of them without anyone finding out. You pick. My bet is that most were shipped to Syria, and most of the rest buried. But we are still trying to reconcile the world view pre-invasion to what was found.
But the point is that if everyone else believed that Iraq had WMD, and so did Bush, then he obviously did not lie - but, as he has admitted, was mistaken. Lying would require knowledge that the statement being made was false, not just that it was ultimately determined to be false.
p.s. Clinton did lie, and he did it under oath. This was a finding of fact by a United States District Court Judge, and was significant in his 5 year suspension from the practice of law. In that case, it was found that the statement(s) was false, and that Clinton knew it false when making the statement.
Im so sick of all the bs surrounding the effect of our presence in Iraq. Our presence in Islam post Desert Storm is much of the reason we have been targeted by Al Qaeda. Qaddafi hasnt been a player in state sponsered terrorism in years, and he only opened his doors to the UN hoping for the lifting of sanctions against Libya. The media has failed to ask a highly important question to the planning of 'shock and awe.' What steps were taken to secure the wmd in the war plan? It seems to me not knowing what happened to the wmd is far worse than knowing an impotant Saddam had them. Now, the wmd might be in Syria or the hands of terrorists, which is the very thing this war was suppose to pre-empt, not cause. One thing we do know for sure is a result of our invasion of Iraq is that Iran has accelerated its nuke program, is now thumbing their nose at the UN, and like all the Islamic nations, covertly supporting the Iraqi insurgency.
We keep emphasizing Saddams brutality to his citizens. Saddam is accused of killing 300,000 in 30 years in Iraq, in Rwanda 500,000 died in a week. Want an easy Bush lie? "Iraq wont be an exercise in nation building" This wasnt suppose to be a humanitarian effort, but now its hundreds of billions of dollars. And rather than have the Iraqi oil pay for it, because then the Iraqis would choose the contractors, Bush is using our tax dollars to pay so he can funnel sealed, no bid contracts to his friends in US big energy.
People can try to excuse Moore for this nasty bit of propaganda but this Democrat is ashamed.
I have never voted for a Republican in my life, but I will be voting for Bush in Novemeber. What is more if I don't see the Democrats condemning this film then I will not be a Democrat anymore.
Michael Moore is a multi millionaire who is making money off of anti Americanism and dead Americans. He insults his fellow Americans, he defames soldiers in harm's way, he makes excuses for teerrorists, he even confers with Hezbellah on distributing this film and we all know what they are. I may not agree with everything Bush does but I remember Clinton and the Iraqi Liberation Act and I know that Bush inherited a lot of this.
And it should be remembered that there are Republicans out there that know how to make movies too and Kerry has some really creepy stuff in his background they might want to make a movie about. After all we Democrats have made it plain that the truth is just a detail.
Fred, you're right, but it doesn't matter.
The Moore-supporters do not inhabit the same world as real people. There are ways to force them into the real world, at least temporarily, but it's damn hard to do with words.
And there's no point in asking for examples, because they don't have any. What they have is this:
Bush lied. We know this because he is a liar. We know he is a liar because he tells lies. See! He said something I disagree with! Liar liar!
And that, basically, is it. Of course, the people who believe this are unable to realise that this is exactly what they are doing, and will explode with anger when you point it out. Which is fun, but unproductive.
Jane, keep up your good work. Those of us who are sane value you, anyway.
B: I'm afraid I disagree with you that the Bush administration tells some special, extreme form of lies. They tell exactly the kind of lies all other politicians tell: the kind that have just enough basis in truth that the media will not report them as having told an out and out falsehood. I've offered Clintoncare as one example, but there are as many examples as there are politicans. As far as I Can tell, politicians tell the Michael Moore sort of lie every time they open their mouths. Now, you may disagree, but you're going to have a lot of work to do to convince me that previous politicians did not make exactly the same sort of self servingly misleading statements. I observed it firsthand with Clinton; and I've read enough about Reagan, Nixon, Johnson, Truman, Eisenhower, and FDR to be pretty confident that I'm right on them. I'll give you Ford, Carter, and possibly Bush I, but as that list seems to indicate, a willingness to fearlessly tell the truth does not seem to be highly correlated with either competence or electibility.
Given that politicians lie, anyone who wants to make an excuse for telling vicious lies about their political opponents can find something to justify their decision, if we set lying up as the bar. ANd if we decide that anything goes, then any chance we have of having a decent political discourse goes right out the window. It's cheap to say politicians are doing it, so we should do it too. Politicians have ever served their own interest. It's the job of the polity to keep them honest, not join them in their reindeer games.
