Hey adaher – how about Romney saying in private that 47 percent are (my words) suckers who will vote only for Big Gummint handouts and he doesn’t even try to appeal to them, and then in his apology for those remarks saying he wants to do his best for them?
Compare:
“My job is not to worry about those people – I’ll never convince them that they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.”
… to…
“This whole campaign is about the 100 percent.”
If there’s ever a binary position on a core belief, I think it’s reflected in one or the other of those two statements. Which makes one or the other of the OTHER statements a lie – which is a term I very rarely use.
Republicans are always upfront about their core beliefs and plans, eh?
I agree, but it’s a useful list of examples of politicians adopting opposing positions at different times. In order to determine why they did so, you have to look at each individual case. Some were lies, some position shifts for political expediency, and some genuine changes in what they believed was the right position or action.
I’m inclined to think Obama played down support for gay marriage in the early days to avoid giving ammunition to his opponents and later, when it was shown to be a more popular position, was able to support it without fear of sustaining damage for doing so. But I’m not a mindreader, and certainly my own views on various subjects have changed over the years so who knows?
You don’t have to be a mindreader. David Axelrod gave the account of what happened definitively:
Lies don’t get much more obvious than that, and one thing I have to grudgingly admire about the Obama administration is how freely ex-Obama people discuss the lies he’s told. I guess that’s a new kind of politics, sort of.
I think you mean this as a backhanded insult, but it sounds like a compliment. Yes, it’s actually a good thing – not that he lied, but that he’s not really trying to hide it afterwards.
There is no politician, and there never will be, who doesn’t lie like this sometimes. McCain is a liar just as much as Obama is, or Clinton is. They all lie, to get elected, to protect their policies and legacies, to get legislation passed, or simply because of stubbornness and ego. The difference is the policies.
You don’t have to read his mind. He was explicitly in favor of gay marriage in 1996, in writing over his own signature. He pretty much has to have been lying, either in 1996 or 2008 or even perhaps both times, but 2008 is the most likely. Pretty much nobody was honestly in favor in 1996, against in 2008 (but refusing to really say it strongly), and in favor again in 2012.
McCain did not do this. When he flipped on immigration in 2008, he said, “I have heard you” to Republican primary voters. He never tried to pretend his personal beliefs and the beliefs of his base were aligned. Obama could have said, “While I personally support gay marriage I understand that most Americans disagree and I will not pursue action on that front or support action on that front as long as that is the case.” Then when he did change his administration’s policy, it would have been consistent with what he’d already said.
And that’s my issue with the Democratic version of this tactic. Democrats try to signal to the Silent Majority, “I’m one of you. I’m cool on guns, gays, and God, I’m going to shrink government, and I’m not like those other Democrats”. And when that turns out not to be true, liberals wonder why we just assume that all Democrats are atheist gun-grabbers.
That’s the whole point of my OP, that Democrats play down their more liberal beliefs or actually simply state the opposite is true, to avoid entirely legitimate attacks on their positions on the issues.
McCain has lied in plenty of other ways – how about saying Obama was “directly responsible” for the Orlando attack, then saying he misspoke? Saying Obama and Bill Ayers ran a “radical education foundation” together? Saying “I never considered myself a maverick”? There are many other examples.
More silly fact-free broad-brushing. You’re just not separating your own feelings and wishful thinking from actual facts.
Yes, he’s human, he’s told some whoppers. these are equivalent to Clinton claiming her grandparents were foreign(or whatever exactly that small controversy was about). For some reason people tell really dumb, unnecessary whoppers of little consequence all the time. And sure, these are lies and should be called as such. They are also far less consequential than lying to protect yourself from legitimate inquiries into your ethical conduct. Clinton isn’t regarded as dishonest because of her crazy grandparent quote, or because both she and McCain said Obama wanted to “bomb Pakistan”. She’s regarded as dishonest because she’ll lie and lie and lie endlessly to cover up scandal, and even when busted cold, she’ll continue to lie. One of her Pants on Fire statements is a misrepresentation of what Comey told the public. THAT’s the kind of thing that’s been destroying her reputation with voters.
Noticed I’m in the wrong thread. The issue in this thread is taking knowingly false positions on issues that you intend to reverse at the first opportunity once elected. TPP, as we all know, is a big one for Clinton. Did McCain have a single issue where he flip flopped just for the campaign? Would it have killed Clinton to just say, “I realize many of my fellow Democrats don’t support TPP and I’ve heard them and will honor their wishes.”? Well,I guess that wouldn’t work because she has no intention of honoring anything. She’ll get a couple of cosmetic changes to TPP and then send it to Congress.
adaher - do you want to continue talking about those lying Democrats, or address the question you had in the OP – do Republicans deceive voters on core beliefs – and my direct answers to your question?
