I thought frivolous lawsuits and extreme damage awards were antithetical to the conservative/Republican way of thinking. Is this a matter of IOKIYAR?
This is the lie that I selected by clicking the first link in “franken lies by ommission” in Google. By ommitting part of the quote and leaving out context Franken misrepresents Hume’s argument. Mhendo said Franken didn’t do this and asked for an example. There it is.
Then be true to yourself and be an asshole. I had just thought that maybe you could be better.
How so? I can’t see how Hume’s argument is altered in the slightest.
He didn’t.
And, because I like you Hentor, here’s some more Frankenlies:
http://www.frankenlies.com/lies/index.htm
And even more:
http://www.frankenlies.com/truth/index.htm
But, please don’t be offended that I’ve dared to question the veracity of your Holy leader, your infallible Frankenfuhrer.
Franken says "Brit Hume is “trivializing the danger that our soldiers are under” "It’s obscene and it’s offensive to those troops and their families.”
To support this statement, he misquotes Brit Hume “'Statistically speaking, U.S. soldiers have less of a chance of dying in Iraq than citizens have of being murdered in California.”
and then he says:
“And so what he was doing, the point of this was, that Fox News, and this is what I talk about in my book, is a shill for this administration and they were trying to say, ‘oh, it’s not so bad in Iraq. Everything’s under control in Iraq and our soldiers really are’ – and anyone who’s trivializing the danger that our soldiers are under there, and for every soldier that gets killed ten get wounded, for anyone who trivializes that, I think that’s obscene. And I’m sorry, I don’t apologize if, I don’t apologize for getting angry at someone who trivializes the danger that our troops are under and that’s why I’m going at Christmas and I just think that it’s obscene and it’s offensive to those troops and their families
He didn’t.”
So, Franken is using Brit Hume’s statement to illustrate the argument that Brit Hume and Fox news are deliberately understating the danger at the expense of soldiers in order to “shill” for the President.
What Hume actually said was: "“Statistically speaking, U.S. soldiers have less of a chance of dying from all causes in Iraq than citizens have of being murdered in California which is roughly the same geographical size.”
More importantly Franken lies about the context. The context was not to show that Iraq was safe for soldiers but to comment on Media priorities and how the media was focussed on troop casualties.
The full quote:
“Two hundred seventy seven U.S. soldiers have now died in Iraq, which means that, statistically speaking, U.S. soldiers have less of a chance of dying from all causes in Iraq than citizens have of being murdered in California which is roughly the same geographical size. The most recent statistics indicate California has more than 2,300 homicides each year, which means about 6.6 murders each day. Meanwhile, U.S. troops have been in Iraq for 160 days, which means they’re incurring about 1.7 deaths, including illness and accidents, each day”
Franken changed the quote, ommitted parts of it, and lied about the context in order to make it seem Brit Hume was arguing something he wasn’t.
It seems your little hate site has some honesty problems of its own.
This is the most patently ridiculous link I’ve read on these boards in at least a week, and it demonstrates such an abominable lack of critical reasoning on your part that I hardly know where to begin.
I’ll try to start with your own laziness in posting nothing except a link to a website whose arguments betray a greater distance between their given evidence and conclusions than the diameter of our own Milky Way galaxy. If you had actually bothered to provide your own arguments, based on evidence from that cite, my job in dissecting that pathetic drivel would be much more simple. But since your method of argument in that post consists only of linking to a pile of horseshit larger than some continents, I must instead wade through this shit in my demonstration of why you are being such a fucking idiot that I’m surprised you’re capable of typing right now.
The first ALL CAPITALIZED RED WORD in your link is “LIE!”, because of course the different color and caps-lock provide more weight for every jackass’s argument. Never mind making sense if you can change the color and size of your letters for emphasis.
So what’s supposed to be a “LIE!”? Franken, when he was a guest on The View, supposedly misquoted Brit Hume. The View is, if you’re not aware, a television show, so Franken had no ability to do what I’m about to do in my quotes:
The rules of quotation in writing are many, but the essence of them is that you are not to misrepresent the author’s statement (just as “Don’t be a jerk” is the essence of the SDMB rules).