I'm not endorsing such lying as a policy; if you want to denounce it on all sides, more power to you. But the people who are pissing me off are the people who don't want to denounce it on all sides, only the other side; then, after their side has made equally false statements, they want to cut some exquisitely fine distinction that gives their guys a get out of free card.
MYself, I don't have the energy to denounce politicians for doing what got 'em elected. So I save my ire for folks who ensorse Moore's tactics in a one-sided fashion.
My problem with Moore is that he's blazing new territory: the mass market propaganda film. This bothers me, as it was an area of discourse that was previously often quite stupid, but at least nominally free of this sort of mentality. It bothers me even more that journalists are endorsing this sort of thing, in the sleazy hope that Moore will tell the lies they want to, but can't because they'd get fired.
"Bush manipulated our fears of something bad happening to get us to support his policies?"
So, what's this "our" thing, Jane?. Speak for yourself. If someone, say me, for instance, supported the war, it was because Bush manipulated my fears? D*mn patronizing, that's how it sounds to me.
Capn Joe
I read your link and I find it even less convincing than Hitchens distortions. All of the accusations leveled at the link are debateable, most of them focus on small points or chronology of events.
All lies are not equal. Clinton lied about sex under oath. This President knowing lied to all of America about war during his State of the Union speech two years ago. During the vetting of the SOU the CIA refused to be used as a source for the Niger-Uranium accusations. Bush needed to get nukes involved to maximize fear, so he used a British Intell report that was KNOWN TO BE BASED ON THE SAME INTELLIGENCE THE CIA CONCLUDED TO BE FALSE, but used the wording African and nuclear material rather than Niger and Uranium. Its also the rather unseemly that Cheney used the very same premise Clinton used to attempt to avoid deposition in Lewinsky, that it violates the Constitution by giving the judiciary authority over the executive office, in avoiding releasing the Enron DOE minutes.
"the mass market propaganda film"
Then again, there's nothing like a 24-7 cable news network (Fox) working in concert with thousands of hours of talk radio (Rush, Hannity, Savage), book publishers (Regenery, ReganBooks), websites (Drudge, Newsmax, Worldnetdaily), thinktanks (Heritage, AEI), pundits (Coulter, Ingraham, Bennett)etc.
"Whatever serves the Party is the Truth."
What Bush says doesn't serve the Democratic Party. It therefore isn't the truth. Correspondence or lack thereof with the objective Universe isn't one of the tests.
Regards,
Ric Locke
Multi-millionaire wants you to pay him nine bucks to watch a two-hour attack ad.
You bite.
Sucks to be you.
Oh, hell, an honest person has as much chance of being elected President as I do of playing center field for the Yankees. I checked my voicemail, and Torre hasn't called. The electorate might occasionally tolerate an honest prson for Representative or, maybe, more infrequently, Senator, but when it gets to piling up 270 electoral votes, the electorate wants somebody who will lie their ass off, and would banish a truth-teller to Nome to be a dog-catcher, assuming Nome bothers with the problem of stray dogs. I really get embarassed listening to people speak of any politician in glowing tones; folks, you don't know these people, they don't know you, and they seek to exercise great power over you. It may be wise to keep a crow-bar within reach.
As to Moore and his ilk, it is just as embarassing to hear folks speak of such obvious charlatans in positive terms. Jesus, have you people ever spent five minutes on a used-car lot? You'd be insulted if someone thought so little of you in an attempt to get you to buy a 96' Taurus, but when it comes to selecting those who will rule you, a lot of folks ( and many of whom think themselves quite sophisticated) roll over like marks out for the first time on a Saturday night. Really, really, pathetic.
I'm new to this blog and not a journalist, but find it very interesting and informative, even educational.
It isn't so much that Bush lied to launch the war in Iraq, as much as it is Rumsfeld's and Wolfowitz's lying. To get rid of them and Cheney, whom I strongly believe is still profiting from Haliburton, regardles of what he was suppose to have done with his investments, people have to vote for Kerry.
Rex: You are right about that. History shows why Iraq was the next destination for the Pentagon. Look at a map of the Middle East and place your finger in the center of it, it will be on Iraq. Generals know that to get control of an entire region they have to take the middle ground first. This splits the enemies' forces and lets you control their communication routes, as well as limit their ability to counter attack. As uncooperative as the Arab League is they are not likely to. Iraq provides air bases which will help to control the "civil war" in Saudi Arabia in our interests.
