# Barbara Boxer Lied! **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 21, 2005, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/barbara-boxer-lied/285911 "2005-01-21T13:52:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Gorsnak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gorsnak/32/7587_2.png) [@Gorsnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gorsnak)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2005, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/barbara-boxer-lied/285911/81 "2005-01-21T23:36:33Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > My point was to refute “…in the absence of WMDs, Saddam’s Iraq had as much ability to effectively attack us as the Duchy of Grand Fenwick.” Odd argument. Neither Iraq nor the DGF have weapons of mass destruction. However, as Tim McVeigh showed, you don’t need that. So Iraq is a threat to attack in a similar manner, assuming that they have the motive. But so, surely, is the Duchy of Grand Fenwick (again, assuming that they have the motive). So the statement seems to be true. Saddam’s Iraq _did_ have as much ability to effectively attack the US as the DGF. Or are you suggesting that the DGF contains no one with access to fertilizer or box cutters? ---
**Author:** ![Demorian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/demorian/32/7273_2.png) [@Demorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Demorian)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2005, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/barbara-boxer-lied/285911/82 "2005-01-21T23:47:06Z")
Well, on the plus side, not only does America prosecute its terrorists… it executes them rather publicly, as well. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2005, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/barbara-boxer-lied/285911/83 "2005-01-21T23:56:04Z")
Fixed title typo. ---
**Author:** ![bizzwire](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/958977/32.png) [@bizzwire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bizzwire)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2005, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/barbara-boxer-lied/285911/84 "2005-01-22T00:25:31Z")
So, just for the record, \*\* Bricker\*\*, regarding the **OP** ; can we put you on record as stating that it is wrong for an elected official to lie? ---
**Author:** ![blowero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/41988e/32.png) [@blowero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blowero)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2005, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/barbara-boxer-lied/285911/85 "2005-01-22T00:29:11Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > when Ms. Rice suggested there were other good reasons for the use of military force in Iraq besides weapons of mass destruction: Other _good_ reasons? I don’t think so. The “other reasons” (which are dwarfed by the references to WMDs: 1. Some stuff Iraq did a couple decades ago - irrelevant. 2. Saddam’s treatment of his citizenry - valid, but not a legal justification for unilateral war. 3. Threat of Iraq attacking the U.S. - false. 4. Support of terrorism - false. None of those “other reasons” would have successfully made the case for war. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2005, 4:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/barbara-boxer-lied/285911/86 "2005-01-22T04:32:11Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > Fixed title typo. Unfortunately that wasn’t really the problem. > [@Merijeek](#): > > Well, I for one welcome our new Duchy of Grand Fenwickian overlords. Good, I’ve been dying for a bottle of Pinot Grand Fenwick. ---
**Author:** ![Loopydude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e56c9b/32.png) [@Loopydude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loopydude)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2005, 5:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/barbara-boxer-lied/285911/87 "2005-01-22T05:29:56Z")
> [@blowero](#): > > Other _good_ reasons? I don’t think so. The “other reasons” (which are dwarfed by the references to WMDs: > > 1. Some stuff Iraq did a couple decades ago - irrelevant. > > 2. Saddam’s treatment of his citizenry - valid, but not a legal justification for unilateral war. > > 3. Threat of Iraq attacking the U.S. - false. > > 4. Support of terrorism - false. > > None of those “other reasons” would have successfully made the case for war. Prove that these are lies, and not spectacular fuckups made in perfectly good faith!! ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2005, 5:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/barbara-boxer-lied/285911/88 "2005-01-22T05:50:04Z")
Good faith in _what_? ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2005, 6:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/barbara-boxer-lied/285911/89 "2005-01-22T06:13:57Z")
Are you really, really sure you want to know? ---
**Author:** ![rjung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2005, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/barbara-boxer-lied/285911/90 "2005-01-22T23:24:28Z")
Isn’t the OP just a minor variation of the whole “Bush never used the phrase ‘imminent threat’” bullstuff from the right-wing talking heads? They don’t care about accuracy in reporting; all that matters is tearing down Senator Boxer for having the _audacity_ of challenging one of Bush’s favorites… ---
**Author:** ![blowero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/41988e/32.png) [@blowero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blowero)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2005, 8:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/barbara-boxer-lied/285911/91 "2005-01-23T08:50:17Z")
> [@Loopydude](#): > > Prove that these are lies, and not spectacular fuckups made in perfectly good faith!! Why? ---