Romney lied about the 47 or 100 percent, right? This is the sort of thing that you said Republicans don’t do, right?
The endless media focus on Hillary Clinton’s supposed scandals, most of which are bullshit, are a big part of “destroying her reputation” (not that it’s destroyed, just harmed). Trump is far more dishonest, but Lauer pressed Clinton on off-topic bullshit, interrupting her and complaining about time, while he did neither for Trump, last night. The media’s insistence on repeating folk wisdom without fact checking is part of this.
Hillary is far from perfectly honest, but her “reputation” is as much from media bullshit and right-wing infotainment lies as it is from her own behavior, if not more so.
McCain flipped on issues, you just have excuses for why they don’t count. He flipped on whether the likes of Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson were extremists between 2000 and 2008, as well as many policy issues.
Yes, McCain is special for you. But just for you – your special affection for him doesn’t mean that I’m going to think he’s special too.
Making up with old enemies does not count as deception, sorry. McCain’s only major policy flip was on immigration and he explained it in as direct a way as one possibly can: it was not his preferred course, but he was going to represent those who voted for him.
Forget wanting McCain to be special, you practically need him to be corrupt because he represented real integrity and change whereas Obama lied his ass off to beat both Clinton and McCain. Politics ain’t beanbag but we can fairly distinguish between those who play the game to win and those who believe it’s more important to play it with honor than to win. McCain himself made a statement very much like this, saying he’d rather lose the Presidency than lose the war, which is why he supported the surge. Was Obama capable of such a statement? He certainly didn’t think gays were worth his candidacy. Neither did he think that keeping the faith with younger voters who liked the fact he wouldn’t make them buy health insurance was worth it. Obama came first. Everyone else had to wait, or just get plain screwed.
McCain proved his worth when he picked Sarah Palin as his running mate; he was willing to whore himself out for the party’s approval. Sorry you hate President Obama–most of us don’t.
Of course, Trump is exempt from the topic in the OP: he has no core beliefs. But he’s your party’s choice. Live with it.
I’m pretty sure Ms Clinton will win–but doubt the Republicans will be punished sufficiently for putting that idiot on the ballot. And for their intransigence against Obama. But at least they have stayed true to their Core Belief: Hate The Black President.
Not on the Dope, sure. Americans have tended to take a dimmer view, although he’s admittedly looking a lot better thanks to our wonderful election.
As for McCain, McCain proved that he was too impulsive to be President. From his pick of Palin to his rush to “suspend” his campaign for the financial crisis and drag Obama to the White HOuse for a useless meeting, that cost him his credibility. But no one questioned his honesty. There’s a big difference. Obama, on the other hand, lied early and often. I’d forgotten a biggie: his promise to take federal funding. Despite the fact McCain took federal funding, Obama decided he’d rather have the money advantage than the moral high ground of keeping his promises. And that’s not just a broken promise. The facts never changed, there was no evolution. He made the promise to beat Clinton and then abandoned it once that was done.
Well, at least you have a ready made excuse when Clinton is more successful in dealing with them.
There are tons more. It doesn’t take much effort to find them.
He’s not “corrupt”, at least not any more so than other politicians. He’s just a typical politician – pretty savvy, but not enough to beat a good presidential candidate. He’s no more honorable than Obama or Clinton. I think he’s a lot less so, since I think a willingness to sacrifice American lives for nothing more than stubbornness and ego is dishonorable, but that’s just my opinion.
He supported the surge out of stubbornness and ego, since he couldn’t admit what a disaster the war was. It was already lost – there was no winning. The surge just delayed a withdrawal, and got more Americans killed for nothing. McCain either deluded himself or just flat out lied to the public to protect his own past support of the war.
Attack Obama on this stuff all you want – I don’t support him because I think he’s a paragon of honesty, but rather because I generally support what he’s done as President. He’s been far more honorable towards our military than McCain would be, since he wouldn’t throw their lives away for nothing like McCain.
Did they take your goalpost with them? It’s certainly moved somewhere…
iiandyiiii - I’d add McCain’s flipflop on gays in the military. He was all for letting the military leadership decide whether gays should be allowed to openly serve…until the military leadership said they were fine with it, at which point McCain decided he didn’t want to leave it to them at all.