Dean Esmay bloviating in his comments section:
A) The administration and military establishment do not “routinely lie,” and
B) Apparently, actual lies and agitprop by terrorist organizations are not worthy of anywhere near as much skepticism in John’s world as the “lies” of an administration he simply disagrees with sometimes.Whatever.
Whatever, indeed. We won’t go into the ‘lies’ in too much detail, just brush up on a few of them. I guess we could start with the lie about the cost of the Prescription Drug Plan. We could move on to virtually any one of Cheney’s utterances about Iraq over the past few years (if you want to claim he is not ‘lying,’ and just wrong, you then need to articulate why we are continuing to advance policies based on the ‘wrong’ assumptions and ideas advanced by Cheney. Pick your poison.) We were lied to about secret prison camps. We were lied to about ‘just a few bad apples’ at Abu Gharaib, when there is more than ample evidence that the abuses were caused by administration policies. We were fed heapings of lies about stem cell research and the threat of gay marriage.
And those are just a few, off the top of my head. And that does not count the thousands upon thousands of acts of daily spin that take place- bullshit, that when fed to unwitting or willfully ignorant audiences, portrays false impressions designed to ease the passage or acceptance of flawed policies. So maybe Dean Esmay is content being lied to by the people he elected to represent him. Maybe he is just an idiot and really doesn’t realize he is being lied to. Or maybe Dean, after fabricating and slandering for months in regards to the Schiavo affair, is simply incapable of discerning the truth from lies anymore:
I don’t think it’s reasonable to call anyone a liar when you simply disagree with them. I think that degrades discussions considerably. It’s also unnecessarily demeaning.
Furthermore, I stand firmly and staunchly with Austin Bay, Glenn Reynolds, and others. In fact, let me just go ahead and stoop to John’s level:
John Cole’s a liar. He calls people liars when he knows perfectly well they may just disagree with people. So if John Cole will lie like that, why should I not be skeptical of anything John Cole ever says?
***Really, does that sort of thing to ANYTHING to promote dialogue? One day, Aziz, you’re going to have the wonderful experience of pulling the lever for a man you really like, and see him be elected President, and feel really good about it–and then spend four to eight years having his critics call him a liar and an incompetent non-stop and in almost anything they ever say or do. Then maybe you’ll think back and say, “wow, did I sound that nasty back when Bush was in charge?” And the answer will be: yes.
Otherwise: I prefer a media which is NOT automatically more skeptical of our government than everybody else on the planet when our government is in the middle of a war. I’d prefer a media that’s on our side, and that stopped with the vile, hateful, stupid idea that “our side” means “the administration’s side,” or that our side is best served by being more skeptical of our government than our enemies.
Furthermore, it’s very clear where the media drops the ball to me:
1) By not being skeptical enough of our overseas critics, especially the rent-a-rioters and other anti-American demonstrators.
2) By ignoring most tales of valor and achievement by our troops.I think they’re four-square guilty of that. Completely.
Andrew
Cole, you’re worth engaging because you’re intelligent enough to look at the facts and oppositional arguments and make a reasoned conclusioned about them. It just takes a lot more facts and time for you than for the rest of us. Fine.
People like Esmay are neither reasonable nor thinking. Why bother to engage with them? Esmay is among the worst of the worst.
matt
I think we’re really beginning to find out how much of what’s going on today isn’t about Republicans vs Democrats or liberals vs conservatives. I think it goes much deeper than partisan politics, and the frame in which we debate issues today is pretty much useless.
It’s basically whether you prefer Coke or Pepsi. No one is “right”, your preference doesn’t say anything about your character, liking one over the other doesn’t mean you’re a liar or that you’re honest, it says nothing about your politics and it’s an impossible debate because there’s no way to get to the bottom of it, because there’s no bottom, it just is what it is. You either like Coke more or Pepsi. You think the media should be on a “side” other than the truth’s, or you don’t.
I think where dishonesty comes in is when this shit just – magically! – splits down party lines 99% of the time. There are a lot of people on one side or the other (or both) wou hate Pepsi, but because it’s their side’s beverage of choice, can do nothing but proclaim their enjoyment and loyalty to it.
