Oh, good grief! I don’t believe that a majority of Democrats believe that. Complex Conjugate asked if anyone had ever been mislead. I did an experiment and found that yes, somebody had.
Do you people honestly believe that there isn’t one single solitary person that has been mislead by this ad? Do you honestly think that the DNC wasn’t trying to sway ignorant swing voters?
I don’t like deception practiced by either party. It appears that any tactic achieving the result you want is acceptable to you. Clearly, this thread isn’t going to go anywhere.
Completely false analogy. Yes, of course, if someone is asked the question “Did President Bush ever get arrested for DUI?” then the answer is yes. However, if there is a huge debate about whether Bush still had a drinking problem at the time that he assumed the Presidency, with many Democrats claiming he did and actually impeaching him for it. And then a definitive report comes out concluding that he did not have a drinking problem at that point. And, the RNC issues an advertisement in which they say, “The Democrats claimed Bush had a drinking problem and impeached him because of it, but we now know that Bush did not have a drinking problem,” then I would say their advertisement is honest even though they did not explicitly point out in the ad that he did have a drinking problem back 25 years ago.
Nobody has said anything that could possibly be construed that way. You have decided that if someone doesn’t agree with you, it must be for this reason and no other, and certainly not because you’re, you know, wrong.
Even if people don’t understand the context and inference, even if this ad leads them to believe that Saddam never had the weapons, why should that translate into voting for Kerry? Nobody has ever disputed that Saddam once had the weapons, nobody opposed Bush’s war on the grounds that Saddam never had the weapons. Just that he didn’t still have them.
Why does it even matter? Can you give an example of what the DNC or gobear would have to gain by implying that Iraq NEVER had WMD’s? It seems rather silly to me. Their intent is to show that Bush started a war for a reason that turned out not to be true. That’s now universally accepted as a fact. That universally accepted fact is what they want you to consider. Had Bush started a war because Iraq had WMD’s 15 years ago, and the DNC had come out with the same ad, you’d have a point. He did’t, you don’t.
Well, you said “Try going out on the street and talking to voters of average intelligence. Ask them if Iraq ever had WMD. I’ve tried this experiment, and** a large number** [emphasis mine] of Democrats say that no, Iraq never had them.”
I never stated that there wasn’t a single soul in the U.S. who was divorced enough from reality to believe that Iraq never had WMD. However, your survey methodology is suspect, to put it mildly. How do you know the IQ and party affiliation of the people you ask, or even whether they are registered voters? (This assumes, of course, that your “survey,” such as it is, is anything more than just your general impressions of people with whom you’ve chatted.)
Do I believe that the DNC is trying to mislead people with this ad? Well, if you consider phrasing factual information in a manner that best states your case to be misleading, then heck, I guess everyone in politics misleads people for a living. However, I believe if anyone is divorced from reality, it’s the people who think that Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden are best drinking buddies, but that’s neither here nor there.
And if you’re worried about my grandma’s ability to separate truth from distortion, in spite of her lack of formal education, well, I think either of my grandmas would surprise the pants off of you.
What point? “Because he could” might very well indicate the poster’s appreciation for the difficulties of delivering WMDs to a target halfway around the world, vs. at most a hundred miles away.
My annotations show where regular grammar indicates a context. The “he” referred to in (1) is President George W Bush. The same sentence has a dependent clause: (2).
That dependent clause occurs within the context of (1), that is, the Presidency of George W Bush. Accordingly the sentence implies through regular grammar that:
there were no weapons of mass destruction, during the period when George W Bush was President.
Further, the timing and context of the advertisement emphasise the implied time period.
InvisibleWombat, you state that the DNC ad is misleading because it does not specify a time period regarding the presence of WMD. You apparently feel that it is not acceptable to assume the viewer will understand the time period under discussion is during Bush’s run-up to war.
Why, then, do you make an assumption about the location being discussed? The ad doesn’t mention Iraq, in addition to not mentioning a time-period. You should be upset that the DNC is implying that WMD never existed anywhere!!!
Or, on the other hand, you should recognize that if you are able to perceive that the ad is talking about Iraq, most people will also be able to perceive that it is talking about Iraq during a particular time period.
Okay…I can’t believe a low-post count person such as myself has to point this out to all of you.
Listen to the commercial again (at least in the version I’m getting from the link, perhaps Wombat has seen a different version) and it says “No one can tell him he’s wrong…even though there were no weapons of mass destruction…the deficit has never been higher…” yada yada yada…
Since we’re going to be EXTREMELY picky on the subtext and context, etc…etc, the commercial also never uses the word “Iraq”. So how is the DNC being misleading about the fact that there were NEVER WMD in Iraq. They never even mention Iraq. Hmmmm…could that be context that is making InvisibleWombat assume they are talking about Iraq?
I’ll go back to my closet now…nice mingling with the big boys (and girls) for a bit…
Wally
Why are you making bizarre accusations? What kind of absurd argument are you trying to make with such slanderous non sequiturs?
The statements made above reflect well known facts, both before (by some) and after (by all) Bush’s invasion of Iraq: At worst Saddam Hussein lacked the means to attack the United States from Iraq directly, had no WMD stockpiles that could be given to terrorists to make an indirect attack, and hence did not pose an immediate (or even foreseably future) threat to the U.S. These facts are directly contrary to all the assertions made by the Bush administration, and hence are highly relevant to this debate. That Saddam Hussein could attack Iraqis in no way changes these facts. The war in Iraq was never predicated on the need to free the Iraqis from Saddam’s oppression; it was said to be necessary for American security. Pointing out that the war obviously was not necessary for our own safety does not in any way amount to defending Saddam Hussein.
Thanks for the welcome Hentor