Some years ago, I noticed a creeping feeling of irritation whenever I heard one of the most common epithets thrown at a politician: “liar” or “he/she lied.”
Yes, President Clinton did lie about having sex with “that woman” by any reasonable definition. But he was often accused of “lying” when he clearly only disagreed with someone on the other side. There was a time when I basically took that in stride because, after all, he’d lied to the American public pretty clearly, and so losing some trust in him was warranted. But even still, calling him a liar pretty much all the time was extremely tiresome; lying about a tawdry but ultimately fairly minor sex escapade simply is not the same as lying about something of national importance.
President Bush’s critics seem in the last few years have raised this political smear to levels I can’t even recall seeing, calling Bush a liar so often that it’s probably more common than sand on the beach. This from a politician I view as unusually honest, kind, and straightforward. Indeed, it’s happened so often that I’m actually inclined to think Bush isn’t lying when he might conceivably be, just because the hatred for this man has been so intense and so irrational.
I find it particularly despicable in a wartime context, too. Say all you want about the man on domestic policy, but partisanship is supposed to end at the nation’s shores. Or so I’ve long believed. Criticism is fine, but excessive and nasty criticism is corrosive and, I believe, dangerous. For some (not all or even most, but some) of the extreme critics, it even rises to the level of being unpatriotic, because it clearly puts partisanship above the nation’s interests.
Anyway, I find it just plain corrosive. And it’s not just toward Presidents; I’ve seen it done to Governors, to Senators, to many others. And at this point my scalp crumples and my teeth hurt no matter who it’s aimed at.
I thereby propose the Esmay Doctrine: no politician shall be called a liar, or accused of lying, unless there is clear and undeniable proof that it is an intentional mis-statement that can be proven is not a mistake, is not a difference of opinion, but is something the average person sitting on a jury would say “yep, that’s a lie beyond any reasonable doubt.”
I will try to live by this rule, and I’d love to see Dean’s World contributors and commenters try to live by that doctrine if they can.
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I thereby propose the Esmay Doctrine: no politician shall be called a liar, or accused of lying, unless there is clear and undeniable proof that it is an intentional mis-statement that can be proven is not a mistake, is not a difference of opinion, but is something the average person sitting on a jury would say “yep, that’s a lie beyond any reasonable doubt.â€
Juries are suppose to be impartial. Where or where do you find an impartial jury to decide these case?
Certainly not among the Dean World posters and commenters. They would all get kicked off the jury in a heart beat for obvious bias.
Mike:
All PEOPLE, not merely politicians, "spin" their narrative to be more favorable to themselves. I accept that. I try to reserve "liar" for serious prevarications that have ESSENTIAL IMPACT to a candidate’s credibility.
"I stopped the Bridge from Nowhere" when Palin clearly did not oppose it when she was Mayor is not a "lie." It is a selective statement of fact. She DID stop it when it counted, and it is completely reasonable for her position on that issue to have changed when her responsibility and station changed from Mayor to Governor. I expect there will be OTHER such changes when our next President takes office, being President NECESSITATES changes in position when compared to being Senator. Intelligent people realize this.
I have not even called Obama a liar when he claims not to have heard Wright’s vicious racist anti-American sermons, even though I don’t believe him for an instant.
I agree with Dean here, and I think I’ve more or less followed that policy all along, so I am quite willing to agree to it.
You, on the other hand, might find it significantly harder to post comments.
CosmicConservative’s last blog post..Dadman’s iPod Sampler
I think this is a noble attempt. But I’m afraid its like the “ let’s bury the n-word†thing from a few years ago.
I’ve pretty much moved past this stuff. It used to irk me too, but I’ve just accepted that this is the way it’s going to be from here on out.
“Bush said things I disagree with, and people died!†doesn’t have much of a ring to it, you know.
See Dean, the whole "Conservatives are all LIARS!!!" meme is a direct result of the Clinton impeachment.
Since their top guy (and the focus of most of the Democrat/liberal personality cult of politics) was PROVEN to be a liar, ever since then the Left has been on an all-out blitzkrieg to defame any conservative they can, just to try to prove that Clinton’s lies weren’t so bad.
That’s the WHOLE reason for the "Bush lied and people died" meme. It’s basically shorthand for "Yeah, Clinton’s a liar, but NOBODY DIED BECAUSE OF IT." Forget that there is no proof that Bush did any of the lying that they claim he did, THEY DON’T NEED NO STINKIN’ PROOF!