The insurgancy will eventaully be controlled. The only good thing about suicide bombers is they are depleting their resouces... one at a time. When enough have seen the uselesness of it they will refuse to take part.
What I hate most are the casualties, our best young people forced to fight with their hands tied. Those Iraqis dancing around burning Humvees should have been shot. One Marine brigade fought for 14-hours to prevent "dancers" from taking a burning Humvee. Flowers thrown in their paths had short fuses.
Democracy is at odds with Islam, it will never happen in the Middle East. Freedom is the right to question and Islam forbids it. This is Bush's delusion, just as the "higher power" he talked to before going to war and mistook no reply as being full authorization.
McClain: you must watch foxNews, a 24hour attack ad lead by Sean Hannity, whose primary Job is to bring hate against the left and the democrats.. just read his book, "deliver us From Evil", I'll give it to you for free if you can prove he is honest....... other wise it'll cost you a dollar for evey lie he has told on the air..... (I will be the richest gay, married, abortion loving, christ destroying, family blasting, homeless, alcoholic, communist bastard in the world!!!!)
Gosh...so many smart commentators. I like Bush, he also pisses me off something terrible. I like my governments to shrink in relationship to the GDP. Can't have everthing I guess. The thing is, we a swamp, a dangerous swamp full of barbarians that would rather rule a graveyard than be a prole in heaven. Bush plans to drain that swamp, one flyblown shithole at a time. The truth is, so will every President if Bush is re-elected. If however, the politicians see Bush crucified in an election this year they will just bide their time in office hoping that the final cataclysm occurs on someone else's watch. I've settled in for the long haul, with the cowards and fifth columnists at full pitch we will face our enemies reticiently unless they pull off some colossal attack against civilians. Therefore, if Bush needs to justify a minor battle in the next world war I don't care if he lied (He didn't). I find the President's problem in his concern about what other countries may say about the United States. I think that it would serve America's interest to crush a "friendly" country, disloyalty must cost lives and fortunes. Sorry Belgium, you are the example...there I go thinking that my opinions matter.
Jane I know this seems to be a dumb question. But you did you actually see the movie? You would be suprised how many people have a strong opinion who havent seen it.
Jane:
Respectfully, you seem to be arguing about the bad acts of two sets of people here, Michael Moore and the people who say, "Misleading, but OK." Neither argument is convincing.
1. Moore - he's a propagandist. Like Hannity (who pretends to read the news) and Limbaugh and Coulter. Where are your strident attacks on them?
You say, "My problem with Moore is that he's blazing new territory: the mass market propaganda film." But I don't understand why the use of mass media like books (Coulter), TV shows (Hannity, O'Reilly), or radio shows (Limbaugh) is any less worthy of your concern. The people on TV (inc. Coulter) and radio have significantly sized audiences. Absent an explanation of that distinction, it kind of sounds like you really mean, "Being misleading in mass market films is bad, because it turns out the Democrats are pretty good at it."
2. Liberals who are OK with it - It seems perverse to punish liberals for having either the honesty or the untrusting nature to look critically at Moore's piece and say it seems misleading. There were a lot of conservatives on TV (Hannity, etc) and radio (Limbaugh) and books (Myrolie) spinning a fairly misleading series of pictures about liberals ("they're traitors") or Saddam ("helped Al Qaeda attack the US"). But I don't remember any conservatives (a) pointing that out, and (b) saying that it was wrong to be so misleading. Maybe y'all did - can you point me to those links on this site?
If you didn't, then your argument (by inference) seems to be that you didn't think those sorts of stories were misleading, and so you had no responsibility to say it was wrong. So then Republicans get a benefit from being either dishonest (if they thought it was misleading) or (more likely) credulous and easily fooled. Surely these are the sorts of perverse incentives that you are always pointing to as "bad."
And, ...er, lest you and Mindles not know it from my comments, I still love your blog.
Jimmy?
"...you must watch foxNews, a 24hour attack ad lead by Sean Hannity..."
Sorry, dude, I don't watch TV.
Or listen to talk radio.
I read the Boston Globe and the Boston Herald almost every day (at work.)
The Globe is "liberal" like Starbucks, the Herald is "conservative" like Dunkin Donuts.
Overthrowing evil dictators is always right.
I'm sorry your petulance prevents you from understanding this simple fact.
I defy anyone to come up with ONE lie that Bush told.
"I continued flying with my unit for the next several years..."
"when the revolution comes, I'll be the first one with my back against the wall."
Amen! Knowh'I'msain?