The rules of quoting in public speaking are much less rigorous because human speech is much less formal, with tendencies to all sorts of interruptions, pauses, and repetitions. Given the nature of oral communication, and keeping in mind the essential rule of not misrepresenting the source, Franken’s quote of Brit Hume was perfectly adequate, given its context. Even the slime you cited agreed that Franken had not changed Hume’s meaning in any significant way, and I’ve already demonstrated that with the proper punctuation (which, I feel I should remind you in case you’re unaware, spoken speech does not contain), Franken’s quote becomes perfectly acceptable even in a highly structured written setting.
I bring this up, though it isn’t your favorite jackass’s main point, because I’m primarily angry at you and not the jackass you’ve chosen to represent your arguments. Anyone with any bit of interest in how arguments work should have had the bright red warning claxons firing in their head. Remember your little dwarf in that very funny story about the blimp? He should’ve been activated at this moment. And yet he wasn’t. There is no excuse for that. The internet is full of jackasses, but you don’t have to link to them when they provide such wonderful examples of how worthless their thoughts are.
Returning to your chosen jackass’s main idea, his argument is that Hume was most interested in “media priorities”. This should be ridiculously easy to prove if you quoted the entirety of Hume’s Grapevine and highlight (perhaps in red) where Hume talks about the skew of media priorities.
Your jackass does quote the Grapevine segment “in full”, and guess what does not show up once? Fuck, I’m not even gonna bother quoting that. You can look it up yourself if you have the inclination, but “media priorities”, no matter what color you spell it in, does not show up in Hume’s Grapevine, as quoted by this dude. What’s more, even the word “media” doesn’t show up in this dude’s quote at all. It’s not about the media at all, but simply the comparative death numbers. It’s rare to see a quote “in full” so utterly fail at supporting a conclusion.
Your jackass argues on that “Hume was trying to contrast the raw number of murders occurring in the two places (hence the phrase ‘statistically speaking’ opposed to ‘the value of human life speaking’)”. Jesus Christ, it’s almost impressive how he managed to put so much idiocy into so small a space.
I’ve had two stat classes in my life, and I can tell you right fucking now that “statistically speaking” is not some codeword for “raw numbers”, nor are per-capita figures (what Franken did) used for “value of human life speaking”, whatever that’s supposed to be. He pulled that interpretation straight from his ass, which is not a surprise since it appears that he spends most of his freetime with his head there in a detailed examination of his own feces. In addition, Hume doesn’t even fucking use the “raw numbers”; that bastard averages the numbers over the days in order to make a comparison with California.
Again, you would have noticed this if you’d been paying even the slightest bit of attention. That is, assuming you have the cognitive capacities to notice such things.
And you know what? Even if the topic really had been media priorities, which seems highly fucking unlikely now, Al Franken is still right. If you want to come to some sort of conclusion, and you manipulate the evidence you use to support your argument, then you’re being really fucking dishonest. And that is what Hume did. If bias in the media is your concern, then you do not manipulate the numbers into it looking like California is more dangerous than Iraq. A per capita comparison, as Franken did, is the only honest way to make such a comparison of non-bulk numbers, and like Franken said, Hume is a fucking asshole, and he is totally fucking shameless for doing otherwise.
Franken is right, and your chosen jackass does nothing more but reinforce that fact.
You’re a funny guy sometimes, Scylla. I’m thinking that you’re also a total fucking idiot, but I’m willing to be proven wrong on that point.
Franken does not belong to the group you’re talking about, and reading his books first hand instead of the second-hand sewer of the internet might help you realize that.
I also don’t believe that Franken is any kind of prophet or whatever. I think his arguments could be better constructed and his books more powerfully written, but he is honest in what he has done and said, even if you think he’s wrong. And he certainly stands worlds apart from those people you’re wanting to compare him to.
