And we removed the Taliban, to the general approval of the world. No one has accused anyone of lying about that. Are you saying Chirac invented the situation in the Ivory Coast?
No matter what people thought before the invasion, at the time of the invasion the inspectors had looked at the supposed WMD sites, based on US intelligence, and found nothing. But instead of stopping to consider if they were wrong, they imposed an impossible deadline. It’s like if the cops got information from an informer that there was a drug stash in your closet, come in, at your reluctant invitation, to inspect, find nothing, and then convinced that you were hiding it too well, either blew you away or took you to jail. But I guess the cops wouldn’t be lying, would they? Especially if you had a record.
Agree completely. And like John Mace, this and his handling of the economy cost him my vote as well. Why this isn’t enough for the left is and has been beyond me. The whole HELIEDHELIEDHELIED!!! rant has always been such a turn off for me because its so cartoonish.
In order to do that you’d have to be able to justify the US’s actions in Iraq from a necessaty standpoint…something I’ve never seen done before. Certainly I can think of no over riding need for the US to have gone into Iraq when and how we did.
My guess is that most folks who voted for Bush would tell you they picked what they perceived as the lesser of two (w)evils. It says something, to me at least, that even with all the fuckups and instances where he was just flat out wrong, even with getting the US into yet another grinding war for no appearent national gain…that people still picked him over Kerry. There is a lesson there for the Dems if they choose to learn it IMO.
To a certain degree I agree with you on this. You could see it even before Bush was sworn in the first time. Note though that, like the Republican/Right raving about Clinton, the Democrat/Left raving had as little (or no) effect on the majority of the electorate. Its the ‘crying wolf effect’ IMO…rant enough, chant HELIEDHELIEDHELIED! or HEGOTABLOWJOB! enough and the plain folks will tend to tune you out. Then if something REAL comes up they will just shrug and move one…been there and done that before, not going to get all worked up by a bunch of loonies again.
As I said, there are multiple lessons to be learned here…but both sides IMO. I have doubts though that anyone will learn them.
Your article says that the Bush admin. “embraced” an estimate that their Welfare bill would cost about $395 billion. However, one actuary from the Welfare Office alleges that he estimated that a similiar plan pending in the Senate would cost $551 billion. The actuary alleges he was told not to disclose “numbers related to this higher estimate” or he’d be fired. The reason that the White House allegedly suppressed the numbers is that it didn’t want to lose the votes of 13 conservative Republicans who threatened to vote against any Medicare bill over $400 billion.
However, the head of the Welfare office disputes the actuary’s account of events:
This raises a few points on which I think your account of the article is incorrect:
First, the $395 billion estimate came from the Congressional Budget Office, not the White House. So it wasn’t the Bush admin’s “report,” at all.
Your article alleges the White House “embraced” the $395 billion number, but it doesn’t provide any quotes or examples of how they “embraced” it. Did the White House tell everyone that $395 billion was correct? Did they merely fail to dispute it? So I’m not sure what this means.
Second, at the time the Medicare bill was pending in the Senate, there doesn’t appear to have been a White House report on the costs. At most, your article says there was an estimate on the costs of a similar bill in the Senate.
Third, the White House’s eventual estimate was $17 billion less than Foster’s estimate. So it’s disengenuous to equate possession of Foster’s supposed estimate and an official White House estimate.
Fourth, the Congressional Democrats appeared to know about the estimate. They might have known because this same guy had already estimated that a similar plan in the Senate would cost $150 billion more than the CBO’s estimate. Or they might have known because somebody told them about it. Why couldn’t these conservative Republicans have known about it, too?
Fifth, despite the fact that the numbers were released, Foster was not fired. In fact, the only one with a new job appears to be Foster’s boss, who admitted to refusing access to Foster on (at least) one occasion.
Sixth, I can’t find anything in the article that supports your assertion that “Four months later, the Bush administration admitted that the 540 billion figure was the correct one” (emphasis added). I do see where the White House budget director gave his estimate, but nowhere that the Bush administration said that they knew the CBO was wrong all along, or that Foster’s number was right (especially since they seemed to disagree with Foster). Could you please point out your source for that statement?
