Barbara Boxer Lied!

[Bricker]

@elucidator

The President is not simply another civil servant, his position is invested with extraordinary responsibility. He isn’t drafted for his position, he must run for it, he must put himself forward as a candidate and say “I can do this, I can shoulder this nearly superhuman burden. I can be trusted not to mislead, not to lie.” We have every right to demand a scrupulous attention to facts, we have every right to expect that he goes the extra mile, or ten, or twenty, to insure that we are not misled on issues wherein innocent lives, by the thousands, are at risk. If he is not up to the task, he need not run, he need not place himself in a position that demands more than he has to offer.

Did you grow up near Disneyland or something? Or have you just watched “Dave” too many times?

Bush’s record is plain: when offered doubt, he ignored it. He had every opportunity to hesitate and gather more facts, he did not, he rushed forward as though the matter were settled beyond question, when clearly it wasn’t.

Yes. God help us, I agree with you. This is precisely what Mr. Bush did. Faced with conflicting evidence, he chose the set of facts he liked best and rushed forward. He chose not to wait and be certain; he charged ahead. He treated the matter as settled when it was still undecided. I agree.

And I’m not defending that.

I’m pointing out that all this isn’t lying.

So every time you say, “Bush lied!” I object. Any time you say something like the above, I agree.

Friend Bricker combs through Ms. Boxer, and finds a nit to pick. A lie! he triumphantly exclaims. A lie of minor consequence, Dr. Rice’s “integrity” is “impugned”, if “impugned” can be meant as “accurately assessed and stated.”

Actually, as my OP’s final paragraph makes clear, I don’t accuse Ms. Boxer of lying.

He then implies a moral equivalence: consequences are of no importance, all lies are equal, the fact that the Bushivik’s falsehoods result in the deaths of thousands of innocents is not relevent. This is an argument more theological than reasonable. He is welcome to it, so long as he doesn’t expect it to be taken seriously.

I’m not making that argument.

Look, if you accuse an arsonist of being a burglar, I’m going to point out that he’s not a burglar. It’s not particularly useful for you to go on in offended tones about how terrible arson is. Let’s be accurate. Bush is not a liar. Accuse him of stuff he’s guilty of. MMmmmkay?

[Demorian]

@Bricker

Did you grow up near Disneyland or something? Or have you just watched “Dave” too many times?

No, you just have lower expectations when it comes to the President. As long as he’s a Republican, anyway.

[justwannano]

[QUOTE=Bricker Let’s be accurate. Bush is not a liar. Accuse him of stuff he’s guilty of. MMmmmkay?[/QUOTE]

Good God man. Don’t you realize the man started a war?

[elucidator]

Nonetheless, friend Bricker, such a distinction is sophistic, it engages a smart technicality. To deflect a charge of mendacity, you propose a charge of dereliction of duty. Are any of us to take any comfort in this?

Am I expected to think better of him, or are you just concerned that I express my contempt in more precisely correct terms? Are you defending his integrity, or correcting our grammar? If “liar” is unsuitable, would you prefer “warmonger”?

[Squink]

@Bricker

Yes. God help us, I agree with you. This is precisely what Mr. Bush did. Faced with conflicting evidence, he chose the set of facts he liked best and rushed forward. He chose not to wait and be certain; he charged ahead. He treated the matter as settled when it was still undecided. I agree.

He did not choose a set of facts, he selected from among various possibilities. He then told us his selection was based on fact, when it was not.

[Banquet_Bear]

@Banquet Bear

“Let me just say, these were illegal combatants. They were picked up off the battlefield aiding and abetting the Taliban”.

President Bush, July 18 2003

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/07/20030717-9.html

…I trust I do not have to cite the fact that **not all of **the prisoners at Guantanamo were either plucked off the battlefield aiding and abetting the Taliban?

…just quoting myself-Bricker, do you consider the above statement to be a lie or not?

[Sevastopol]

It is common and commonplace for an attorney to put his clients’ case in its most favourable light. Having chosen that position it is less common for the advocate to claim to be disinterested.

Rarer still is the advocate who will cross the line of permitted arguments and advance bare falsehoods:

@Bricker

This is precisely what Mr. Bush did. Faced with conflicting evidence, he chose the set of facts he liked best and rushed forward.

Of course this is not what occurred. Mr Bush chose to deny the existence of conflicting evidence. More on this later, but for the moment let’s overlook this moment of dishonesty.