On preview after this long damn post, I see you’ve posted two more of these “frankenlies” without further commentary, and then used the term “Frankenfuhrer”. Which just proves you’re a fucking idiot.
To recap: Franken’s quote of Hume is not a distortion, even according to the jackass you quoted. Hume wasn’t talking about media priorities, and you’re an idiot to look at that quote and think otherwise. Hume was trivializing the danger in Iraq, just as Franken said.
You can still be pretty funny, though, you dumbass. Credit where it’s due.
All completely accurate.
But as we’ve seen, that’s not a misquote. slight paraphrase, maybe, but there is no semantic difference between “dying in Iraq” adn “dying of all causes in Iraq” (except that the latter represents a bit of weaselliness on Hume’s part.
and then he says:
“And so what he was doing, the point of this was, that Fox News, and this is what I talk about in my book, is a shill for this administration and they were trying to say, ‘oh, it’s not so bad in Iraq. Everything’s under control in Iraq and our soldiers really are’ – and anyone who’s trivializing the danger that our soldiers are under there, and for every soldier that gets killed ten get wounded, for anyone who trivializes that, I think that’s obscene. And I’m sorry, I don’t apologize if, I don’t apologize for getting angry at someone who trivializes the danger that our troops are under and that’s why I’m going at Christmas and I just think that it’s obscene and it’s offensive to those troops and their families
He didn’t.”
So, Franken is using Brit Hume’s statement to illustrate the argument that Brit Hume and Fox news are deliberately understating the danger at the expense of soldiers in order to “shill” for the President.
[/quote]
Do you actually deny any of that? 
It seems pretty balls on accurate to me.
Which has exactly zero significant difference from Franken’s paraphrase.
How so? Franken said nothing about the context. He just claimed that Hume had said it. He did not paint a picture of the context.
The context is irrelevant. The implication (and motivation for) Hume’s words are not altered by knowing the context. He took the opportunity to try to belittle and downplay the dangers for troops in the field. Franken’s representation was accurate. Hume is indeed a water boy for the Bush White House as is the entire Fox News Network (rent Outfoxed sometime if you can. It will leave you with no doubt as to the network’s allegiance).
The parts he ommitted were irrelevant, he lied about nothing and he wasn’t wrong about the message that Hume was trying to send.
Bolding mine.
Well, speaking of people who play fast and loose with their attributions…
Here is the sum total of my comments about Al Franken in this thread:
and
Please point out where i said that Franken doesn’t lie by ommission.
FWIW, i don’t even agree with that what Franken did constituted a lie of ommission, but if you’re going to criticize him for misrepresenting the views of his opponents, you might want to b a little more careful yourself.
Looking at the quality of the first link you posted on Franklen, I wonder why we should look at this.
But just for laughs, I checked the 2nd link here and the first item has:
http://www.frankenlies.com/truth/duelfer.htm
The WMD! Sounds familiar, and their points and Notes are a riot:
Well, looking on my own:
The Duelfer Report
Now, it is funny to say Saddam learned a lesson if we want to insist desert fox was useless regarding the WMD (it can be pointed that even there Saddam had only the intention to develop WMD, but clearly Desert Fox put a stop to even that since inspectors later got in with more freedom to do their job.)
Even the notes in Frankenlies here are IMO lies, even a recent discussion on the dope about Syria getting the WMD showed the reports about that to be very doubtful.
So the Frankenlie guys are taking you for a ride Scylla.
Alright Scylla, let’s say for the sake of argument that Brit Hume was making some kind of point about media portrayals. How would that make Franken a liar? Franken accused Hume of using a factoid that dishonestly represented deaths in Iraq as being lower than they actually are, and thereby shill for the administration and trivialize soldier’s deaths.
First off, regardless of what argument it is contained in, this dishonest factoid trivializes soldier’s deaths. Any argument that relies on deceiving the audience into thinking soldiers are safer than Californians trivializes soldier’s deaths whether or not the argument is about how bad it is in Iraq, how the media portrays it, or about whether Grandma’s cookies are better than store bought.