Ok, I think I thoroughly ran that analogy into the ground.
Davebo
Gotta go with Andrew here John. Dean isn’t worth the effort to denounce. And read his comment section the next time you feel your own comments section has degraded into a cess pool.
It’s a site for the true believers. Resistance is futile.
kchiker
As offensive as dishonesty is to me, given the choice of a policitian that knows he’s lying to me or a politician who delusionally believes his own lies, I will choose the former.
It’s sad that I have to make that choice. And it’s sad that the media are such a group of lapdogs that I have to work so hard at figuring out whether Frist actually believes himself when he says in interviews that if he makes public comments re: if waterboarding=torture…the terrorists have won. And the journalists sit there pretending he has said something credible. Just amazing.
ET
Interesting.
He calls you a liar because supposedly you label those you disagree with liars just because you dis agree with them. Which is a tad better than those of his ilk that call those that disagree with the adminstration – terrorist sympathizers or any other carefully worded euphemisms.
Don’t rise to the rotten bait.
Mike in SLO
Projection, John…. Whatever they accuse you of, they’re doing!
Lee
I LOL’d when I read it.
This quote is priceless. The unintended irony is hilarious.
I wonder if he looks back and thinks the same thing about Clinton’s term in office.
Tsulagi
Just a choice of one? Nah, I call hat trick
Shabbazz
Hey, don’t forget about the blatant lies regarding the air quality in lower Manhattan following 9-11 that appeared in the White House’s version of the EPA reports.
If you don’t think that was a lie, go ask the rescue workers and residents who are still, quite literally, hacking up a lung for their thoughts on the matter.
matt
I was trying to make two points there, and I don’t think I made either of them particularly well. I guess my personal pet peeve is the way issues are debated as if they’re inherently partisan. Torture is a perfect example, in what Twilight Zone universe is torture a partisan or political issue? And how people take positions on issues, not based on facts, but based on where their “side” stands. It’s completely ridiculous and it’s made argument and debate near impossible.
But what really pisses me off is the way people don’t even make an attempt to be objective or think critically. There’s no moment’s pause, no self introspection, no vague acknowledgment in the back of your mind, that maybe, just maybe, you could be wrong. The outcome of being critical of your belifes isn’t even the point, it’s that people aren’t even willing to try it in the first place. Everyone knows everything and they’re 100% right 100% of the time.
RSA
The first time I realized that Bush was a liar, it was watching a press conference or something on TV. In July of 2003, Bush said,
I was like, “Wait a minute, that’s not true! And no one’s saying anything! Can he get away with that?” Apparently so.
And people who point this out, like John, get dumped on.
Shabbazz
Oh and don’t forget about “I don’t think I ever said I wasn’t concerned about bin Laden” during the presidential debates.
Or — “All this talk about wiretapping, see, it still requires a warrant! Nothing has changed!”
If you’re going to blatantly lie, George, at least do it OFF-CAMERA!
Mr Furious
I’m sure it’s hard to resist when you get called out by name, John, but just forget that shit and move on.
Consider Esmay your own personal “Darrell.” Realize that you’ll never make headway or clear your name with him and get over it. You’re back doing good work around here these days, and that jackass ain’t worth your time.
Proud Liberal
I have a deep appreciation for honest conservatives like John Cole, Andrew Sullivan, John Danforth, etc. who are getting beat over the head by the Bush apologists (a term I unfortunately labeled John in the past) for not being in lockstep with this most corrupt and dangerous administration.
This is about honest government. This is about preserving our civil liberties. This is about separation of church and state. This is about competence. Anyone that doesn’t have grave doubts about this administration after these past 6 years is not interested in anything but power.
This is a defining moment in American history. Which way are we going to go. Are we going to let our fear of terrorism turn us into something our forefathers would not recognize? or will we come to our senses and realize that we have faced much more dangerous threats in the past and we survived without giving up all of our civil liberties.
Which side of history will you be on?
srv
Routinely? Sure. Read any DoD statement from 4/2003 until 4/2004. They pretty much denied there was an insurgency. It was all AQ and a handful of Baathists. Eventually, the troops got tired of the Westmorlandisms and Bushisms. Heck, people like Dean didn’t accept the insurgency word until after Fallujah.