That's the kind of language that keeps me reading this blog.
Jane:
In light of the fact that you seem to perceive some sort of unique perniciousness in F911's having no cinematic counterpoise, I wonder what your take was on Showtime's DC9/11:Time of Crisis? Do you believe that people came away from that movie with false impressions damaging to discourse and the Republic itself? Is a drama that purports to recount an historical event somehow different?
As testament to the power of the Right's mighty wurlitzer, one need only observe this thread. You begin with an essay stating the self-evident: that all politicians lie. Yet the comments contain numerous posts by those who deny that Bush ever did so. That's power that Michael Moore only wishes he had.
Jane, there are a lot of comments on this thread since I last checked in, so apologies for the late response. I was interested to read that Nazi Germany posed no threat to the United States.
I really don't know what to say in response to that, so I'll leave it. I won't post any more comments here. It was a bad habit I should have dropped a long time ago, so thanks for providing the impetus.
Begbee, one "lie" was that W's cousin called the FLA election for W.
He didn't, called Gore @ 7:52 PM. Pgs 35-36 - Deadlock by the WP political staff.
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Via LGF:
Huge news from Iraq, where 1.77 metric tons of nuclear materials have been secured and removed: US Removes Iraqi Nuclear and Radiological Materials; Joint Operation Conducted with US Departments of Energy and Defense.
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...Twenty experts from DOE’s national laboratory complex packaged 1.77 metric tons of low-enriched uranium and roughly 1000 highly radioactive sources from the former Iraq nuclear research facility. The DOD airlifted the material to the United States on June 23 and provided security, coordination, planning, ground transportation, and funding for the mission....
-----
As usual, nothing to see here, move along.
All very innocent, but I'm glad it's not there, anyway.
"What steps were taken to secure the wmd in the war plan? "
Sssshhhhh. It's a big secret that Mr. Bush didn't let you in on.
But I will:
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/usnw/20040706/pl_usnw/u_s__removes_iraqi_nuclear_and_radiological_materials__joint_operation_conducted_with_u_s__departments_of_energy_and_defense145
Maybe it would behoove all the "smart" people to kinda shut the f$%^ up about lying till late October, at least?
By the way, it's not a lie to think somebody a traitor, it's an opinion, a judgement call. You may disagree, but it doesn't make it a lie.
Speaking While Republican is not a crime.
Then again, there's nothing like a 24-7 cable news network (Fox) working in concert with thousands of hours of talk radio (Rush, Hannity, Savage), book publishers (Regenery, ReganBooks), websites (Drudge, Newsmax, Worldnetdaily), thinktanks (Heritage, AEI), pundits (Coulter, Ingraham, Bennett)etc.
Beautifully said.
You've managed to name the 14 groups/people who stand in the face of the daily onslaught from the NYTimes, Washington Post, Tom Brokaw, Andrea Mitchell, Katie Couric, Oprah Winfry, LATimes, Atlanta Journal/Constitution, Peter Jennings, Salon.com, Dan Rather, 60 Minutes, Professor Wimer (my college poly sci teacher), and Mrs. Kimball (my 3rd grade teacher ((whom I worshiped)) ).
As a standard white bread Brady Bunch loving youth in America growing up in the 60's and 70's my only vision of anyone having a thought that was different than the orthodox world view you so fervently wish were true was poor old James Kilpatric who faced off against Shana Alexander during the last 5 minutes of 60 Minutes sometime back in the 1970's. I remember very clearly that I thought he was a complete jerk and couldn't imagine why anyone would allow him to appear on TV. He was just so damn mean, nasty and bald.
How the people on your enemies list as stated above managed to break through the almost complete liberal hegemony of the press in the 60's, 70's and 80's is still an object of wonder to me.
Please understand that I'm not talking about this as some sort of abstract theoretical construct. This was my experience. The words of my father and grandfather fell on ears that were unable to hear because absolutely no one else that I personally knew was saying anything like what they were saying. There were no conservative voices available to the developing mind in what passed for the Media and the educational system back then. Two voices against thousands must be wrong, right?
Thank Allah I had the ability to look and learn and observe for myself.
Fine rant, Jane -- but it would help if you would identify clearly at least one example of a Bush lie.
There does seem to be an issue of "what will it cost -- in the future". This is really unknowable, unlike "how much I paid (wrote a check)" in the past. It seems that the Bush admin asks various folks for various estimates, and chooses the one that fits their desire. That's certainly not lying.