Bricker argues that as regards truthfulness, the positions of Ms Boxer and Mr Bush are analogous, to wit: As it takes a close and critical reading of Ms Boxer’s words to discover a lie, it is better to apply a reasonable standard of interpretation and find Ms Boxer has not lied. The same ‘reasonable standard’ should apply to Mr Bush, to to the same result.

2 Issues:

1 - Are Ms Boxer & Mr Bush in analogous positions as regards truthfulness?

2 - Does the ‘reasonable standard’ apply.

---

1 - analogous?

• Ms Boxer speaks of information in the public domain and widely available.

• Rebuttal of Ms Boxer’s opinion is thereby from a position of equal access to information.

• Mr Bush speaks of information in his privileged possession.

• Rebuttal of Mr Bush’s presentation must rely on the veracity of evidence he presents.

There is I believe a profession that has a term of art for Mr Bush’s position: A position of trust. Faced with the proposition that Mr Bush was in a position of trust:

@Bricker

Did you grow up near Disneyland or something? Or have you just watched “Dave” too many times?

2 - the reasonable standard?

What is the reasonable standard of exactitude that can be demanded from Ms Boxer and Mr Bush?

When Ms Boxer speaks of matters in the public domain, she is understood to have applied her powers of critical reasoning to those matters when she arrives at the conclusion: “all about WMD.” She argues the other reasons are insubstantial. Accordingly reasonable people undertand her to be truthful.

When Mr Bush speaks from a position of trust, his duty is to the highest standard of truthfulness and impartiality. Plainly, he misrepresented the evidence that was in his exclusive control and failed to discharge his duty. Accordingly reasonable people understand him not to be truthful.

In the alternative, it may be phrased that Mr Bush was negligent in his position of trust, as regards truthful representation of evidence. In old anglo-saxon from whence our legal system springs, this is termed the lie.

[ElvisL1ves]

@Bricker

This is precisely what Mr. Bush did. Faced with conflicting evidence, he chose the set of facts he liked best and rushed forward.

Care to expound upon his basis for “liking” vs. “disliking” the information he chose to believe was fact and chose to present to us as fact? You’re getting warmer here, and we’ll save you the next step: He’d already decided to invade Iraq, no matter what, and his basis for choosing what to believe was derived solely from its usability to support that premade, unreviewable, unreconsidered decision. He didn’t care what the facts were other than to hope they somehow appeared in a form he could spin into support. The line of rhetoric he sold to try to gain support for this irrevocable decision was not derived from fact.

If that isn’t lying, it’s worse. Deal with it.

@Bricker

Bush is not a liar. Accuse him of stuff he’s guilty of.

Help us out here, now. What do *you * consider him guilty of?

“It is not a lie, it’s a terminological inexactitude.” – Alerander Haig

[Apos]

Bricker, I wonder: have you read Spinsanity’s book? It’s good, and I very much doubt it can be dismissed as mere thoughtless Bush-bashing. I wonder what you think of it, and what they document therein: not even just the specific events they analyze, but the overall trend in making highly misleading statements that are very difficult to rationalize as honest mistakes.

[Left_Hand_of_Dorkness]

Bricker, I think Gorsnak summed it up pretty well. Whereas Boxer committed a slight technical falsehood in a statement that was substantively accurate and substantively inconsequential, Bush (at best) committed slight technical truths in statements that were substantially misleading and substantially consequential. Do you agree with this?

The problem is that Bush set forth a coordinated propaganda program calculated to deceive. Even though most of it was technically true (I’ll admit this) or at least plausible, the overall effect was, as intended, to convince the public that Saddam Hussein was linked to the events of 9/11, had terrorist ties, was likely to give WMDs to terrorists, and was likely to attack the United States. NONE of this was substantively true.

So we see here the intent to deceive, which is in my mind the most important aspect of a lie. All we’re missing is the falsehood itself; if a falsehood turns up, then we have an enormous lie, given the enormous intent behind it.

You perceive that Bush’s statements are parsed much more closely than Boxer’s by people on the left. You may be right. That’s because Bush’s statements had such an egregious intent to deceive behind them. If Boxer’s statement was intended to establish a link in the public’s mind between Rice and the anthrax mailings, we’d be parsing her statement closely, too.

And if Boxer’s statement led to mass killings of African American women, we’d parse them more closely still.

Daniel

[Bricker]

@justwannano

@Bricker

Let’s be accurate. Bush is not a liar. Accuse him of stuff he’s guilty of. MMmmmkay?

