Check out this article at the Washington Times. It answers a lot of your questions about sources.
This statement appalls me. Everyone knows that Gore traveled often with FEMA. So one time he thought he did due to a similar situation when in fact he didn’t. This “lie” is about on part with Bush’s malapropisms and mispronounciations. A slip of the tongue, perhaps a brain fart. If you accept and forgive one, you must accept the other.
I find it hard to believe that this is more important than two years of AWOL and a bucketload of curiously missing documents. Perhaps JustAnotherGuy can explain how he arrives at criteria for evaluating these “lies” lest I jump to the conclusion that he is ludicrously out of his mind.
Good to see you, Spiritus. I always appreciate your considered posts.
Regards,
MR
A typical conservative tactic . . . ad hominem attack.
Do I get point for double-irony?
Maeglin, good to see you, too. I am secretly hoping someone opens a thread call “Bush tells a lie” so that I can critique hypocrisy there, too.
Apparently not, apparently so, and apparently infinite, in respective order.
I’m no Huge Bush fan, but these quotes from Democrat.com crack me up. The Democratic party has spent 8 years claiming all this stuff just doesn’t matter:
IMHO Clinton has removed service in the Armed Forces and Vietnam specifically, from being a vote deciding issue either way. He has also made anything that happened more than a month ago “ancient history.” Past drug and alchohol abuse also don’t count anymore.
Bush is shady. No doubt about it. Both Bush and Gore got preferential treatment during Vietnam.
All that doesn’t change the fact that Gore is a pathological liar. Bush didn’t mangle the English language all that bad during the debate, Gore should have avoided all lies.
From what I have heard, his claim that his uncle was gassed in the Balkans looks like another exaggeration as well.
But assuredly not ludicrously out of my mind.
(let me briefly preface by introducing my sarcastic sense of humor, i.e. the intentional digs at liberals under a mask of stereotypes, since you don’t know me, well, you wouldn’t get that so I apologize for throwing all you bleeding hearts into one big vat of liberal stew)
1972… over 28 years ago.
The FEMA trip was when?
The human mind has an ability… or an objective to rationalize and reason itself into a more positive way of considering itself.
I have read the alleged Bush transgression and there is ALOT of inference made by the Democratic Party. Very little fact is published. I have been in the National Guard. I was AWOL for my last year and received an Honorable Discharge. There is no favoritism to Bush or the rich, I am neither.
It is quite possible that he made other arrangements to complete his time and his duty as he alleges. That is no more an inference than that he was banned from flying for substance abuse or that the files were ‘lost’ because of who he was.
Now Gore’s lies on the other hand are exactly as you inferred, stupid lies. A liar, who lies about stupid and immaterial things is much more dangerous than someone who taints the truth to paint a better picture of themself on occassion. Here are just three examples where Mr. Gore abused the facts to meet his own goals. Completely off the cuff in the debate. That is dangerous. That is scary.
Mr. Bush’s lie is something he has been repeating over and over for years. Probably even convincing himself that it is the truth. That is not dangerous, it is more self-preservation. It is comparable to Clinton’s “I didn’t inhale” line.
One of the three examples given was an accurate statement. One of the three examples given has had no support offered for the assertion that it is inacurate. One of the three examples was an inaccurate statement, which might have been an intentional lie though the benefit Gore might hope to gain by that particular representation is unclear.
I conclude, therefore, that you are much more dangerous that Geaorge W Bush.
The most disconcerting thing about Gore’s lies are that they are not about important things. He doesn’t NEED to say these things, but he says them anyway. I’ve known a bunch of people like that in my life. You never know whether you can believe what they are saying, because they embellish even casual stories. It’s a fairly common character flaw.
For example, in talking to union supporters, Gore mentioned a union song and said that his mother used to sing it to him as a lullaby when he was a child. He was trying to make the point that he’s a union man down deep in his soul.
Unfortunately, it turns out that the song he mentioned wasn’t written until he was 27 years old. When questioned about it, Gore said that it was a ‘joke’.
We’ve all heard him try to take claim for the success of the internet (and yes, I know he didn’t say he invented it, but he did say that he took the initiative in creating it).
He said that he travelled to Texas with James Lee Witt to inspect the Texas fires, but it turns out that he was in Texas at a fund raiser, and didn’t even know if Lee Witt was there.
He has claimed that he ‘saw combat’ in Vietnam, when in fact he was a reporter and was never in an actual combat zone.
Again, none of these are particularly important, but that’s the point. He lies even when he doesn’t have to. That’s a troubling character flaw for a president, is it not?
Which is completely and utterly true. Observe.
The following is by Bob Kahn and V. Cerf, two individuals credited as being early innovators of the Internet. They are both still leading authorities on the history and development of this medium.
How many times must this “lie” be debunked? Al Gore did have a great impact on the development of the internet, and all of the accusations of his perfidy aren’t solid enough to plug a warm bucket of spit.
MR
Does anyone really believes that children are eating lunch at 9:30 a.m., an hour to hour and a half after school starts? Do you believe that there is an entire ‘shift’ worth of parents that would allow their children to eat lunch at that hour? Do we need to wait for someone to prove it is untrue?
And the other statement was not accurate.
Let me present the EXACT words…
“Her science class was supposed to be for 24 students,”
the vice president said during the debate. “She is the 36th
student in that classroom. . . . They can’t squeeze another
desk in for her, so she has to stand during class.”
They had another desk in for her that same day…
I doubt there was any squeezing at all…
She had to stand for one class, not she HAS to stand during class…
Noone has addressed the issue on either side of whether the classroom was supposed to be for 24 students and whether she was the 36th student. If someone can verify that, then his point is well made without the flourish of the latter part of the comment. The problem is embellishment of the truth on a consistent basis for no purpose. That is a pathological liar.
