Marley, when are you going to admit that you were totally wrong?
Just in case you had any lingering hope that you could weasel away:
“Biden-Palin Debate Ratings Far Exceed Obama-McCain”
http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/10/03/biden-palin-debate-ratings-far-exceed-obama-mccain/
Yeah, but just like the pundits, you’re not always right. 
Sometimes I am so proud as a father. When she said that I could help but say out loud, “Yeah, he just looks in the mirror.” and my 17 year old, not missing a beat answered, “Nah. No reflection.”
I was wrong.
See, that wasn’t hard at all. What I needed was FACTS. Why you think I needed to admit anything before the only relevant facts were in remains beyond me. The media attention to Palin and Biden’s propensity for fucking up did indeed generate viewer interest. I don’t think it’s going to change many votes, but I thought people wouldn’t watch and I was wrong, and they did.
I do think your demands that I admit I was wrong prior to this point were absolutely absurd. Analogies on this board usually send every argument into a death spiral of nitpicking, but here’s my analogy anyway:
ME
“I think this coin flip is going to come up tails.”
YOU
“But this article says there’s a 50 percent chance it’s going to be heads! Why won’t you admit you’re wrong?”
ME
“I know it might be heads. I think it’s going to be tails.”
YOU
“So why won’t you admit you were wrong?”
ME
“I haven’t flipped the coin yet. There’s nothing to admit until I flip the coin.”
YOU
“THE COIN WILL COME UP HEADS! WHY WON’T YOU ADMIT IT?”
ME
[flips coin]
“Congrats, it’s heads.”
What kind of coin is it? WHAT KIND OF COIN IS IT!
Her response (despite what she said during the debate) will be along the lines that she opposed it because the rules for Permanent Fund investment specifically prohibit basing investments on political situations. The reason for that is so people with specific agendas can’t direct where the money goes (countries that support abortion, for example). I’m not saying it’s right; it just is.
This post a complete distortion of what actually occurred, which is clear to anyone who wants to bother wading through those earlier posts. Why are you still trying to spin things? Can’t you just admit that you had a stupid opinion, no arguments, no refutations and a stubborn unwillingness to even crack open your mind for 2 minutes?
This is cowardly debating 101.
Really Marley you are showing your true colours – not because you were wrong, but because you can’t even admit what actually went down. Poor show.
I knew you weren’t going to be satisfied, but you’re welcome all the same.
I’m not satisfied because you completely misrepresented our “discussion” and because you ran and hide when called out for your ridiculous opinions and lack of argument.
Is this how you always “debate”?
I’m going to try the “Marley history of our discussion” version:
MARLEY
No one is going to watch this debate
OTHERS
Why do you think that?
MARLEY
Because I know and I’m right and baseball is on.
ME
Here’s an article why you’re probably wrong
MARLEY
All weasel words written by <snerk> Variety magazine
ME
Why don’t you dispute the arguments instead of attacking the messenger?
MARLEY
The arguments are dumb, but I won’t explain why. I know what’s right.
ME
Let me explain: <long, boring explanation>
Also, here are more articles from more “legit” media
MARLEY
<run and hide >
ME
Here are even more articles. See, lots of people think for very good reasons that lots of people will watch this.
MARLEY
<run and hide >
ME
Now here’s the final nail in the coffin: it was a huge audience for the debate
MARLEY
Ok, I was wrong but I still won’t admit you actually came back with arguments while I just threw out my opinion without anything to back it up.
Instead I’m going to completely misrepresent what actually occurred.
PS - here’s some snark. Enjoy!
leander, will you please take your personal problem with Marley to the Pit? Thanks.
No, but I’ll be glad to drop it since it appears pointless.
Thank you.
One skill Biden certainly has is the ability to stare straight into the camera and lie his face off. And he might even say, “Let me repeat that…” and say the lie again.
For example, he said that the U.S. spends more in a month in Iraq than it has in all seven years in Afghanistan. He turned to the camera and said, “Let me say that again.” and repeated it. It was a bald-faced lie. It’s not true. It’s not close to being true. It’s not even in the ballpark of the truth. As of April 2008, the U.S. was spending about 9.8 billion dollars a month in Iraq, and 2.3 billion a month in Afghanistan. Rather than spending 7 years of Afghanistan’s cost per month, the U.S. is spending about four months of Afghanistan’s costs per month. He was off by more than an order of magnitude.