Good God man. Don’t you realize the man started a war?

Then accuse him of starting a war. Don’t accuse him of arson, burglary, or lying if it isn’t so.

[Bricker]

@elucidator

Nonetheless, friend Bricker, such a distinction is sophistic, it engages a smart technicality. To deflect a charge of mendacity, you propose a charge of dereliction of duty. Are any of us to take any comfort in this?

Am I expected to think better of him, or are you just concerned that I express my contempt in more precisely correct terms? Are you defending his integrity, or correcting our grammar? If “liar” is unsuitable, would you prefer “warmonger”?

If “liar” is unsuitable, I prefer you not call him a liar. I don’t have much defense for “warmonger,” so, yes, I guess I prefer that.

[Bricker]

@Banquet Bear

…just quoting myself-Bricker, do you consider the above statement to be a lie or not?

No. This is perhaps the closest analogy to Ms. Boxer’s statement. She said that it was ENTIRELY about WMD; when the actual resolution was MOSTLY about WMD. In this example, Mr. Bush said the Guantanamo prisoners were combatants from the battlefield when actually only MOST of the prisoners were from that source.

[elucidator]

Then let’s make room for friend Bricker, he’s coming on board. Backing in, to be sure, and better late than never. Suppose we may have to remove his name from the reservation list for the Jane Fonda Re-Education and Aerobics Camp…

[Shodan]

@Left Hand of Dorkness

You perceive that Bush’s statements are parsed much more closely than Boxer’s by people on the left. You may be right. That’s because Bush’s statements had such an egregious intent to deceive behind them.

That’s circular logic. You are assuming intent to deceive, and then interpreting Bush’s statements under that assumption. You don’t do that with Boxer (or Albright or Kerry or Clinton or Hilary or etc.).

It’s a differing standard, just as Bricker demonstrates in the OP.

It’s like the way that “British intelligence reports that Iraq is trying to obtain yellowcake” is a lie because Bush said it - not because it is untrue.
And “Iraq needs to be bombed because they have WMD” is not a lie because Clinton said it - not because it was true.

Besides, it wasn’t true. Clinton didn’t lob missiles at Iraq because he gave a damn about WMD - he wanted to postpone or avoid impeachment.

Regards,
Shodan

[Left_Hand_of_Dorkness]

@Bricker

No. This is perhaps the closest analogy to Ms. Boxer’s statement. She said that it was ENTIRELY about WMD; when the actual resolution was MOSTLY about WMD. In this example, Mr. Bush said the Guantanamo prisoners were combatants from the battlefield when actually only MOST of the prisoners were from that source.

Here’s the thing, though. When talking about ideas in a document, the important thing is the thesis, the central idea. If I ignore a single minor idea when talking about the central thrust of the document, I may be claiming a technical falsehood, but it’s an insignificant one.

When talking about humans in a prison, the important thing is justice for each of those humans. If I ignore a single person when talking about them, then I commit a serious injustice against that one.

People are not analogous to ideas. Ideas have no inherent dignity that must be respected.

Daniel

[Bricker]

@Sevastopol

Of course this is not what occurred. Mr Bush chose to deny the existence of conflicting evidence. More on this later, but for the moment let’s overlook this moment of dishonesty.

If you have evidence that this occurred, I am certainly willing to modify my opinion.

Bricker argues that as regards truthfulness, the positions of Ms Boxer and Mr Bush are analogous, to wit: As it takes a close and critical reading of Ms Boxer’s words to discover a lie, it is better to apply a reasonable standard of interpretation and find Ms Boxer has not lied. The same ‘reasonable standard’ should apply to Mr Bush, to to the same result.

Yes, that’s a fair summary of my argument.

• Ms Boxer speaks of information in the public domain and widely available.

• Rebuttal of Ms Boxer’s opinion is thereby from a position of equal access to information.

• Mr Bush speaks of information in his privileged possession.

• Rebuttal of Mr Bush’s presentation must rely on the veracity of evidence he presents.

There is I believe a profession that has a term of art for Mr Bush’s position: A position of trust. Faced with the proposition that Mr Bush was in a position of trust:

@Bricker

Did you grow up near Disneyland or something? Or have you just watched “Dave” too many times?

