Defend Gore the liar!

Great Debates
21

Michael Kinsley had an interesting article in Slate a few days ago. He points out that all politicians lie, but we give them a pass when they lie about important stuff like what they’ll do if elected, or what their opponent’s policies are. It’s part of the game. They all do it, and we are jaded and expect it.

Gore is different, in that he lies about himself. He lies about his personal life, his war experience, his journalism experience, etc. Lies intended to make him personally look better to the people he’s talking to.

Frankly, I much prefer a person like Bob Kerrey, who just happens to hold the Medal of Honor. When’s the last time you heard Kerrey even MENTION it? For that matter, George Bush has taken all sorts of flak for joining the Air National Guard to avoid Vietnam. Well guess what he did in the ANG? He flew F-102 interceptors. Those things were flying coffins, and the chance of being killed in one was perhaps an order of magnitude higher than the chance of being killed doing a TDY in Vietnam. (and BTW, his squadron was on an active rotation list for Vietnam duty). Yet I don’t hear Bush running around telling people how much courage he has, or making up stories about near-death experiences (probably doesn’t have to make up stories - Century series fighter jets had a tendency to create emergency situations).

How about Admiral Stockdale, another Medal of Honor Recipient? We laughed at him during the Perot debate because he needed to turn his hearing aid up. What we didn’t think about was that he needs a hearing aid because a monster beat him mercilessly over the head in a Tiger Cage in Vietnam because he wouldn’t make statements against his country.

Our values are totally screwed up. We’re willing to look the other way when mediocrities like Al Gore run around puffing themselves up, but we laugh at heroes like Stockdale because (to quote Dennis Miller) he committed the cardinal sin of not looking good on television.

22

Wrong. Wrongwrong.

A vote for Nader is a vote for Nader.

And a vote for Browne is a vote for Browne and a vote for Buchannan is a vote for Buchannan.

And East is East and West is West and if you take cranberries and stew them like applesauce they taste much more like prunes than rhubarb does.

23

Hey ** Sam Stone: **
How about a single cite on any of your “facts”?
One?
Maybe two?
Maybe one for each outlandish claim?

24

Sam,I was under the impression that he learned to fly 102s but was not an active pilot. Are his records public?

Er, huh? A pilot training in an Interceptor was more likely to die stateside than in Vietnam?

25

Sam, it sure seems like that to me. It seems like Gore more than most politicians wants to be ‘in’ with every possible group, everyone he meets. So he feels like he must relate a personal experience to make himself more likeable. I think there was a tape of him talking to tobacco farmers, telling them how well he understands their life, saying things like “I’ve hoed it” and this and that and the other “all my life”, but in fact he did nothing of the sort. He then attacts the tobacco industry, bringing up the death of his sister as emotional backdrop. Too much. Just too much nonsence from this guy. Even if he is not telling some of the latest whoppers intentionally, it seems he has earned the reputation.

26

At his best, Al Gore was an excellent student. Mediocre students don’t graduate with honors from Ha’va’d.

http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A37397-2000Mar18.html
“Gore flirted with English at Harvard, dreaming of a life as a novelist, but decided to make government his concentration. He got off to an uncertain start in that subject, with a C and C-minus in his first two courses, before righting himself. In his junior year, he earned a B, a B-plus and an A-minus in three government courses, and he aced his senior government thesis on the impact of television on the presidency, a strong finish that made him a cum laude graduate. His devotion to the subject by then was so intense that he gave much of his time to a not-for-credit seminar with his favorite professor, Richard Neustadt, an expert on the presidency. Bush, a history major, scored mostly B’s in that subject, as was first reported in the New Yorker, though the five history courses he took his senior year were all pass-fail.”

Apparently, Gore was a bit of a goof off in high school.

"When John C. Davis, a retired teacher and assistant headmaster at St. Albans, was recently shown his illustrious former pupil’s college board achievement test scores, he inspected them closely with a magnifier and shook his head, chuckling quietly at the science results.

“Four eighty-eight! Terrible” Davis declared upon inspecting the future vice president’s 488 score (out of a possible 800) in physics.

“Hmmmm. Chemistry. Five-nineteen. He didn’t do too well in chemistry.”

