Well, IMHO there is no bigger lie now than opposing science just because it is inconvenient to the corporations that pollute. The author of The Republican war on science has this to say:
So the thread has devolved into whether or not the lie picked as Politifact’s “Biggest Lie of the Year” is actually the biggest lie of the year? That seems kind of weak to me.
The POV of a blogger was ascribed to the editorial position of NR as a whole
That MOIDALIZE had new business quoting the NR because he wouldn’t normally agree with them
Obviously BigT’s post that you quoted dealt entirely with objection two, and not objection one.
No, I’m not sure where you’re getting that. There are roughly three clusters of opinion in this thread: the ‘lie’ is not a lie; the lie is a lie, but it’s a minor one by comparison to some others; the lie is a lie, and it’s reasonable to consider it the lie of the year. All are actively being discussed.
Let us say that Medicare as we know it is a sheep, a sheep designed to ensure that as people age the government will pay for the medical care they need, regardless of their level of personal wealth. Now when Ryan set out a bill that replaced government payments with vouchers, vouchers DESIGNED to lag behind the rising cost of health care, so that many seniors would NOT be able to get the health care they needed, he might reasonably have been said to have replaced that sheep with a wolf. Sure, it still had sheep’s clothing … it was called Medicaid … but it was NOT anything like Medicaid as we know it.
So Politifact is calling the Dems liars for crying “wolf” when there IS in fact a wolf, on the grounds that it has SHEEP’S CLOTHING, i.e., it’s still called “Medicaid.”
Why? Did the ad claim those were actual pictures of people who had lost their medicare at some point in the future from the not yet determined end of medicare? I don’t know about you, but I don’t think a single person thought that. It wasn’t presented as a newsreel, it was clearly speculation.
As for killing Medicare, that is exactly what the Ryan Plan does, if by killing you mean substantially changing it, which is exactly what the Ryan Plan does according to Ryan. And that is the way the term is used in political rhetoric by all sides. If your claim of a lie is that the plan is not a living being which can be killed, well boy did you catch me on that one.
So what exactly is the lie being told here? Over and over again you’ve cast aspersions on the claim and found nothing but quibbles. No one is left with a misimpression as a result of the content of the ad. The producers of the ad are using common political techniques to highlight the disadvantages of a proposal, and ignore any advantages. That is the way politics is played. Ignorant people may see these ads and fail to grasp that an issue is more complex than what they have learned in 30 seconds, but that type of dishonesty permeates the system and is no more evident here than in any other political statement.
First, I disagree that’s what this thread has devolved into. Second, the thread should cover that, because if it is not a lie, or if it is only slightly misleading, then calling it the Lie of the Year would be wrong. If that’s the case, then Krugman may be justified in his assertions that PolitFact made it so to seem balanced.
Are you going to add something useful to this conversation, or just throw out one-liners that have nothing to do with the subject at hand? Are you here just to make fun of liberals or to debate the merits of the OP?
Yeah, his blog posts are often warm-ups for his columns. He also mentions this one in his column:
[QUOTE=Mitt Romney]
I will reverse President Obama’s massive defense cuts.
[/QUOTE]
Which is apparently completely untrue. Since Romney isn’t a member of this board, AFAIK, I’ll just go ahead and call him a liar right here in Great Debates.
Please describe the program for public supported health insurance as defined by Paul Ryan, referenced in the comments and ads in question.
Explain to me whether they are the same or different. You may include comparisons of their structure, function goals and likely outcomes.
For one who sometimes values a precision of language that borders on pathological, your stance here is at odds. I know that you cry foul when I suggest that your positions are driven simply by partisanship, but this thread is the perfect example. There are no two ways around it - the Ryan plan functionally, substantially, and in estimated outcomes ends Medicare. It’s that simple.
The truly disingenuous aspect of all this is that most Republicans in any other context would frankly acknowledge that ending Medicare is a party plank.
Mr. Ryan appears to be largely concerned that America’s health insurance industry shall not be further punished and persecuted. As many of you already know, America’s health insurance industry is the pride of the nation. Any conversation concerning them will be awash with a flood of happy anecdotes, Americans singing joyful praise for an industry that is humane, generous, and noble. How many times have you heard friends and neighbors gushing with joyful praise for the industry and its fervent determination to better the lives of its customers? I, for one, cannot even count them all.
To be sure, there are some critics and malcontents, the same sort of people who grumble darkly when it is suggested that we invest all of our Social Security funds into the vibrant and robust stock market, to be carefully managed by the same professionals who have brought such sound security to pension funds across the nation. These are people who don’t understand how the real world works, and can be safely ignored. Or shouted down, as the case may be.
While waiting for Bricker’s summary of the matter, I thought it might be helpful to find one of the many nutshell summaries of the issue. Here’s one from Gawker, specifically called out by PolitiFact in their pathetic and defensive defense of their decision:
It’s an entirely different program, one that will short recipients of the amount needed to cover their care. I’m reminded of the old SNL skit about a store selling knockoff electronics, repeatedly claiming that they have “Sony guts”. Here, the guts (and bones) of the program are completely different, no matter what label you put on it.
The problem is that Poltifact is misgrading these statements by their own scale:
The statement “Republicans voted to end Medicare” at worst should be graded Mostly False. There is definitely an element of truth to that statement, as the Republicans did vote to drastically change Medicare. Unfortunately, Politifact has fallen to the “present both sides of the argument” as the standard for balance. I mean, look at the article for one of Obama’s statements that made the top ten:
If he’s both right and wrong, then there is absolutely no way that they should rate the statement false. If it is partly right, then at worst it contains an element of truth, and should be rated mostly false. I mean here are the top 5 republican lies:
I’d be willing to call Romney’s an exaggeration, but the others are absolutely 100% false, with no room for debate. Compare that to the Deomcratic ones, which are exaggerations, not outright lies.
I don’t know how that was the lie of the year but I think the left has long considered outfits like politifact and truth generally as its ally for a long time now.
“Reality has a well-known liberal bias” - Stephen Colbert.
Joking aside, I would had put as lie of the year the one from the Republicans that goes like:
Because the scary thing is that almost all the Republicans in congress embrace it, not only Perry. It guarantees that even feeble attempts at dealing with the issue will be stopped for years to come.
I agree with the writer of The Republican war on science, many Republican ideas nowadays are not based in reality. Proposing a false equivalency like Politifact is doing here is also stretching the truth.
I have no idea who ‘the left’ are, but I’ve never met anyone who thought Politifact could tell the truth from a hole in their ass. I imagine many people have done what Bricker is doing here, giving credence to Politifact when their incoherent rants support a particular opinion.