**Author:** ![Apos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/838e76/32.png) [@Apos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apos)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2005, 11:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/barbara-boxer-lied/285911/92 "2005-01-23T11:18:24Z")
> [@blowero](#): > > 1. Saddam’s treatment of his citizenry - valid, but not a legal justification for unilateral war. This is the one that really gets me. For decades, people had been screaming for the US to intervene in cases of mass human rights abuse: or at least, maybe, raise some more of a protest. And what happened? The Republicans scoffed at such silly uses of serious American foriegn policy might, belittled and insulted such liberal bleeding heart hang-wringing. In other words, human rights were bullshit. Then, suddenly, a 180: they’re lecturing us for supposedly not caring about human rights, and citing human rights abuses that their OWN LEADERS turned a blind eye to when they were actually going on. All to justify a war that was the wrong time, wrong place for such things, and had already been sold to the world on completely different principles making our shifting array of later excuses look ridiculous. You tell me Bricker: after a history of this, why should we take seriously any protestations from the right about human rights? Right NOW, for all Bush’s rhetoric we are coddling dictators and funding people that torture and abuse their own populaces. It’s just that they are also willing to sign on to our foriegn policy and financial needs. So how can we possibly take such supposedly moralistic rhetoric seriously? ---
**Author:** ![Demorian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/demorian/32/7273_2.png) [@Demorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Demorian)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2005, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/barbara-boxer-lied/285911/93 "2005-01-23T15:17:32Z")
> [@Apos](#): > > This is the one that really gets me. For decades, people had been screaming for the US to intervene in cases of mass human rights abuse: or at least, maybe, raise some more of a protest. And what happened? The Republicans scoffed at such silly uses of serious American foriegn policy might, belittled and insulted such liberal bleeding heart hang-wringing. In other words, human rights were bullshit. > > Then, suddenly, a 180: they’re lecturing us for supposedly not caring about human rights, and citing human rights abuses that their OWN LEADERS turned a blind eye to when they were actually going on. All to justify a war that was the wrong time, wrong place for such things, and had already been sold to the world on completely different principles making our shifting array of later excuses look ridiculous. > > You tell me Bricker: after a history of this, why should we take seriously any protestations from the right about human rights? Right NOW, for all Bush’s rhetoric we are coddling dictators and funding people that torture and abuse their own populaces. It’s just that they are also willing to sign on to our foriegn policy and financial needs. So how can we possibly take such supposedly moralistic rhetoric seriously? There was a key word in **blowero** ’s post: **unilateral**. Those of us who have been calling for intervention for human rights violations in places like Sudan and Rwanda and Somolia and Iraq (when it was actually happening and we were giving them more weapons, not 15 years later) are thinking more of an international intervention via the UN to correct the human rights abuses, not the US to come in and dismantle the entire government. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2005, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/barbara-boxer-lied/285911/94 "2005-01-23T16:27:15Z")
> [@John Mace](#): > > > [@Bricker](#): > > > > My point was to refute “…in the absence of WMDs, Saddam’s Iraq had as much ability to effectively attack us as the Duchy of Grand Fenwick.” > > How does that refute it? At best, it might render the statemenet moot. Sheesh. OK. The Duchy of Grand Fenwick was so small that their pool of potential suicide attackers was small. They were also fictional, which sharply limited their ability to attack a real country. > [@LHoD](#): > > Bricker, this is getting pretty weak. Now you’re modifying the OP to, essentially, “Boxer didn’t lie, but neither did Bush! Prove me wrong!” > > If that’s what you meant to ask, why even bring Boxer into it in the first place? To show contrast. People on the left don’t consider Ms. Boxer’s statements a lie, but fail to apply the same standard to Mr. Bush. His statements are parsed precisely, and any technical variance from the facts is seized upon as a lie, but Ms. Boxer’s statements are accorded a more reasonable standard. > [@Demorian](#): > > “You remember when [Secretary of State] Colin Powell stood up in front of the world, and he said Iraq has got laboratories, mobile labs to build biological weapons. They’re illegal. They’re against the United Nations resolutions, and we’ve so far discovered two. And we’ll find more weapons as time goes on. But for those who say we haven’t found the banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons, they’re wrong. We found them.” - George W. Bush Not a lie. They did find two. And at the time Bush made the statement, he had been told they were bio labs. That turned out not to be true… but he was accurately reporting the best information he had at the time. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2005, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/barbara-boxer-lied/285911/95 "2005-01-23T16:43:31Z")