In their world, they aren’t lies if they’re just grossly inaccurate. Truthiness folks, truthiness!
Ancient Purple
Yowzers! I go on vacation for a few weeks and come back to this.
For people like Gene Reynolds and Dean Esmay, history is unimportant. They want their political movement – no matter how corrupt it is – to remain in power.
The sad fact is that people like Gene Reynolds and Dean Esmay know they are lying, but they want to pretend they are doing the right thing in lying. They see themselves as no different than the people harboring Jews in the attic in Berlin in 1940 with the SS at the door. The lies are okay because they serve a greater good.
Of course, they won’t admit that in public because they know they would laughed at and mocked.
So, in essence, they are liars and have no honor.
How big of them.
Bruce Moomaw
Shame on you, John! Don’t you realize that criticizing Neville Chamberlain for the Munich agreement really just encourages Hitler?
Mr Furious
“”The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.” Bush’s SOTU
“We know where the WMD’s are. They’re in the area around Tikrit…” Rumsfeld
“We have found the WMD’s” Bush
“Mission Accomplished.” Bush
“He’s had years to get good at it and we know he has been absolutely devoted to trying to acquire nuclear weapons. And we believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons,” Cheney said.
“The first time I ever met you was when you walked on the stage tonight.” Cheney to John Edwards
Five years later and Cheney is still pulling this one out:
—
More? Okay. [link]
Pb
The anatomy of a lie…
He knows this!
Now it’s pretty well confirmed.
Liar.
Finally:
Frankly, anyone who has been paying any attention at all, and yet still tells you that these guys have never lied to us… is also lying to you.
jg
You are if they say you are. And now they say you are. Fun ain’t it.
ThymeZone
We’ve had our differences (!) John, but I’ll say one thing, you are not a liar.
Esmay is a schmuck.
Pb
Shabbazz,
How about “I quit drinking in 1986 and haven’t had a drop since then”.
KC
Has anyone noticed that there seems to be a pretty strong abhorence from rational people on both the left and right to the kind of policies and actions supported by Bush acolytes like like Hindraker? I mean, it seems like I come here, go to Andrew Sullivan, then to Glenn Greenwald, then to Josh Marshall, and I’m basically reading the same thing. It just seems rational people all around are finally agreeing that the authoritarians in charge of our country really need to be checked.
Bas-O-Matic
You are also objectively pro terrorist, giving aid and comfort to the enemey in a time of war, a victim of BDS, and all sorts of other things.
Welcome to the club.
Bruce Moomaw
Actually, John, you could have dealt with this fanatical twit a lot more briefly, by simply pointing out that he’s trying to pull a glaringly obvious case of three-card monte — arguing that anyone who criticizes the Bush Administration AT ALL is really saying that it’s as bad as Islamic Fascism. Even, I may add, when your criticism focuses largely on the fact that its errors and frauds are HARMING the fight against Islamic Fascism.
KC
Terrorists, one and all, all of us. Apparently.
Mac Buckets
The difference between John and his commenters is that John thinks it’s also bad when a Democrat lies.
Andrew
The difference between John and Mac is that John thinks.
Tulkinghorn
Folks on the farther left (regrettably, I was not one of them) were saying this five years ago.
‘Reasonable’/moderate/establishment types owe the Howard Deans and Markos Moulitsases one hell of an apology, because their paranoid rantings about Bush et al. were spot on.
Tsulagi
That “threat” to Air Force One as one of the spin stories to cover Bush running like the gutless coward he is always made me laugh. To believe that, you would have to believe the military or at least Air Force was in on 9/11.
With Air Force One airborne, the only way to track it would have been using military radar installations that don’t rely on transponders for target detection. So sure, it was credible to think that Mohammed “Top Gun” Atta would be calling them to find AF1 and an AF air controller would respond “No problem, Mohammed, come right to 089, ascend to AF1’s altitude of 42k, distance to target 800nm. Have a nice day.” Then Atta in the lone civilian airliner with afterburners would punch it while yelling Allah Akbar.