But the really bizarre part was his little spiel about Lebanon. I mentioned how crazy it sounded to my wife as he said it, because I couldn’t figure out what he was talking about. So today I fact-checked it, and sure enough, the stuff he said was bizarrely stupid and wrong. This is what Biden said:
This is a shockingly ignorant statement from a guy who’s supposed to be a foreign policy whiz. At first, I couldn’t even figure out what he was talking about because it was so far from the facts. Then I realized he was talking about the aftermath of Israel’s incursion into Lebanon. That’s the only thing he could have been talking about. But the U.S. wasn’t involved in that conflict. Nor was France. Nor was Hezbollah ‘kicked out’ of Lebanon, or anything close to it. France co-sponsored a UN resolution to end the fighting, which did the opposite of kicking Hezbollah out of Lebanon. It allowed Hezbollah to regroup and end the war while still retaining the vast majority of its force.
Furthermore, the NATO plan was opposed by just about everyone, and there’s no evidence that Biden or Obama ever supported it. And as for the consequences of not doing it - that supposedly Hezbollah became a legitimate part of the government as a result of Biden’s advice not being taken - the problem with that is, as I’m sure you all remember, Hezbollah won its place in the national government almost two years before that conflict, and before that had already been a major political player in the country at the local and regional level for decades.
If Palin had mangled facts so badly, everyone would be talking about how ignorant she was. How in hell could Biden be that wrong about what happened just two years ago? Either he’s a moron, or he just says whatever the hell he feels like saying, or he was deliberately lying.
While not as heated as Leander, you did state unilaterally that few people would be interested in the debate. This while the nation was fascinated by her. (For differing reasons, of course.) Your response to Leander tries to imply that it was by random chance that half the TV sets in the country were tuned to the debate.
There was never any question that the people of the U.S. were going to tune into this debate in droves, and for you to act like it was just luck that you were wrong is purely disingenuous.
Shayna, it’s not a personal problem. It was raised in this thread, and it is appropriate for this thread. Why don’t you take your junior modding to whatever forum it belongs?
Marley23 was flat out wrong, and should eat crow just as the rest of us should when we’re wrong.
What the hell is “junior modding” about asking someone to take something to the Pit? It was a REQUEST, to which he kindly replied. Since you’re not a mod anymore, might I suggest you take your own advice?
Leander was following through on a subject which was already present - had already been discussed - in this thread. You could have, with equal justification, have asked Marley23 to take his personal problem to the Pit. The former’s post was a direct response to the latter’s, after all.
Either way, if you feel that a post is inappropriate for GD (especially if it is so inappropriate that the Pit is the only true home for it!), you should report it to the mods. The simple fact that you do not like a post does not make it prima facie unfit for GD.
Look, dude, I asked leander to take it somewhere else, and he agreed to drop the subject. It was a hijack, regardless how lengthy, and already resolved, leaving nothing more than a pissing match of
YOU
were wrong
YOU
were
LET’S
rehash every exchange over and over
YOU
were wrong
YOU
were!
You don’t like that I asked a polite question to someone other than you, who politely replied, then report my post.
In what way is a discussion of the potential viewership on TV a hijack of a thread entitled Biden v. Palin Debate Oct. 2?
In what way was that discussion resolved? By Marley23’s pissy concession?
Leander doesn’t need to be improperly intimidated. His post was perfectly appropriate both to the thread and to the particular side discussion. Get over yourself.
He asked me to admit I was wrong, which I did without reservation by saying “I was wrong.” The problem is that he appeard to be asking me to apologize for arguing with him and admit I was stupid to disagree, which isn’t happening. If you and leander are unsatisfied with my “pissy concession,” I suggest you write to Santa and ask for a better one for Christmas, because you’re not getting it from me.
Meanwhile, Frank, leander said he was dropping this tangent and you’re keeping it alive for whatever reason. If you and Shayna want to continue to snipe at each other about it, do it someplace else. There might be people who want to talk politics in here.