All that matters is that they can stomach the sight of their leader(s). And this meme allows them to do that.
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Cosmic,
You have any examples of mikeca accusing anyone of lying? He calls people wrong all the time, but I’m not aware of him accusing anyone of lying.
mikeca,
Juries are suppose to be impartial. Where or where do you find an impartial jury to decide these case?
It’s really simple. Cite your proof before you claim there’s a lie. "This is what he really meant or thought" doesn’t constitute proof. "Code words" don’t constitute proof. "Dowdified quotes" and out-of-context quotes don’t constitute proof. "I disagree" doesn’t constitute proof.
This isn’t a court of law, so an impartial jury isn’t the relevant standard. "Can you back it up?" is the relevant standard. And when in doubt, don’t claim a lie when you’d be on firm ground claiming a disagreement or an error.
I also think a lot of the credit (blame) goes to Al Franken, with his book “Lies and the Lying Liars who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Rightâ€.    A large portion of that book was fiction, but many people still treat it as gospel.  Â
And that’s what leads to statements like, “The only reason the Republicans win is because they lie. So we need to lie more!â€
Anyone who believes their party has a monopoly on truth is lying — to themselves.
Martin,
mikeca yesterday:
http://www.deanesmay.com/2008/09/14/high-comedy/#comment-162097
jaymaster,
Point conceded. Now waiting for evidence from mikeca.
I have not even called Obama a liar when he claims not to have heard Wright’s vicious racist anti-American sermons, even though I don’t believe him for an instant.
I don’t believe him either, and I guess in 20 years he never read anything at his church either. Notice that the "Black Value System" was adopted in 1981.
""I stopped the Bridge from Nowhere" when Palin clearly did not oppose it when she was Mayor is not a "lie." It is a selective statement of fact. She DID stop it when it counted"
Lies I can do without: can we still call people completely full of it when they make ridiculous claims like this?
In what way did she stop it "when it counted?" In what way did she stop anything at all? Did she send any money back to Congress? Was she in any way involved in the earmark getting killed? She campaigned for it, bristled at the term "bridge to nowhere" (e.g. the photo of her with the "Nowhere" T-Shirt), and only came out against it in any serious way once it WASN’T a federal handout and would involve taking money out of her own budget to pay for it.Â
Of course, all is noise about "earmark reform" is essentially a giant bait and switch. Getting rid of earmarks is not a means of cutting government spending. The only thing it accomplishes is shift some decisions about how some money is spent from federal politicians to local politicians. And it’s not even clear to me why that’s clearly an improvement: there are obvious advantages and disadvantages to either way of doing things (local politicians might know better what they really need, on the other hand, federal politicians probably have more right and a broader view to determine where federal tax dollars are directed: in Palin’s case, federal tax dollars that overwhelmingly come out of the pockets of people in other states to subsidize her already very wealthy state government).  Â
I don’t particularly see Palin’s actions re: the bridge as inherently good or bad government. But there’s no question that claiming to be a big foe of big government spending based on the case of the bridge is deeply cynical and misleading, and unavoidably knowingly so. Others can decide whether that makes it a lie or not. Whatever it is, it’s not honest.
Palin simply has no serious claim to being fiscally conservative or an unambiguous fighter of big government handouts. Her record as mayor is ridiculously far in the other direction, and her record as governor is mixed at best: she was better than previous govs in Alaska, but still one of the worst in the nation out of all states.
She does far better on social issues, which is essentially her major strength for McCain and his weaknesses in that area. The attempt to make her out to be a maven of economic reform and national security issues are deeply embarrassing.
As I understand it, when Palin was Mayor of Wasilla she saw the Bridge as a way to help her city. When she became governor she saw the bridge as a huge boondoggle.
These are two completely supportable views of an issue based on the perspective of the viewer.
Similarly, Obama and McCain see certain things one way as Senators, and as President they will have a different perspective on them.
It is inevitable. I always try to factor that sort of thing in when I am evaluating whether or not a person has truly "flip-flopped" or if they have had two different opinions based on two different perspectives based on their role at the time.
And Martin… show you when mikeca called someone a liar?
Bwwwaaaahahahahahaaaaahaaaaa!!!!
Where have you been?
(Of course the context of this post is about calling POLITICIANS liars, I am not and have not accused mike of calling DW posters liars.)
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Bad:
MMMM…… koolaid good….. mmmmmm….