You say They lie about the outcomes of their policies, and they lie about their reasons for enacting them. They lie about their past accomplishments, and they lie about their future plans. If there are 5 reasons for a policy, including getting paid off, and a politician says only 2 of them, that's not lying. If he denies getting paid off, THEN it's lying. If he says he legitimately got a consulting fee, not denying getting the money, then it's a judgment call on whether he got paid off or merely paid (for his lobbying strategy).
Then there's real, but small lies: I didn't have lunch last Tuesday with so-and-so. (It was coffee after lunch). I'd call it a lie. Bushies, like Cheney, seem to do more of this.
Saddam was a dictator. He violated many UN resolutions. Saddam's violations were legal cause for him to be attacked. Bush did NOT lie about this reason for regime change. The Left doesn't think it's enough reason, that's what they should be arguing. After reading his speech.
The idea that Bush-hate justifies lies/ distortions/ propaganda against Bush is terrible.
I disagree with Bush on every issue except foreign policy. I voted for Gore last time. I live near NYC so when 9-11 happened, I decided to learn everything I could about the threat we face. I read 11 books, blogs galore, the web, on and on.
I believe we face the biggest threat this country has ever faced in its history and that most of the American people do not really have a clue as to what is going on. Everything every liberal stands for is at stake and liberals need to join with conservatives to stand united which is our only hope. You worry about health insurance when civilization itself is at stake.
Michael Moore should be tried for treason.
The left is hysterical because they are witnessing their movement implode, and they see their candidates losing power. Moore is necessary to them because, without a cover of lies and fraud, Bush is a shoo-in for reelection.
And, with Iran about to become a nuclear power, what we need right now is not only a powerful military presence in Iraq, but a leader with the moral clarity to act, without regard for the polls. I only hope that, if on the eve of election Bush appears to be about to lose, he commits us to the Iran battle before Kerry has a chance to surrender our power to the UN.
Orbitron:
"I really don't know what to say in response to that, so I'll leave it. I won't post any more comments here."
Well, so much for the idea that a good rant never accomplished anything worthwhile.
I disagree with Bush on every issue except foreign policy.
Now that is an honest opinion and one I can respect.
I could not care less about political gotchas. Bush lied. No he didn't. Shut up already. I am not a Bush fan but he has my vote. He understands that we are at war. Dems counter with a war protester and a lawyer. Jane might look better in a burqua, but my daughters will not. I don't have anything for or against homosexuals or adulterers, but I'd prefer not to have them stoned to death. I don't know which direction to face for Mecca, and have no desire to learn. I don't care how many third world governments we need to knock off for them to get the message. Next stop, Tehran. Faster, please.
"You watched the WTC fall down - that's your justification for the current idiocy in Iraq?"
Yes. Re-elect one of the bravest men in human history. I know many people are trying to instill fear in your heart. Overcome it, for the sake of your children, and continue the course we've chosen. It's hard, it's scary and it's the right thing to do. Vote for Bush, vote for our very survival. Yes.
Misleading half truths are punishable as securities fraud under the securities laws. If "Farenheit 911" were a stock prospectus, Michael Moore would be going to jail for securities fraud. His "legalistic" evasions - that what he said was literally true, would be of no avail: the omission of facts necessary to make the statement made not misleading constitutes fraud. Q.E.D.
All politicians lie. Well, yes. For those who hold traditional religious views, this is obvious, polticians being sinners along with everyone else. Others may come to the same conclusion by other means.
But most of what are called lies from politicians are actually deceptions. And politicians are generally very good at telling them. What they say is often literally true, but will cause many who hear them to come to the wrong conclusion. (I recall being a bit startled during the 1992 campaign when Clinton, more than once, told outright checkable falsehoods, since there seemed to be no need for him to cross a line most politicians avoid.)
I was pleased to see that Michael Oullette understands this point, and unhappy to see that few others in this comment thread seem to.
Many of what opponents call Bush lies are not, unless they believe Bush to be omniscient. He gives the best understanding he has at the time, often citing the source. For instance, in both his speech to the UN in Fall of 2002 and his 2003 State of the Union speech, some of his arguments follow this pattern: "UN reports say . . ". That can be a lie only if (1) that is not what the report said, and (2) Bush knew the report did not say that.
To clarify it further, let me take a small, recent example from Clinton. He was saying, as Hillary has before, that she was named after the New Zealand mountain climber, something impossible since she was born before Sir Edmund became famous. Now is this a lie? Probably not. I think it was a story Hillary told herself early in life, that she came to believe it, and that Bill accepted her story. He's wrong and careless about the facts, but not lying.
