What I have said, repeatedly is that [SIZE=5]***as a matter of politics ** * it is better not to call it a lie. [/SIZE]
Please read that sentance as many times as necessary.
As matter of morals, I am fully in agreement with you. But politics isn’t about being morally pure or right on the facts. It is about creating impressions and winning people over. It is not about waving the tattered banner and calling together the wise and the pure; it is about making yourself palatable enough to people who only half-agree with you that they pull your lever. It is about persuasion.
Insisting on the term “liar” gets you nowhere with the millions of people who
A) don’t think he is
B) aren’t persuaded by your case
C) nonetheless are frustrated by his administration and are looking for a sane alternative.
Say “Well, whether or not it’s a lie, I don’t know; but certainly he hasn’t done all he could to level with us,” and you appeal to those people.
Now this is the stupidest shit I ever heard. It can’t be a lie because it’s a matter of politics? It’s better not to call a lie a lie when it comes to national policy. The administration misled us and they continue to try twist the truth to their purposes. But we mustn’t call it a lie. It can’t be a lie if it’s politics!
Apparently, this is evidence discovered in documents in Iraq, which came to light after the staff report on the 9/11 commission was written. Uncorroborated, but worth watching.
Biggirl, imagine you want to sell me something. You also know that you have a competitor, whom I have done business with in the past, and may even like personally. However, I have lately become disenchanted with him, and you are trying to make the case that I should trust you instead of him. Finally, imagine you have two choices:
A) “I really hate to say it, but I don’t think Bob’s been completely forthright with you about his product. I don’t know why he’s been doing that, but in any event, I hope you’ll consider buying from me instead.”
B) “That asshole Bob is a worthless lying sack of shit and only a complete fuckhead would ever do business with him.”
Assuming you really hate Bob, I’d imagine the latter feels really good to say. But somehow I suspect that the former is a slightly more effective pitch. YMMV, but if it does I don’t recommend a career in sales.
I see your point Furt, that you will persuade few people who have committed to the present regime to abandon their allegiance and vote for (gasp) a moderate Democrat if the first thing you do is scream in their face that their boy is a lying sack of shit. Some people’s sensibilities are too delicate for that approach and their response will be to lock up and insist that the only think that stands between our representative democracy with its scheme of ordered liberty and an oppressive fundamentalist Islamic theocracy is the John Wayne like courage and determination of George and the boys.
However we here are made of sterner stuff around here and are well accustomed to the rough and tumble of political dog fighting. That namby-pamby, indirect approach doesn’t work here. We are Dopers, by God, and we calls ‘em as we sees 'em, and the Devil take the hindmost.
Our boy George is a dissembling son-of-a-bitch. He is a jumped up opportunist who owes his high office to the ability of the party machinery to stack the old bullshit deep and wide. If the whole fiasco over unconventional weapons doesn’t convince the voter, if the Saddam-AlQuida defugalty doesn’t convince the voter then yelling in his face that Bush is playing the voter for a fool might just work.
Interesting. I hope that it turns out that there was a very good reason for what we’ve done. Relative to this complete boxed set of issues, I’d wholeheartedly rather be wrong that right.
Cheney himself says that there’s disagreement about the general relationship between al Qaea and Hussein. So, I’ve decided that the headline of this article is as ‘outrageous’ the NYT article that Cheney discusses and as ‘outrageously irresponsible’ as the reports that Lehman speaks of.
Wanna bet Mr. Lehman is just doing some damage control for the Administration?
“Oh, no, please ignore what we said earlier about the Bush Administration being a pack of clueless liars, it must have been a mistake on our part, really! Ha ha, we’ll come out with some new results soon, why don’t you amuse yourselves in the meanwhile by going to see a movie? Just, uh, not that Fahrenheit 9/11 one, please, really…”
furt
Everybody’s seen the virtually literal shit ton of statements that were denotatively light and connotatively heavy. I’d be more impressed if anyone found the Admin saying that there definitely was or was not some sort of a significant relationship between Hussein and al Qaeda.
AFAICT, there’s still a fair amount of deniability for their assertions about the general relationship bewteen aQ and Hussein.
You realize that the Administration is not playing to the informed, alert and critical, don’t you? The principal rationales for going to war in Iraq, as opposed to Afghanistan and the pursuit of AlQuida, are rapidly going down the drain. The unconventional weapons the Admin knew were there are not there. The claim that Iraq/Saddam was in cahoots with Osama/AlQuida is fading fast. If the Admin loses this one on top of the abuse of prisoners and the continued casualties and the transformation of the occupation into something that looks like a Great Patriotic War, on top of the inability to make any substantive improvement in Iraqi infrastructures and the production and export of oil it knows that the electorate, or enough of it to remove the present Admin from power, may well turn on them. The claim that a mid-level militia officer was a relitave big shot in AlQuida when the claim has already been discredited is a grasping at straws. It will convince no one but the credulous and the already committed.