The base? Oh yeah, they’ll buy that shit.
Sojourner
I am SO PROUD of you!
Good job, John.
Richard Bottoms
>Torture is a perfect example, in what Twilight Zone universe >is torture a partisan or political issue?
In this universe.
The one where the Republican president, leader of their party supports torture and the Decmocrats don’t.
Proud Liberal
bucket boy:
the difference between John and MacBuckets both of whom supported the Iraq war and both of whom voted for GWB, is that John has come to his senses while bucket boy says the same stuff over and over and over and over again. Hey, bucket boy… lets hear about that poll in Iraq and how much they just LOVE the good ole’ USA.
Darrell
Wow John, lying at will? That would be a lot of lying, wouldn’t it?.. so to use your examples, Prescription drug bill cost estimates were “lies”? And did the Bush admin lie about ‘secret’ prison camps? You’re going WAY overboard with your lying accusations, twisting honest differences, missed estimates, and normal presidential spin into accusations of habitual lying, hence your over the top choice of words characterizing the Bush admin as “lying at will”.
Do believe the Bush admin ‘lied us into war’ in Iraq too?
chopper
in mac’s world, all lies are the same.
bush lying about WMDs and costing tens of thousands of lives is no different from a democrat lying about liking the yankees.
cheney lying about saddam/al qaeda ties is no different from a democrat lying about a blowjob.
Darrell
Tell us the Bush “lie” about WMDs.
Pb
Yes.
No bedtime story for you.
chopper
given that the bush admin. deliberately withheld the actual expected cost of the prescription drug bill from members of congress, i’d say that they were not mere ‘missed estimates’.
Richard 23
Double D said:
So that’s what you call it? OK then, the Bush Administration exercises “normal presidential spin” at will. Now we are in agreement, right?
Darrell
Ah yes, Bush withheld the Congress-controlled CBO estimates.. oh, wait
lard lad
Don’t forget Bush’s bullshit about only wiretapping with warrants… Cheney’s lies about mobile germ labs, still told for months after that intelligence had been thoroughly debunked… Rumsfeld denying he had named specific regions in Iraq where the WMD were hidden… ah, yes, I remember.
My younger brother was a compulsive liar in his youthful days. Lying was reflexive to him… in fact, his automatic inclination to lie about everything had him avoiding the truth even when the facts worked to his advantage. He had the skill that all the best liars are born with… namely, the ability to comvince himself that his falsehoods were 100% true. Alec Guinness himself would have been impressed by the honest outrage my brother could summon up at will when he got caught out in a piece of transparent horseshit. Luckily, he grew out of it.
Sadly, this administration is forever incapable of such maturity. Whenever I see Bush, Cheney, Rummy or any of these guys pontificating on damn near any subject, all I hear is a tow-headed ten-year-old saying, in a voice of purest innocence, “Someone broke a wheel off your Hot Wheels Cockney Cab? I don’t know… I didn’t even see it.”
Mac Buckets
Way to try and change the subject, PL! But we’re not talking about that now.
Punchy
I’m quite certain that this cannot be the case. NO one is that ignorant. It’s they DONT CARE they’re being lied to because all they care about is their PARTY. They long ago ceased caring about the good of the country and have long since only cared about the month of November, every two years.
It’s not about Uncle Sam to them, it’s about an elephant. At least Mr. Cole understands what really matters.
Darrell
there was no ‘lie’ there, only the liars on the left screaming that Bush was “illegally wiretapping without warrant” innocent Americans
Kay and Duelfer reports both mentioned networks of dual use labs discovered. Is this what you’re calling a “lie”?
chopper
no, bush withheld the actual expected costs figured by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services which were much higher. and more accurate.
John Cole
Well, yeah, they were:
Next. Wait- nevermind. I am not going through and rearguing all this with you- they were lies and you damned well know.
Mac Buckets
Good thing Democrats never said there were WMD! They only lie about baseball! Oh, wait…
Hey, save some Donk Kool-Aid for the next sheep!