As Davis moved down the page, his magnifier settled on Gore’s more promising achievement scores in other scholastic realms.

“English. Seven oh-five. Right at the top!”

“U.S. History. Seven oh-one. Not so bad.”"

27

Personally I laughed at Stockdale because he made the mistake of trivializing the single event most likely to lend legitimacy to a third party candidate. Why do you think the two ruling parties fight so hard to keep “fringe” candidates out of the debates? To be more exact, I laughed at the idiocy manifest in Stockdale’s performance.

He took the egregious advice from some handler that the best way to use that opportunity was to trivialize the vent, not pay attention to the proceedings (or at least feign not paying attention), and give the voters an overall impressions that he cared nothing for the opportunity to address them directly on a national forum.

I have immense respect for what the man endured for our nation. That does not equal “good candidate for public office.”

28

tradesilicon says:

.

Good analysis. Here are similar words from a Mona Charen column yesterday:
“Mr. Gore is a solipsist: Everything and everyone is interesting only insofar as it relates to Himself. If he wasn’t there, it couldn’t have been important. But it clearly was important, so he had to be there.”

That’s just an opinion, to be sure; but I think it is quite insightful.

Thanks for the link Crimson Hipster Dufuz. It certainly re-iterates my point for Gore’s mediocrity. Also, it reminds us that he dropped out of law school and his seminary studies. I had forgotton about that.

However, I think you misspelled “graduate with honors.” I’m sure what you meant to say, as cited in the Post article, was “generally middling college grades at Harvard.”

29

Is it the phrase “cum laude” that you have difficulty understanding or the concept of objectivity?

30

Myrr21: Which facts don’t you believe? That Bush flew F-102’s? That Bob Kerrey and James Stockdale won the Medal of Honor? That flying an F-102 was extremely dangerous?

I think the first few facts are beyond dispute. As for the danger of flying an F-102… The ‘Century Series’ fighters (F-102, F-106, F-104) were all extremely dangerous aircraft. They had nicknames like “Widowmaker”, “Flying Coffin”, and “Flying Lawn Dart”. These fighters were designed in the very early days of supersonic flight, and tended to be unstable, plagued with system problems, and real fuel hogs. And running out of fuel in a Century Series fighter was not something you wanted to start your morning with.

Early ejection seats in these fighters were likely to leave you severely injured or dead. They had a LOT of trouble with them.

As for my assertion that flying an F-102 in peacetime was more likely to kill you than being a serviceman in Vietnam, I’ll have to do more research. But I can can tell you that more F-102’s were lost in accidents than were shot down by the enemy over a 15 year period of active combat flying in Vietnam. And I was always under the impression that combat flying in Vietnam was one of the more dangerous ways that you could spend your tour.

What were the odds that a random Vietnam draftee would actually be killed in that war? There were roughly 50,000 casualties. How many millions of men served?

Astor: Bush had somewhat more than 300 hours in the F-102. That’s a lot of hours for a jet fighter jock.

31

Originally posted by AerynSun

From: Congress’ Joint Committee on Taxation -
[ul]
[li]Those making more than $200,000 will pay 42.7% of all federal income taxes this year.[/li][li]Those making more than $100,000 will pay 66% of all federal income taxes.[/li][li]Those making more than $50,000 will pay 92.5% of all federal income taxes. (Note: I am in this group)[/li][li]NOTE: The top 1 % of taxpayers will pay 33.6 % of all federal income taxes.[/li][li]Note 2: Most people at or below $20,000 will incurr a NEGATIVE tax rate (not a tax break but a giveaway via wealth redistribution)due to the EITC.[/li][/ul]

In answer to AerynSun, I would submit that an across the board tax break like Bush proposes would be spent or invested. Either case is great for the economy in that an increase in consumer spending means a possibility of higher production rates requiring more labor/jobs, or investing means more capitol for overall business expansion also resulting in better job opportunities. The idea that a break for the wealthy merely means more SUV’s, boats, etc. is pure nonsense brought on by the have-nots who visulize that’s what they would do (Notes this is sarcastic). The wealthy already have whatever toys they want and IMHO I would bet the money will be invested in some form or fashion. Under Gore, at my income, with no kids left in the house (thank God :)), I get zilch, nada, zippo. Under Bush’s plan I will have around an extra $2500 that I can invest in a better retirement for my wife and myself.