Is “sophistry” some kind of fancy, book-larnin’ word for “accuracy”?
In fact, I believe “sophistry” means that the argument being advanced is appealing, but false. So what you’re actually saying is that people who argue that Bush was wrong but didn’t lie are making advancing an argument that is appealing, but fallacious. Which means that you think Bush lied. Is that right?
Okay. But the question you don’t ask is why it isn’t enough for the right. Lesser of two evils? Maybe. As much as I’ve got a libertarian bent I still see it as an unreasonable rationale. Can you really defend that idea? Why you don’t question that lapse of reason is why I often seem to confront you.
Back when Clinton almost got kicked out of the White House for lying about a blowjob, I kept thinking, “This is SO going to backfire on the Republicans. They aren’t going to be able to get anyone into office without that person’s history, policy, and decisions being examined with a fine-tooth comb. Nobody’s gonna cut 'em some slack. They’ll be lucky if they last six months.”
And then Bush got in. And nothing happened. I mean, the guy takes us to war, a lot of people are certain he’s lying, thousands of American soldiers are dying, and he’s getting a free ride! And then he got re-elected!
I just don’t get it. I think a good part of it is the country’s attitude of, “So what, another president lied.”- they’re automatically tuning any sort of HELIEDHELIED out, it’s just becoming noise. I also think that 9/11 had a lot to do with it- the average American wants someone to pay, and they’ve got a convenient target with Iraq.
What I don’t get is how little issue is made of W’s life pre-2000. It is like America collectively locked that period away in a dark little hole, and it wasn’t really opened up until F-9/11 came out and focused on it… and even then, it was ignored by everyone who still needed any convincing. And F-9/11 was classy about it - it didn’t bring up his tons and tons of drug and alcohol abuse, just his horrible business practices and reliance on being his father’s son.
Now, how much focus do you think a Democrat with the same history would get? It baffles me.
So far you have said nothing and waisted a lot of our time
Still nothing
Ok maybe I can accept this a a build up to your point, finally
Well Bush, Clinton, Kerry, and many others all over the political spectrum did express concern about Iraqs weapons, this is what leads me to beleive it was/is true. The Dems doing a 180 to me shows nothing be purely political motivation.
again the lie you are depending on doesn’t appear to be a lie, all parties, even before W left TX, agreed that there were WMD in Iraq and S.H. had to be delt with.
Well yes, the lies you speak of are purely poltical ON THE LEFT. If you don’t take my word on it look up what the left, said about the WMD’s.
9/11 changed NOTHING, THE WORLD IS NOT DIFFERENT, IF YOU THINK IT CHANGED YOU WEREN’T LIVING HERE, WELCOME TO EARTH!!!
1st correct thing you said so far
Perhaps it goes to intent, Clinton lied and knew he did. IF W stated something that happened to be untrue it was because he acted on faulty information.
"Personally I don’t care if Bush did lie to the moronic vox populii " isn’t an example of Strauss’s “noble lie”, and I think you misunderstand what Strauss was saying when he came up with the idea of the “noble lie”.
I think that does make him a liar. The definitions of a lie are as follows:
1 : to make an untrue statement with intent to deceive
2 : to create a false or misleading impression
I don’t think reasonable people can deny that he has done this with Iraq and on a number of other occasions. Exaggeration, obfuscation, and spin are all ways to avoid telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Not doing any of those things is lying. Perhaps it is not as egregious as deliberate unmitigated deception, but it is lying. Just the fact that Bush did not convey the anbiguity of the Iraqi intelligence is lying.
I don’t know, but I suspect evangelicals see Bush as a Christian brother, so the “seventy times seven” idea may be at work here. As for our other Christian brother, John Kerry, well, he’s a Catholic, so can’t be trusted. :rolleyes:
The question was: “Why do people forgive Bush’s lies?”. Regardless of whether he did or did not in fact lie, a significant part if not a majority of the public are not convinced that he did so.
In addition, the vehemence from the Left on this issue has cause a significant part of the electorate to disregard the message.
While this may not make you happy, it is the answer to the OP.
And we removed the Taliban, to the general approval of the world. No one has accused anyone of lying about that. Are you saying Chirac invented the situation in the Ivory Coast?