No, he was lying. He said he had found labratories when he had only found trailers. He knew they had not been confirmed as laboratories and he certainly knew he had not found any banned weapons. The stretch from trailers to “banned weapons manufacturers” was too great of one for him to make with any honesty. How about that IAEA report he fabricated out of thin air? Remember that one? he cited a report (before the invasion) which claimed that Iraq was developing nukes. The White House was later forced to admit that the IAEA report “technically” did not exist. He was not exaggerating or interpreting or even misquoting an actual report, he just made one up out of his asshole. Is that a lie? And how many times are you willing to let him blame others for all his false information. Nothing is ever his fault. Somebody else always gave him bullshit facts. Either he’s a chronically lying sack who never takes responsibility for his own words and deeds (my theory) or he’s got the most incompetent bunch of advisors in US history working for him. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2005, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/barbara-boxer-lied/285911/96 "2005-01-23T16:45:01Z")
Rot, utter rot. Those rusting piles of corroded tubing couldn’t have been used to produce the crudest moonshine, much less been applied as sophisticated bio-weapons laboratories. Before GeeDubya made his statement in Poland, this conclusion was splashed across the front pages of any number of major newspapers. He was spreading falsehoods. Whether from ignorance or mendacity, I neither know nor care. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2005, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/barbara-boxer-lied/285911/97 "2005-01-23T16:46:31Z")
Ieae. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2005, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/barbara-boxer-lied/285911/98 "2005-01-23T16:49:43Z")
> [@Diogenes the Cynic](#): > > No, he was lying. He said he had found labratories when he had only found trailers. He knew they had not been confirmed as laboratories and he certainly knew he had not found any banned weapons. The stretch from trailers to “banned weapons manufacturers” was too great of one for him to make with any honesty. He knew this? Well, if that’s true, then I must retract my defense and admit he lied. Er… How do you know that he knew this? > [@](#): > > How about that IAEA report he fabricated out of thin air? Remember that one? he cited a report (before the invasion) which claimed that Iraq was developing nukes. The White House was later forced to admit that the IAEA report “technically” did not exist. He was not exaggerating or interpreting or even misquoting an actual report, he just made one up out of his asshole. Is that a lie? If he knew there was no such report, then it was a lie. If he was given a summary of the report, and relied on that to make his statements, then it wasn’t a lie. So - cite? > [@](#): > > And how many times are you willing to let him blame others for all his false information. Nothing is ever his fault. Somebody else always gave him bullshit facts. Either he’s a chronically lying sack who never takes responsibility for his own words and deeds (my theory) or he’s got the most incompetent bunch of advisors in US history working for him. That’s a relevant distinction. There is no question the analyses he relied upon were wrong. That certainly suggests incompetence, but doesn’t prove it. To prove incompetence, you have to show that a reasonably-skilled analyst would have reached a different conclusion. ---
**Author:** ![Digital\_Stimulus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@Digital\_Stimulus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Digital_Stimulus)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2005, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/barbara-boxer-lied/285911/99 "2005-01-23T16:51:04Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > His statements are parsed precisely, and any technical variance from the facts is seized upon as a lie, but Ms. Boxer’s statements are accorded a more reasonable standard. I’d think this is the crux of the matter. The key word in your statement being _technical_. Reduced to Aristotelian logic, as I said before, I think you’re correct; both lied (I know others disagree). However, the phrase _reasonable standard_ indicates that you allow some grey areas. Furthermore, the way I read your post, since Boxer’s statements are _accorded_ these standards _more fairly_ than Bush, you allow some judgment of intent and/or result. Provide a suitable measure of that judgment, and perhaps you’ll find that more people agree with you. ---
**Author:** ![Zakalwe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zakalwe/32/270_2.png) [@Zakalwe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zakalwe)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2005, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/barbara-boxer-lied/285911/100 "2005-01-23T16:59:16Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Not a lie. > > They did find two. And at the time Bush made the statement, he had been told they were bio labs. That turned out not to be true… but he was accurately reporting the best information he had at the time. Of course, he has since come back and admitted his mistake, right? Seriously, Bricker, are you ever going to respond to my post (64) above? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/barbara-boxer-lied/285911.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/barbara-boxer-lied/285911.md?page=6)