Note the above figures on who is actually paying this country’s bills. If there is a surplus, give it back to the ones who paid it in the first place and watch the economy take off.

32

Spiritus, note that these are taken directly from the Washington Post article that CHD linked. I believe all the information is a verified and objective part of Gore’s record:

What else…religious studies school: an A- and five Fs (that’s what happens when you drop out). Law school: an 81 as a high grade.

I stand by my contention that Gore’s grades reflect mediocrity, certainly not the “excellent student” that was asserted earlier. If you want to process the above information and produce the result that Gore is a good example of academic excellence, go right ahead. If this is the kind of student that can graduate cum laude, then the word has no meaning, other than “my daddy is a Senator.”

BTW, what is the GPA cutoff for cum laude at Harvard? Then, tell me how many students don’t graduate cum laude. I’m sure there is a veriable pack of cum laude graduates at Harvard. That’s where Gore fits in–right in the middle of the academic pack. Hence my term (and the Post’s as well) ‘mediocre.’

Now, I realize that university grades are not the end all and be all of intelligence. I happen to think Gore is pretty dumb in other ways as well.

33

I think it’s about .78 or so…notorious dimploma mill, dontcha know…

George Bush, you, me, most people we know…

Note how less-than-honest it is to equate “middle of his class at Harvard,” with “middle of the academic pack.”

And which college did you graduate with honors from, again?

“Hey, at Whatsamatta U, ‘cum laude’ really means something!”

As we say over to MFSD, “Aw,tell it to the Marines.”

I’m not voting for Al Gore because of his grades in ‘Etruscan pottery shards and you’ back in the day, I’m voting for Al because his stated position on one thing and another is similar to mine. Now, if you find him with a dead hooker in his trunk, he’s prolly got some ‘splainin’ to do, sure. Get back to us when that happens. Otherwise, let’s hear why you’re so for, say, vouchers, and other programs that don’t work and cost more money.

And that’s the name of that tune.

34

Specious.

Name any squadron in Nam that flew an F-102 in combat.

More P-47s were lost in training accidents than were shot down in Nam, as well.

Nah. This is simply the old reverse Laffer curve canard.

The Laffer curve showed that when a government in bad economic times raised taxes to increase revenue it had the opposite effect, in that the higher taxes suppressed the economy further. It was a religious truth among the Right around the time of Reagan that to reverse the Laffer curve, dropping taxes increased government income.

Reagan’s tax cuts had little to do with re-investment or economic recovery. Volcker’s heavy hand on the Fed finally killed inflation (and Greenspan has kept that as a mantra), and made investment attractive to a lot of people who had been playing other games with their money to beat inflation.

Reagan’s “lower taxes” simply ran up the deficit–which actually competed with serious investment, except that the lower inflation made investment attractive anyway.

Reagan’s lower taxes did not seriously injure the country (and we’re all glad to be paying less–provided we make enough to have actually benefitted from the '86 rate changes), but they had far less to do with “stimulating” the economy than a whole raft of other events that occurred at the same time.

35

Tomndebb: The F-102 flew combat missions in Vietnam for a long time. The 590th Fighter Squadron and the 405th FW, plus other assorted units all flew the F-102. F-102’s were active in SE Asia from the start of the war until 1969.

As for how dangerous these fighters were… For example, Germany bought 935 F-104’s in 1963, and by mid 1965 61 of them had crashed. This was a higher rate that the norm, but not that much so. The fact is that flying military jets in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s was extremely dangerous.

36

Oh, boy. Meat on the table.