The mere fact that Ms. Boxer’s information happened to be easily rebuttable has nothing to do with whether it is considered a lie. “I wasn’t REALLY cheating on ya, honey; we did it right on the sofa downstairs where you could easily have caught us!” Further, my “Disneyland” comment was in response to ridiculous waxing rhapsodic about the virutes the President is supposed to possess.

But the reality is that every President has been associated with deception of some kind in the name of political expedience. Clinton did not have sex with that woman. Reagan knew nothing about arms for hostages. Carter lied about why David Marston was fired and whether Andrew Young met with the PLO. Ford lied about greenlighting Indonesia’s invasion of East Timor. Nixon (no need to type this one out, eh?) Johnson (I’ll just say Vietnam, ok?). Kennedy concealed his poor health - arguably more of a factor to the voters than his straying genitals, especiually since his campaign was predicated on how Eisenhower’s Republicans were too old and sick to handle the new Soviet threat. Eisenhower lied about our spy flights over the Soviet Union even after a U-2 pilot was shot down. How far back do you want me to take this?

The reason for my “Disneyland” comment was to point out that if you are expecting a bend-over-backwards effort to be totally truthful, you’re not going to find it in ANY PRESIDENT AT ALL, and it’s wrong to hold Mr. Bush to a standard that no president this century or last can match. I believe we do have a right to expect outright falsehoods to be eliminated, but that’s a far cry from “Oh, once he knew the truth, he should have come back and corrected his earlier remarks.”

When Mr Bush speaks from a position of trust, his duty is to the highest standard of truthfulness and impartiality. Plainly, he misrepresented the evidence that was in his exclusive control and failed to discharge his duty. Accordingly reasonable people understand him not to be truthful.

No. That would be a scientist preparing a paper for publication. That would not be a person in political office.

Seriously: if you believe that the president has a duty to the “…highest standard of truthfulness and impartiality,” then you tell me: which President has lived up to that standard?

[Left_Hand_of_Dorkness]

@Shodan

That’s circular logic. You are assuming intent to deceive, and then interpreting Bush’s statements under that assumption. You don’t do that with Boxer (or Albright or Kerry or Clinton or Hilary or etc.).

Wrong. I’m assuming intent because of what he said: when there’s a huge amount of propaganda coming out from the Administration insinuating (as one example) a link between Saddam and 9/11, and it’s obvious that no such link exists, I gotta conclude that the Administration is either disingenuous or cretinous. From their other actions, I know they’re not cretinous; I’m left with disingenuous. I’m not assuming an intent to deceive; I’m concluding intent to deceive.

Daniel

[Bricker]

@Left Hand of Dorkness

Here’s the thing, though. When talking about ideas in a document, the important thing is the thesis, the central idea. If I ignore a single minor idea when talking about the central thrust of the document, I may be claiming a technical falsehood, but it’s an insignificant one.

When talking about humans in a prison, the important thing is justice for each of those humans. If I ignore a single person when talking about them, then I commit a serious injustice against that one.

People are not analogous to ideas. Ideas have no inherent dignity that must be respected.

But the mere fact that not all Guantanamo detainees were not from Taliban battlefieds does not create a lack of justice for them, does it?

Again you create impossibly high standards. If we were constrained from taking any action because of the possibility that innocent lives would be lost, we would be utterly paralyzed. How many people will die in highway accidents today? Yet we don’t close down the highway system. Why? Because, as cold-hearted as it sounds in this light, the benefits of the highway system far outweigh the small cost in innocent lives that are lost.

You point at Mr. Bush’s Guantanamo statement and say we should call it a lie because (a) it was technically incomplete, and (b) there are innocent lives at stake. I say that’s the wrong method of analysis. The central thrust of detaining prisoners at Guantanamo is a good one. The mere fact that some innocent people may be detained is not fatal to the plan: we must show that the benefits far outweigh the cost, just as we do with the highway system.

[Left_Hand_of_Dorkness]

@Bricker

Again you create impossibly high standards. If we were constrained from taking any action because of the possibility that innocent lives would be lost, we would be utterly paralyzed. How many people will die in highway accidents today? Yet we don’t close down the highway system. Why? Because, as cold-hearted as it sounds in this light, the benefits of the highway system far outweigh the small cost in innocent lives that are lost.

You misunderstand my standards. I don’t ask you to shut down the highways; I just ask you to admit that people die on them. If you denied that any deaths occurred on the highways, I’d call you a liar on the substantial issue of people dying. And I’d say that the deaths you’re lying about made you far more of a liar than the person who lies about a secondary idea in a document.

Daniel