Proves my point — John’s also against Democrat lies, while the commenters here embrace, excuse, believe, and forget them.
lard lad
Big words, Mac. Care to cite a few examples? Where are the Balloon Juice posters who “defend” Democrat lies? What are the lies they defend? I’ll expect a lengthy list, considering the administration the Demos are in competition with for Untruth Supremacy.
I don’t know, though… you might have to go back to the Woodrow Wilson White House to pile up enough Demo administration lies to equal what Bush and Company have crapped out in less than six years.
DougJ
It just takes a lot more facts and time for you than for the rest of us. Fine.
Unfair. Most of us did not grow up Republican and then work in a largely Republican field (the military). It might have taken me longer than it took John had I had the same life experiences.
chopper
most of them did make the mistake of actually taking bush at his word, you’re right about that.
double-plus-ungood
Dean Esmay:I don’t think it’s reasonable to call anyone a liar when you simply disagree with them. I think that degrades discussions considerably. It’s also unnecessarily demeaning
Dean’s favorite insult. Which would make his statement above a, a, …
PARADOX DETECTED *** CORE DUMP FOLLOWS SYSTEM REBOOT…
gus
“But, unlike Dean, I don’t feel obligated to defend Bush or his appointees in this administration when they are simply lying at will”
John, after six years, you must understand that not agreeing with everything Bush says and does means you suffer from Bush Derangement Syndrome.
Darrell
John, by your own citation, CBO gave their own estimate of the costs, and the CBO is pretty much the political gold standard for such estimates. If Bush concealed information from the CBO, you would have a point and I would agree with you that would be considered equivalent to a serious lie.. But unless there’s more info. than what you provided, and what I’ve read from other sources, that’s not what happened, is it?
What you are calling a “lie”, is nothing but conflicting estimates between different organizations and sources. I’m sure there were other opinions and estimates from all sorts of groups which were not heard by lawmakers either.
Look, I don’t like that some top Medicare cost guru wasn’t heard by Congress, especially on a pork-laden spending bill like that one. But if he was such a top dog, how did CBO come up with their estimates without him? Nothing to warrant “lying at will” type of accusations. That is my point.
capelza
lard lad…I think the LBJ lies (and those of his admin) regarding Vietnam can be counted as BIG. See, that was non-partisan!
John Cole
So, Darrell, if I am told by my own personal doctor I have 6 months to live, but I find another doctor who tells me I have 2 years to live, and then I threaten my own doctor that he will be fired/destroyed if he says anything while telling my family I have two years to live, I am not lying?
Just curious. Cuz I would consider telling my family I have two years to live and supressing contrary evidence to be a BIG FAT MOTHERFUCKING LIE.
jg
I gotta ask JC. What in God’s name makes you think you are going to successfully argue any kind of point with Darrell? Are you new here? LOL
Tsulagi
jg,
Even I’m not that new. LOL
Sojourner
Too bad the Dems only got to see the cherry-picked evidence.
Bruce Moomaw
Look, can we get this straight, and stop idiotically glomming nuclear, biological, AND chemical weapons all together as WMDs? Kevin Drum points out that virtually everyone DID honestly think that Saddam still had a substantial store of biological and chemical weapons — the fact that he didn’t was the biggest real surprise by far in the war. (The very first hint I had that something was amiss was when he didn’t do the perfectly obvious thing — also predicted, as we now know, by the CIA — and try to deter our invasion by threatening to either use such weapons against us or hand them over to untraceable terrorists.) Of course, had the UN inspectors been provided a little more time — and more military backup — they might have been able to determine that he really didn’t have them. But Bush, to put it mildly, was uninterested in establishing that possibility, and in any case few people really foresaw it. (The administration’s real crime in regard to biological and chemical weapons was that — incredibly — weeks after the invasion, we STILL hadn’t provided troops even to guard most of the major depots where Saddam was thought to have such weapons stored. The assumption seems to have been that the Iraqi people would do that for us, after they’d stopped throwing flowers to our troops.)