“. Aircraft from the 590th Fighter Interceptor Squadron were transferred to Tan Son Nhut AFB near Saigon in South Vietnam in March of 1962 to provide air defense against the unlikely event that North Vietnamese aircraft would attack the South. F-102As continued to be based there and in Thailand throughout much of the Vietnam war. F-102As stood alert at Bien Hoa and Da Nang in South Vietnam and at Udorn and Don Muang in Thailand. The F-102A was finally withdrawn from Southeast Asia in December of 1969. The F-102A established an excellent safety record in Vietnam. In almost ten years of flying air defense and a few combat air patrols for SAC B-52s, only 15 F-102As were lost. Although a few missions were flown over North Vietnam, the Southeast Asia-stationed F-102As are not thought to have actually engaged in air-to-air combat. However, one of my references has an F-102A of the 509th FIS being lost to an air-to-air missile fired by a MiG-21 while flying a CAP over Route Package IV on February 3, 1968. Two were lost to AAA/small arms fire and four were destroyed on the ground by the Viet Cong and eight were lost in operational accidents.”
Let’s look at that again:

"The F-102A established an excellent safety record in Vietnam. "

How dangerous was the F-102?

"The F-102A established an excellent safety record in Vietnam. "

What does that mean?

". In almost ten years of flying air defense and a few combat air patrols for SAC B-52s, only 15 F-102As were lost. "

Hardly sounds like a dangerous airplane to me, Sam. I mean, how dangerous can it be if " In almost ten years of flying air defense and a few combat air patrols for SAC B-52s, only 15 F-102As were lost"?

I continue to be skeptical of how much flying, or service of any sort, Bush did in the guard:

http://www.decaturdaily.com/decaturdaily/news/000703/bush.shtml

And:

http://www.onlinejournal.com/Other_Current/AirGuard/airguard.html

37

Forgot the URL for that…

http://members.tripod.com/~Wobert/f102a2.html

38

divemaster writes:

> Now, I realize that university grades are not the end all
> and be all of intelligence. I happen to think Gore is
> pretty dumb in other ways as well.

Do you mean anything by this other than “Gore’s political positions are different than mine. Obviously, no intelligent person can come to different political positions than mine, so Gore must be dumb.” Anyway, what’s the point in arguing about whether Gore was a fairly good student or just a mediocre one? In any case, it’s clear that he was at least a little better student than Bush, and it’s also clear that neither of them was the world’s greatest student and each of them had it easy because their father was rich and famous.

I thought this thread was going to be about whether Gore has been lying. Why don’t the people who think that Gore has lied post some examples, and we can decide whether they are in fact lies?

39

Please read my first and second posts on this thread. I haven’t even espoused any political positions on this thread. I’ve indicated that Gore doesn’t learn from his mistakes, has a tin ear for political style and the way he comes across, and obviously didn’t take the advice of his advisors when they told him to knock off the exaggerations. These have nothing to do with political positions.

I thought that was exactly what I was trying to say. Others on this board are trying to make the case of Gore’s academic excellence or superior smarts. I didn’t bring it up, but given the record, it’s hard to sit by and let such assertions go by unchallenged.

I think other posts in this thread, in fact, much of the GD forum have catalogued Gore’s lies/exaggerations. Plenty of links and newspaper articles have been cited. The major domestic news story this past week was Gore’s tendancy to exaggerate. If you still haven’t decided which of these constitute lies, and which ones are mere political tall tales or embellishments, I doubt anything I repeat will cause you to reconsider.

The only thing that I can say to CHD’s post is to ask what is heck’s name does my (or anybody else’s) academic achievement have to do with anything? I’m too modest to post the specifics of my academic achievements, but I assure you, the terms M.S., 4.0, and ‘hard science’ curriculum play a large part.

If you want a voucher debate, start a new thread.

40

I’m countering assertions that:

A) Al Gore was a mediocre student. Mediocre students don’t graduate “with honors” from prestigious academic institutions.

(No, Al didn’t get an A in every class he took.)

B) Everyone who attended Harvard graduated with honors, which is a patently absurd claim on your part.

People who are proud of how modest they are get on my last Irish nerve.

I don’t want a voucher debate, I wanted to explain why I support someone who (horrors!) claims little Suzie Floopjack has to stand in an overcrowded classroom when in fact she only had to stand one day, and can now sit among 35 other desks in a classroom designed for 23, or claims to have taken the initiative in creating the internet when in fact he was a real bug about “the information superhighway” in the Senate or whatever.

I mean, cry-yi-yi-miney, don’t you have something better? How can you support someone who traded Sammy Sosa for Harold Baines, you know? Didn’t the GOP learn anything about playah-hating through phony moral posturing during the impeachment?