Now for an example of a real lie. The Clinton administration knew that genocide was going on in Rwanda and refused to use the term, because they did not want to act. (So far as I can tell, few care about that lie, even though, by the usual estimates, 800,000 people died. Or about the French support for the killers.)
I don't see a lie like that in the case the administration made for winning the war with Iraq that had been going on since 1991. (They regularly shot at our planes, we shot back. That's a war. By the old rules, Sdddam's endless violations of the deasefire agreement were enough -- by themselves -- to justify a war, legally. That's separate from the question of whether it was a good idea.) If you actually read Powell's speech to the UN, for example, you will find him saying that we don't know why Saddam was ordering these aluminum tubes, but it seemed unlikely that he wanted them for artillery.
So, I don't agree with the argument that the Bush administration lied -- just like all politicians. First, I don't agree that the adminstration lied in their main arguments, though some parts of it have been shown to be false, as some parts of intelligence always is in war. Second, I don't agree with the common idea that all politicians are liars, other than in the sense that all of us are sinners. They often deceive us, but they lie less often than most think.
Finally, the argument that all politicians are liars leads us to avoid comparisons. Some politicians are worse liars and deceivers than others, though the commenters here might disagree on which are worse. Still, it is important to try to make those judgments.
"Democracy is at odds with Islam, it will never happen in the Middle East."
I'm not an expert, but I don't think this is true. Turkey is more or less a democracy, and Indonesia, the most populous Moslem-majority country in the world, just had a democratic election. These are not long-established democracies like Israel or the US, to be sure, but I think they suggest that Islam and democracy are not inherently inimical.
Someone above said: "Bush's war is not the equivalent of Clinton's blow job".
That's true. Clinton's blow job made Bush's war necessary, as Clinton ignored the gathering threats. WTC I, the Khobar Towers, the debacle in Somalia, the CIA shooter, the Millennium plot to blow up LAX (prevented by pure luck), the embassy in Nairobi, the embassy in Dar es Salaam, the USS Cole... No significant response, no strategy, no nothing. Like his feckless management of the economy, which left a bursted bubble for his successor to contend with, Clinton's skirt chasing, in lieu of leadership and proactive grappling with the nation's problems, created a swamp of misery and peril for this nation.
Back when Bush took office, his detractors accused him of talking the economy down and of causing the recession (as if!) by honestly providing an assessment of the direction it had been taking for well over a year. But, when he has provided optimistic assessments that didn't completely come to pass (Only a million new jobs? But you said there'd be 1.2 million! You lied!), he is accused of lying, and put on a par with Michael Moore's cutting and splicing disparate bits of video to willfully create a false narrative.
That is totally bogus. Moore is an active and intentional liar. A rank propagandist whose hate spewing personna we have not seen the like of since Father Coughlin. Coulter on the right does not even come close to Mikey's level of distortion and intentional mendacity. For a real eye opener, I suggest you all go read "Michael Moore is a Big Fat Stupid White Man". This guy is a true menace to the republic, preying on gullible people like some posters above and laughing all the way to the bank.
Moore's elaborately constructed Bush conspiracy seems to Dems to be entirely plausible, while the simple conspiracy of Middle Eastern fascism seems beyond their grasp.
The anti-Bush folks simply cannot see the world in the same way as those who have had their view forever altered by 9/11. There is no way to make the Moore-loks see through this post-terror lens, and no way to return to 9/10 for those who can.
Nevertheless, we are at war, whether we wish it to be so or not. Spain will continue to be attacked, as will we. Withdrawal confers no safety, aggression will be met with aggression. We live in terrible times, and blaming Bush will not undo the fascism we face. There is no middle ground here, and the stakes are simply too high to relinquish a centimeter to the anti-war crowd.
There are liars and fanatic liars. Fanatic liars will lie to bring people to their cause without realizing/recognizing/acknowledging that lies brought them to the cause. Cognitive dissonance.
Almost ten years ago there was a gun control debate in Milwaukee over a proposed law. Not being a Milwaukee resident I didn't feel like I had a dog in that fight on either side but, I listened. Among other things, I heard about the woman who claimed handgun violence took her baby.
Today I see that as a Michael Moore truth: Her "baby" was an armed robber shot by police. She knew that and the gun control advocates who put her into the debate knew that but, they had a cause worth lying for.
Freeman Dyson once rejected a physics theory that actually supported his views because he thought it was bad science. If you have a good position you want good support. If you have a bad position you better change your mind.