But chemical weapons are only slightly worse than standard artillery — and biological weapons, while much worse, still don’t even begin to match the destructive power of nuclear weapons, and won’t until several more decades of genetic engineering haws been completed. It’s the evidence of a major Iraqi nuclear-weapons program that the administration really DID deliberately and outrageously exaggerate — and whose nonexistence the UN inspectors were starting to disprove at the time Bush hastily preempted them, thanks to the goddamn dimwitted overconfidence of himself and his advisors that the occuptation and reformation of Iraq would be a Cakewalk, and a perfect preliminary launching point for similarly cakewalky overthrows of the Iranian and Syrian regimes. (Nukes, thank God, are also tremendously harder to construct than bioweapons, and so any nuclear-weapons program is virtually impossible for a nation to conceal from on-the-ground inspectors.)
And it’s the fact that our entanglement in Iraq has now made it far HARDER for us to cope with the very real dangers of the Iranian, North Korean and Pakistani nuclear programs that is, by a gigantic margin, the worst consequence of this snipe-hunt war.
By the way, let me remark in passing how much I admire John for being willing to admit in public that he made serious errors. (I don’t know why they call it “eating crow”. Speaking from personal experience, it certainly doesn’t TASTE like crow.)
Richard 23
Well, I’ve read through this thread and the thread on dean’s world and I have come to this singular conclusion: Dean is an asshead. So is TallDave.
Tom Hawkson said it best but not in the way he intended:
Translation thru the Dark Star megacomputer:
rachel
Bruce Moomaw,
What *does* crow taste like? Is it light, rich, lean, gamey, tough, or what? Is there a preferred method of cooking them? and what about accompaniments? (I ate pigeon once, and I didn’t care for it, but that was because the sauce it was served with was too gluey and salty.)
lard lad
Touche, mon ami… nonetheless, I maintain that Bush and Co. still win the Lie Crown in terms of quantity, even if only a few of their falsehoods measure up to LBJ’s Nam subterfuges.
Condi’s laughable riposte to Bill Clinton’s Fox interview was but the latest turd dropped on Bush’s Mountain of Bullshit.
lard lad
Ahem. I am referring, of course, to several (at least) public appearances from about a year ago when Bush clearly stated that wiretaps were used as a tool to fight terrorism, but were only done with warrants. Keep in mind, too, that these statements were made after the NY Times proved them to be false in their postponed-for-a-year wiretapping story.
Guess I don’t blame you for suppressing any memory of that, though… Bush’s li’l untruth was rather a black eye for him when the Times finally published.
The lie occured when Cheney continued to peddle the germ lab story for at least two years after it had been conclusively debunked. David Kay himself backed away from his own claim long ago… certainly a long while before Cheney stopped using it as a talking point. Again, this was a big story just a few months back.
Darrell, your ability to repress embarassing revelations about the Dubya Follies never fails to awe. Truly, sir, you are a team player.
gus
So, Darrell, do you believe that Bush and his administration is open and above board? That they never tell lies? Holy shit, you don’t drink the Kool-Aid, you take it intravenously by the tanker-load.
Mac Buckets
So Clinton cherry-picked evidence? Because the Dems have been sayign Saddam had WMD (including a dangerous nuclear program) since 1997.
I wonder if Kneepads Olbermann would ask Bubba about that.
Sherard
Hey, John, thanks for proving Dean’s point. Lies about the prescription drug program, stem cells, and gay marriage ??!?!?! Are you fucking kidding me ? And Cheney’s opinions are now lies ?
Is there even one in there as regards to the skepticism that should be shown the military ?? I thought that’s where all the LIES were coming from.
I, too, disagree with the administrations position on stem cells, gay marriage, and prescription drugs. And the Schiavo affair. And while Frist is a fucking moron, I apparently have not been paying close enough of attention to recognize the “LIES” being told about these issues.
Unreal.
Mac Buckets
Are you kidding? You need a list? More proof of my point, I guess. Well, puit down your Kool-Aid, and I’ll get you started with something very recent. The Donks spent the last couple of weeks seal-barking at Sports Mustache Olbermann’s 9/11 screed and Clinton’s red-faced Crazy Tom Cruise impression (I would’ve killed for a “You’re glib, Chris! You’re glib!”). They didn’t care that each rant was full of lies, because they were their lies. Instead, they said, “You tell’em Keith/Bubba! That’s how we need to talk!” You tell me, are they tremendously worried about Democrat lies?
pj
My favorite Bush administration lies:
Rumsfeld:
“We know where they are. They’re in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat”
Cheney, a two parter:
1. “Its pretty well confirmed” that Atta met with an Iraqi Agent in Prague.