The shill bit is harder, but not a stretch by any means. The first thing to realize is that “shilling” here is a completely subjective accusation. If you ask Brit Hume if he was a shill for the administration, he would probably say no, and believe that he was being honest. If you ask Al Franken if Brit Hume was a shill for the administration, he would say yes, and believe that he was being honest.
Imagine for a minute if Fox News had a section every night reserved for good news in Iraq, and never reported any soldier’s deaths except during none peak hours. Would they be shilling for the administration? some would say no, they are just reporting the news, and all news stations control their news to emphasize what people want to hear, and others would say it is shilling to slant the coverage in this way. Both sides have a reasonable point.
What if Fox News started making up the good news in Iraq? most people would agree that making up news that makes the president looks good would be shilling for him.
What if Fox News started making up the good news in an effort to attack other news stations for being too negative, and not reporting the good news that Fox News report? Is that shilling for the government? Fox News is still making up news to make the president look better. The idea expressed to the viewing public is supposed to be “don’t trust those other biased, negative nabob news sources, only trust the good news here at Fox News, where we say good things about the president.” This is an obvious shill, and calling it such can’t be considered dishonest.
An argument could be made that the shill is just a side effect of the “don’t trust other networks” argument, but that is just arguing that they are greedy dishonest shills, rather than just dishonest shills.
Okay, I’ll be true to myself. Posting this bullshit claim about Franken, failing to respond to the clear problems with the cite you brought, and following that up with a couple of links you dug up, likely in desperation, makes it clear that you are a cunt. And a fairly stupid person who doesn’t understand very simple statistics.
The fact that morons, like yourself, buy Brit Hume’s reasoning is supportive of the very argument that Franken goes on to make. Hume’s a shill throwing out logically challenged arguments so that folks like you don’t even have to take a moment to wipe the drool from your chin to think.
Care to rebut the matter, or do you just want to keep personalizing this, you stupid cunt?
Here’s some more info on the Peter Damon lawsuit. Now it’s from a blog with an obvious bias so I wouldn’t go by anything the writer says but he does cite his sources and for the most part they seem reliable. Hardly an end-all-be-all but it provides a good overview and an excellent starting point for research.
From the last link:
Take into account that Damon said that the lawsuit was “for allegedly taking the interview “out of context” and “misleading” people into thinking that he wasn’t in full support of the Iraq war effort.”
Well, this needs confirmation, but I think it is hard to find 2 sergeants named Peter Damon and both losing their arms in Iraq.
Interesting bit: it is true that Moore recommended supporting “Home For Our Troops” from way back:
http://www.fahrenheit911.com/soldiers/
A charitable organization that gave Sgt. Damon a home.
I just want to take a minute to thank Scylla for so throughly proving my point about Al Franken. I couldn’t have done a better job of it myself.
This is from way back, but people talking about how a documentary isn’t one if it isn’t balanced remind me of people talking about how evolution is “just” a theory. I do not think it means what you think it means, Vizzini.
My apologies to those making thoughtful counterarguments, but I’m going to walk away from this one. Maybe another time, in GD.
Okay - I apologize sincerely for being an asshole. Please return and explain why you thought your cite supported your argument, and why you believe that people are at greater risk to be murdered in CA than soldiers are to die in Iraq (if you really do believe this).
You can just go back to my first response, if you like, but I’d rather you didn’t simply post what you’ve posted so far and then not stick around to defend it. Specifically, I’d rather you didn’t lay the blame at the feet of “thoughtless posters” which I at times can be, when you should instead see your argument through to the end.
In a thread dealing with the merits of a lawsuit, it’s a pretty natural assumption that you’re talking about the law. If you’re not, it’s probably a good idea to specify that–otherwise, folks get confused and ornery :).
Daniel
:smack: Oh, Jesus. I thought I checked to see if there was a second page! Forgive me, please–I’m a doofus.
Daniel