A few points. Moore never said Bushs cousin declared Bush the winner of the last election. He states Fox news called Bush the winner. As to Bushs cousin Moore states that she is President of the Co Jeb Bush hired to count the votes. Seems Haliburton and Bechtel arent the only company getting 'sweetheart deals'.
Its common knowledge that Iraq had nuclear materials, but its not weapons grade. In fact, enriching that Uranium was the basis of the Bush lie that the centrifuges Iraq purchased was to make the Uranium weapons grade.
Im so sick of this administrations fear mongering and using the word freedom as an excuse for everything. As long as there are governments there will be terrorism. We have lived with terrorism in this country since the 1940s, and for the most part, until this administration took office our freedoms have expanded. We were hit on 911 because of Bushs failure to lead. In rolling up the millenial terrorists in Vancouver, Chicago, and Montreal Clinton produced a blue print for defending America from terrorists. Clinton was informed of a high volume of terrorist 'chatter' on attacking the US. So he coordinated all the various intell agencies to meet and share information, and that shared intelligence resulted in stopping the attack. Terrorist 'chatter' in July of 2001 was at an all time high, so Bush went on vacation.
Jim Miller, were you as startled when Bush told an outright lie about his arrest record, which was more checkable than most lies that Clinton ever told, being contained in a public document?
Turkey is not a democracy. Islam does not allow equality for nonmuslims, and without equality there can be no democracy.
JB save the profanity, it only reveals your ignorance and stupidity. And if you have to use that language, you should be sure your right. I specifically asked what Bush did to secure the wmd prior to 'shock and awe', not after it.
Oh, Begbee, please. The Millenium bombing was stopped by pure luck. And, out of the eight terror events I listed above, that is the only one that didn't succeed. Clinton was getting BJ's all through the 90's while the mega-terror attacks came one after the other.
And, the nuclear materials carted out of Iraq this week could have been used to construct dirty bombs, even disregarding the centrifuges which were clearly intended for uranium enrichment. It is just plain silly to claim otherwise. If you lived in Iraq's neighborhood, with nuclear power Israel to the right and incipient nuclear power Iran to the left, you'd be trying to secure nukes, too. But, just because it is understandable does not make it tolerable vis a vis the risk to our nation.
I'm sure you are sick of the fear, so you blame the messenger. Bush didn't start the fire. But, he is attacking it and putting it out.
I voted for Clinton twice. Please feel free to ignore this information and please do assign me my place in the right wing in your reply.
The notion that nobody was hurt as a result of Clinton's sexual escapades in office frosts me. The context in which this happened is important.
The Clintons were the avant garde of the sexual harassment hysteria. Clinton's actions in the Oval Office would have cost my CEO his job. The Clinton's were vocal about putting other men out of their jobs, in jail or in exile as the result of actions just like Clintons.
An entire industry devoted to sexual harassment exists in great part as a result of the efforts of the Clintons. It is an invasive, abusive and ideologically driven industry devoted to villifying men. The workplace has been turned into what Henry Miller called "The Air Conditioned Nightmare" as a result of these efforts.
Don't tell me that Clinton's offense was merely lying. That's crap.
And, now, please tell me about my place in the pantheon of right wing nuts.
Begbee:
Turkey has a secularist constitution. Though its democracy is imperfect (as are most if not all democracies), it is rather misleading to say the only democracies meriting the name are perfect ones.
The Clintons were the avant garde of the sexual harassment hysteria. Clinton's actions in the Oval Office would have cost my CEO his job. The Clinton's were vocal about putting other men out of their jobs, in jail or in exile as the result of actions just like Clintons.I don’t know about “putting other men . . . in jail or in exile” but I do seem to recall that 1992 was dubbed the “Year of the Woman” purportedly over the large number of women who decided to run for office because of their “outrage” over the sexual harassment charges levied by Anita Hill against Clarence Thomas. Then Governor Clinton certainly wasn’t shy about trying to capitalize on this “outrage” and inarguably benefited from it.
SomeCallMeTim:
As Paul Harvey would say, here's the rest of the story.
"Dallas Morning News reporter Wayne Slater told colleagues that he asked Bush in September 1998 whether he'd been arrested since 1968 and that Bush had answered 'no.' But Slater said the governor also said, 'Wait a second' and appeared ready to amend his answer when spokeswoman Karen Hughes stopped the conversation."
http://www.azstarnet.com/vote2000/1104.shtml
Since lying requires intent (otherwise it is error, not lying), it seems to me that your example might just fall in the "uncorrected error" category.