It might be best if we left the above accusation to whither on the vine. Chief architects of the internet and Newt Gingrich himself agree with the assertion that Gore did as he quoted (which was: *During my service in the United States Congress I took the initiative in creating the Internet. *)
A hypothetical situation:
The Mundi family moves to a new house. Their first night there, they are still waiting for their furniture to arrive, and for some reason the gas hasn’t been turned on yet.
I stop by to say hello, and the next day I go on national television and announce “The Mundi family’s children are made to sleep in blankets on the floor of an unheated house. Their parents feed them only take-out pizza and have no capability of washing their clothes.”
An accurate statement, no? But is it representative of the Mundi family’s normal everyday life?
Last year the Vice President made a straightforward
statement on his role. He said: “During my service in the United States Congress I took the initiative in creating the Internet.”
VS.
During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative to expand the Internet to what it is today.
A very subtle difference.
But just another example of pathological lying.
Unnecessary
Untrue
Undesirable behavior in the President of the United States
Chief: does it bother you at all, that your most enthusiastic supporter is Wildest Bill?
DITWD I was sort of hoping no one would notce that.
Or an example of someone speaking off the cuff. Could you honestly call whatever we had 10 and 20 ago the “internet”. If I showed someone the various BBS and school-to-school linkups etc., would they have thought that to be the same thing we use today to ICQ each other about hamsters dancing?
No, I thought not.
That difference is so subtle, it will take weeks to argue the difference of meaning in two people. Some people will see that as an equivalant statement. This board is proof.
I’m sure if we subject everyone to the editorial review (I’ll volunteer to be first just as long as George W. is right behind me) that Gore has been subject to, we’d be all made to be fools and liars.
Yes, a fine example.
I am referring, of course, to your post not Gore’s statements.
To be fair, I should perhaps call it hypocritical rather than pathological. It is indeed a subtle difference. Here’s a hint: if you have to twist words or split semantic hairs in order to call something a lie, then your case probably is not very strong. In this particular case, your subtle difference in fact is the reverse of the truth, since it implies that the Internet existed prior to Gore’s service in Congress.
Gore’s statement was not made in accusation of any one school, it was an example chosen to support a position that class sizes were too large. Now, if you wish to extend your analogy to a similar proposal I would be happy to answer it.
Personally, I feel that class size is a red herring in educational reform, but that does not seem to be the topic. Gore used an anecdote, which he communicated accurately, to put a concrete face on an abstract proposal. This is a rhetorical tactic common in politics. It is poor logic, but effective rhetoric. The “can’t squeeze another desk in” line does appear to have been an exageration for effect. Perhaps he owes an apology to all viewers who interpreted that statement as meaning that it was not possible to place another desk in the classroom without violating the laws of physics. Or perhaps said folks should stop grinding their axes long enough to develop a little perspective.
Could you honestly call
whatever we had 10 and 20 ago the “internet”.
Or computers = computers for that matter.
It seems similar to Bill Gates saying he invented…
ahem
took the initiative in creating the computer.
Now Bill might argue that point with you, but he’d still be stretching the truth just a tad.
Would the internet have come to be what it is today without the government? I think so. How much does anyone really and honestly think the government has to do with the Electronic Revolution? It is people and companies. College geeks invented the internet with their monochrome monitors. Kids with much more technological advancements than were around in our youth are designing things beyond our childhood imaginations.
Gore’s acceptance of credit for the internet in any respect would be akin to Willie Nelson claiming to have made your breakfast because of what he did for Farmers. Actually, Willie might have an edge there.
I may be wrong, I know little to nothing about the internet and how it works, but I believe it would have come to pass with or without Al Gore.
Well, surely someone would have discovered relativity if Einstein had never existed, for all of the physical and mathematical groundwork was in place. Someone would have written the Ode to Joy if Beethoven had not existed. After all, the Romantic movement was in full swing, everyone was reading Schiller and everyone knew about Kant’s transcendental metaphysics.
Why do people try so hard to deny credit where it may in fact be due? All of those college students in front of their monochrome monitors would have been masturbating if someone in government had not decided that the internet, or whatever name it bore thirty years ago, was something worth allocating a considerable amount of money to the universities for.
So what’s the big problem?
“Here’s a hint: if you have to twist words or split
semantic hairs in order to call something a lie, then your case probably is not very strong. In this particular case, your subtle difference in fact is the reverse of the truth, since it implies that the Internet existed prior to Gore’s service in Congress.”
Am I to understand then that Al Gore’s service in Congress predated the internet’s existence in your version of history? I used his exact quote, I didn’t twist any words or split any semantic hairs. I am simply pointing out that the things he has said are untrue. If the man can not mean what he says and say what he means to his own country, how can we expect him to do more for the international community?
Actually… even leaving that aside. If you would simply accept a lie as a lie and demean the importance of the lie, you would serve your liege much better than to attempt turning a lie into the truth.
I agree, these little twists of words (by GORE, not by me) are of extremely little importance to his point. Unfortunately, that is the mark of a pathological liar, which I, for one cannot take at their word for anything. If it was an isolated incident, I would say fine, let it go. How long did the Democrats bust on potatos vs potatoes? If it were a singular mis-step, I would say Republicans, get a life. But it gets down to a deeper issue as the same behavior is repeated time and time again.
I am somewhat biased as a Republican, as I am sure you are as a Democrat, but to deny the man stretches the truth on a consistent basis is blind fealty.
How much should his exaggerations of the truth affect your vote? That is a matter of opinion. Family Values and all the hoopla that the Republican’s wasted their campaign money on… did it work? Clinton smoking weed… So what? Clinton getting a hummer in the oval office… big deal! Al Gore pathologically exaggerating the truth… up to you.
But I don’t see how anyone can reason away the fact that he did it.