I do hope that McCain wins (because I’m fiscally conservative and the Republicans are at least still paying lip service to that idea), but I’m able to discuss issues without just being all “my guy is the best, your guy sucks” like lots of other dopers. The “he’s a liar!” issue has been sticking in my craw, and this thread brought it to the fore, so I thought I’d discuss it. I don’t see that as obtructionist, pedantry, or stonewalling on a loophole (or whatever).
Okay, so not quite like John Mace. Still, I’ve gotten the vibe that you’re honest enough, unlike some whose sole purpose is to piss off the liberals. That you opened a GD thread to deal more properly with your issue is evidence of that. In this thread, it just seemed like you were using a technicality to get around either having to defend McCain or admit he screwed up, which is intensely infuriating to quite a few people.
(And yeah, I realize how partisan that last sentence sounds, but it’s really generalizable to either side. Defending Obama on technicalities rather than the meat of the argument makes my head hurt too, although IME it doesn’t happen nearly as often.)
And Euphonious Polemic, he’s not the only conservative on this board to say that. Between the Democrats who admit they’ll spend money and the Republicans who will spend more money but don’t admit it, some folks do actually prefer being at least told that the Republicans won’t spend as much, even if they know the truth of it. It baffles me, but there it is.
Well, yes. But voting for a Democrat would be much worse. And lots of Bush’s spending was for OK stuff (like the military). The Democrats don’t even pay lip service to fiscal conservatism.
Obama (especially with a Dem congress) would spend like a drunken sailor on shore leave, and the spending would all be for stooopid stuff like giving money to poor people.
Well, as I said earlier in this thread, in this particular instance, I doubt the McCain campaign was lying; I think they were trying to pre-empt a valid attack. On the other hand, as I’ve said in the lie thread, I think that many carefully thought out misrepresentations of a candidate’s own positions or their opponents positions are lies. Any commercial or speech that has been repeated on multiple occasions can, I assume, be taken as vetted by the campaign, and saying “I didn’t know; I was honestly mistaken,” especially when they never do say that, I think merits the term lie.
And, as I said in the other thread, I believe this can extend to situations where, while the candiate or his campaign never actually flat out states an untruth, s/he implies an untruth in such strong terms that a child would get the point. If you say “I broke my foot on Saturday, and then had surgery on Sunday,” people are going to assume that surgery was for the foot, not the appendicitis you were rushed to the hospital for. If you talk in a commerical about teaching to kindergarteners about sex, and at that very moment flash a news clipping about “comprehensive sex education” on the screen, people are going to assume that that news clipping is referring to the program for the kindergarteners, even though it may really have been referring to something completely different. These aren’t accidents.
Misrepresentations also qualify. If someone says she was against a program, when she actually campaigned in favor of it, and only came out against it when she was told she didn’t need to use the money in that way to get the money, that’s not exactly the the meaning of “thanks, but no thanks.” In fact, it’s not even close. Is there any way that could be considered an error, other than an error in judgment in presenting it that way? If the same person says she campaigned against earmarks for her state or city, when in reality she hired a lobbyist to get as many as he could (and he did a great job at it), is there any way this can be interpreted as an error? Is this person’s memory so faulty, or her ability to talk herself into the reality she wants to believe so great?
I am not calling these people liars, and I know very well that you can find exaggerations and even distortions from the Obama campaign - just check out factcheck.org. Nonetheless, the Obama campaign is bush-league (you’ll forgive the unintentional pun, I hope) in this when compared to the McCain campaign, and this is no surprise when you look at who is running McCain’s campaign - a major disciple of Karl Rove.
But I will say that whether consciously or not, you do try to distract from the topic of the untruth (regardless of what it’s called) by diverting the discussion as to whether or not it is a lie. The important thing here is that it is an untruth, and as the candidate, he should either not lie or know/check his facts better. Either choice makes the candidate look very bad.
One thing Obama did say at that rally, paraphrased, was, “Abraham Lincoln once told his opponent, and I’m telling John McCain; when you stop telling lies about me, I’ll stop telling truths about you.” I thought it was quite humorous.[/hijack]
Now, tom, that’s not true. He has never said “my guy is the best, your guy sucks.” He has said “my guy is so-so, but your guy’s worse and your guy’s supporters totally suck.”
You might have a point about spending for the military, if Bush had not pissed away all that money, and ended up with a military that was substantially weakened at the end of his tenure. But you go with that.
Let’s put it this way: If Obama STARTED his term with a giveaway of $4000 to each and every person in the US, that would only cover Bush’s bailout request for this week.
In a recent thread someone said that McCain “lied.”.
You were quite quick to point out that McCain didn’t actually lie in the statments provided.
Now it’s quite clear that in the statements McCain didn’t actually lie, and that’s all you were trying to point out.
But will you agree that John McCain said (regarding Chairman of the SEC) "“If I were president today, I would fire him”, and in saying that, made a statement he couldn’t keep, as he couldn’t fire that man.
And would you agree that technically he didn’t lie?
Just a few more questions for you.
John McCain said that IF he were President he would fire a specific person.
Considering he couldn’t actually fire that person, he said he WOULD. So that’s a lie isn’t it?
Imagine he said “If i was President, i would turn in to a television”.
A man can not turn in to a television, regardless of his public office.
I participated in that thread I disagreed with Rand BUT even I do not agree with the above comment. If McCain thought he could fire that person then he is stupid not a liar, in that particular instance. Similarly the televisioin comment makes the person delusional not a liar. Unless of course he had no intention of turning into a television…
You mean that you actually admit that the Republicans are only paying lip service to fiscal conservatism, and you still are going to vote for them? Boy, you really are a sucker. Maybe you should consider voting for the last party that ran a budget surplus.
You know, when you look at federal debt, it has increased by far the most under Republican presidents since WWII. The Republicans may pay lip service to fiscal responsibility, but the reality is the dead opposite.
Well, randis hanging out on the SDMB. There’s always hope that facts might matter.
ETA: I mean if fiscal responsibility and not posturing is what really matters to him.
ETAA: I should say rather than posturing “keeping every single penny of taxes possible,” because that’s really what it usually comes down to, isn’t it? Not fiscal responsibility. Just don’t raise my taxes.
Someone in the Obama campaign actually did plan on calling McCain on teh crazy. Leaving aside the validity of that, why not wait until they actually say it before responding? Or just pre-emptively correct him instead of pre-emptively attacking? Really, this is not likely to be the time to out your moles.
Nobody in the campaign planned on calling McCain on the comment, but the campaigners were convinced that someone did. While not exactly equivalent to “There’s WMDs in Iraq! Trust us!”, it does indicate that McCain pays serious attention to ninnies.
Nobody in the campaign planned on calling McCain on the comment, but in case they might do so (again, whether validly or no), let’s say they were GOING to, call them jerks for doing it, and rebut the statement before it never comes out!
Mr. Occam to the front desk, please?
I swear, step 1 in the Rove playbook must be “Attack at every possible opportunity.” Really, I would have just said “To preempt any possible misinterpretation of a simple misspoken phrase…” If I was feeling nasty, I’d substitute ‘exploitation’ for ‘misinterpretation’.
I really can’t tell.