As to why it went uncorrected, you'll have to ask him and Ms. Hughes - if you ever get the chance.
Jack O'Lantern (who has an interesting name, I must say) asks whether I was startled by Bush's lie about his arrest record. Some, because he should have know it would come out, and that it would be better if he explained it early himself. (There is, I have heard, a defense of Bush, but I am not familiar with the details -- nor do I necessarily think that reporters are always correct.)
I was not as surprised as I was by Clinton's fibs in 1992, because there seemed to be a pattern in Clinton's behavior that I did not see in Bush's.
Now my question for you: Are you at all troubled by the Clinton administration's refusal to call the mass murders in Rwanda (800,000 lives, by the most common estimate) genocide? Perhaps I am mistaken, but I see that as more important than lying about a drunk driving arrest (which hurt only Bush).
When F9/11 was announced, I said on my radio show that (a) it would set box office records for documentaries [Moore is nothing if not an effective self-promoter] and (b) most of the reviews would be favourable [since most film reviewers are liberal Democrats]. Everyone called me crazy.
Once again, I'm sorry to be correct.
Jane:
Answer the question--did you actually see the movie? Yes or no.
"...omission of facts necessary to make the statement made not misleading constitutes fraud. Q.E.D."
Do the Bush defenders really want to play the game with this standard?
Hondo:
So, it's OK for politicians you approve of to parse carefully and insist on the literal ("What is the definition of 'is'?"), while politicians you disapprove of get slammed for doing the same? I expected better.
Where did I say I approved of Clinton? When did I say anything about Clinton? Why, if I disagree with Bush, do I immediately have to f*****g defend Clinton? I thought the whole endless investigation of him was a fruitless joke, but once they nailed him to the wall for a blowjob and he lied under oath, he was responsible for his own actions. He shouldn't have lied under oath -- whether about a blowjob or a murder -- and that was perjury, grounds for impeachment. But why do I have to flash my moderate's club membership card AGAIN just to make a point about Bush?
But can we eliminate, finally, at least in this thread if not out in the media, the assumption that criticism of Bush implies unconditional love of Clinton? And Whitewater hyperventilators: not this thread. Save it for later.
Rex,
So when Bush told Polish television on May 30, 2003 that we "found the weapons of mass destruction" without mentioning that the nature of the "mobile labs" to which he referred was contested by US intelligence, that was fraud right? After all, not to mention the fact that there were serious doubts about the trailers was misleading.
Contributor B:
Mea culpa.
I posted while in a hurry, and apparently confused another poster's words with yours. That criticism should not have been directed at you.
My apologies.
Well, dammit. Hondo apologized. Unequivocally.
You're not supposed to do that, Hondo, come on, what happens to the national dialogue if people are just apologizing all the time, how much fun is that?
Crap. Well, now what?
I'm sorry I told you you were in over your head.
Everybody, in another thread I told Hondo he was in over his head when I had no idea what his background was, and I'm sorry.
Crap.
Hey, Thumper? I've never watched the entirety of Riefenstahl's "Triumph of the Will". Am I therefore off-base by labeling it a load of propagandistic crap, although propagandistic crap crafted by a talented mind?
Tim, I try as hard as I can never to think about Ann Coulter, and I certainly don't read her stuff, but this is what I've had to say in the past about Ms Coulter. Grand total: I dislike her intensely, but there's no call to go making fun of her for being tall and skinny. Tall and skinny people have feelings too, you know.
Thumper: I haven't seen the movie. I have, however, seen his earlier movies, which rely on sleazy camera tricks to imply things that just ain't so. I am relying on the word of people I trust -- including a number of liberal co-workers who have seen, and liked, the movie, that the stuff I'm describing is in there. And more importantly, on the words of people who agree that Moore's movie is misleading in a fashion that they would find scandalous were conservatives doing it, but who think that that's just dandy because after all, the most important thing is to get Kerry elected By Any Means Necessary.
In a sense, we play into the Left's hand by even discussing this stuff at this level. I'm talking about whether the President and his staff lied or painted the facts here.
I remember quite well that we all knew this was intel and a best guess--no one was claiming certainty on this stuff, just the preponderance of evidence.
What we were discussing was the likelihood of Saddam passing weapons he likely had to terror scum we knew would use them on us. And whether it was just and moral to strike a sovereign country preemptively under those circumstances.
Looking back now and pretending we were all so freaking certain of all this stuff is just playing on their court. We took a shot and we're safer for it. The real measure of our effort isn't for years