2. “Well, let’s get to Mohamed Atta for a minute because you mentioned him as well. You have said in the past that it was, quote, “pretty well confirmed.”
VP CHENEY: No, I never said that.”
Bush, a tie (and I don’t even have to go to Iraq):
“I don’t think anyone anticipated a breach of the levees.”
“He was a supporter of Ann Richards in my run in 1994,” Bush said of Lay, “and she named him the head of the Governor’s Business Council. And I decided to leave him in place, just for the sake of continuity. And that’s when I first got to know Ken, and worked with Ken, and he supported my candidacy.”
Rice: “I don’t think anyone could have anticipated that people would fly airliners into buildings.”
Orac
And:
That’s really hilarious coming from Dean. Dean’s called me a liar on at least once when I write pieces rebutting HIV/AIDS “skepticism” and “dissidents.” In none of those pieces did I ever impugn Dean’s honesty or the honesty of any of the “dissidents.” I just argued that they are wrong, and that the consequences of their erroneous belief can be horrible.
Here’s one example.
Dean Esmay: The very epitome of “Pot. Kettle. Black.”
jg
Is that a list of lies?
I thought we’d get a lie being said by a democrat and then the proof that it was a lie. Repeated over and over. Instead we get that. A rant full of insults at two democrats and the people who don’t accuse them of being unhinged. That’s not what Hitchens would do Mac. Or is it?
Darrell
That you have to resort to such an emotionally charged life and death analogy like that underscores the weakness of your point.. but it does enable you to go full throttle with drama queen talk like this:
A more valid analogy would be a big city mayor’s office pushing for a new program or construction project in which a skeptical city council (analogous to Congress) launched studies to come up with their own cost estimates (analogous to what the CBO did for Congress). The mayor’s office knows about another group which has their own higher cost estimate, but tells them to butt out, as studies have already been made by a credible agency outside and independent from the mayor’s office.
And that is what you are characterizing and defending as an example of “lying at will”, “Big fat motherfucking Lies”, and “routinely lying”. You are wayyy over the top with your wild accusations and now you’re mad that Dean called you on it.
lard lad
What lies, Mac? Are these literal untruths, or right-wing spin “lies” like the one about Al Gore claiming he invented the internet? (I still encounter folks who believe that one.)
C’mon, Mac. Let’s hear details. I dare ya.
Sherard
BTW, John, the bottom line is that the problem of how the press is covering this war is just that, a problem. Nobody said, that I saw, that the press is trying to help, or is actively helping the terrorists. Just that their well established bias happens to line up nicely with the terrorists strategy.
The reason I see you being taken on over your accusations of “LIES” is that you essentially just pass by this problem because Bush is a liar. That’s horseshit. Bush is a liar, so it doesn’t matter that the press will print terrorist propaganda verbatim without thinking twice ? Give me a break.
Temple Stark
People lie. Politicians do it publically and blatantly. People pay attention because they are quite literally being paid by the public.
Is all spin a lie? A great deal of it, if not a lie, is a twisting of the truth and should not be applauded.
Though it has been attempted above, it cannot be honestly interpreted that everything or even most things politicians say regarding public policy is “opinion.” If someone started every sentence with, “it’s just my opinion but …. ” and then spouted off a long series of utter BS they could sanely be called liars.
This is especially true when they repeat the “opinion” in a hundred different interviews and public appearances. They are speaking to influence other people’s views and to influence history.
If it is X’s opinion that Y never happened but millions of people saw the World Trade Center buildings fall, the person becomes a liar by believing what is false, and my never changing their mind.
If politicians showed a bit more humbleness and humility and actually admitted when they were wrong it would also be extremely helpful to dialogue. Even a “the best evidence at the time suggested … but we were all wrong.”
A lot of the examples cited by J. Cole are indeed lies; pronouncements made repeatedly without actual evidence.
It’s this simple: An opinion repeated often enough also becomes truth.