Heh, you know what I think is cool about Palin and the Bridge? She killed the project but kept the money. That’s some serious politicking dude!
CosmicConservative’s last blog post..Dadman’s iPod Sampler
Bad… One short comment about Palin and federal money that you will no doubt completely discount in spite of it’s obvious relevance…
Alaska is unlike the other 49 states when it comes to federal spending. It is comparing apples and oranges to compare Alaska and, say Iowa. This is not the time to discuss whether that is good or bad, it is a simple acknowledgment of fact that federal money flows into Alaska at an alarming rate compared to other states, and that the Federal Government in effect subsidizes people living there.
This is nothing new, and in fact Palin has tried to mitigate that a bit. But no matter WHO became governor of Alaska (even Mr. HopeyChange) they would look poor in comparison to other governors when looking at federal spending in their states.
That’s just the way it is. Holding Palin accountable for that is, well, it’s either disingenuous or ignorant. I really don’t care which. It won’t stick anyway, people actually know better.
CosmicConservative’s last blog post..Dadman’s iPod Sampler
Cosmic,
"Where have you been?" is exactly the sort of "proof" trotted out when the false accusations of lying fly: "Why should I prove what everybody with any intelligence knows?"Â If you can’t bother to provide a link for the claim (jeez, it took jaymaster like half a minute), don’t make the claim.
Dean:
Just to remind you, the reason Clinton’s lie about a "minor sex escapade" was important wasn’t because people care about his sex life.
It’s because it was done in a LEGAL TRIAL where it was SUBSTANTIVE TESTIMONY because it gave CREDIBLE WEIGHT to the testimony of Paula Jones that Bill Clinton had sexually harassed her.
The lie was relevant not because it was about sex, but because it was about perjury and obstruction of justice IN AN ACTUAL TRIAL, by a man who was SWORN TO BE THE HEAD LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICER OF THE COUNTRY.
Some of us happen to think that matters.
CosmicConservative’s last blog post..Dadman’s iPod Sampler
Bad,
While I’m not very fond of the phrasing that Palin uses, it’s still true that what people object to most about pork is that it’s wasteful. The biggest objection that people have to the "bridge to nowhere" is that it was "to nowhere", not that it was a bridge.
So, I do think that Palin is being a little deceptive when she says that she said, "thanks but no thanks". On the other hand, the more important part of her statement is true: when congress changed the earmark so that it could have wider uses than just the boondoggle that it was originally for, she instead took the money and put it to a use that wasn’t wasteful.
There are hardcore libertarians (and hardcore federalists) who object to the federal government giving money to the states; but the overwhelming majority of Americans don’t mind in the abstract, it’s the amounts and the particular uses that they really care about. Spending hundreds of millions of dollars for next to no gain is corruption and waste, spending hundreds of millions of dollars for substantial gain is possible sub-optimal from a hardcore libertarian perspective, but generally recognized as good governance.
And what McCain/Palin seem to be running on is a platform of good governance, not a platform of minimal governance. So in the context of (1) what they’re selling themselves as and (2) what the overwhelming majority of Americans care about, Palin’s statement was pretty accurate.
Martin:
I didn’t provide a link because Jaymaster already did. I didn’t provide one in the previous comment because I didn’t consider it necessary. Much like I consider it completely unnecessary to provide a link asserting that the sky is blue. Are you similarly upset with Dean for making this policy statement but not providing links to back it up?
Somehow I doubt it.
CosmicConservative’s last blog post..Dadman’s iPod Sampler
Martin,
"’Where have you been?’ is exactly the sort of ‘proof’ trotted out when the false accusations of lying fly"
abusus non tollit usum.
ctl:
Heh, touche… I have been a bit snarky lately… ;)
CosmicConservative’s last blog post..Dadman’s iPod Sampler
AK was sent the money for the Bridge. Palin could have built the Bridge, but did not. Ergo, Palin stopped the Bridge.
BTW, they funded a $2m ferry instead of a $500M bridge.
Much like I consider it completely unnecessary to provide a link asserting that the sky is blue.
The sky is not a person. mikeca is a person. Persons deserve a modicum of respect. If you’re going to accuse them, provide proof.
ctl,
Not sure how that’s relevant. And I stand by my statement: "Where have you been?" is not a proof, it’s a dodge.
The only thing it accomplishes is shift some decisions about how some money is spent from federal politicians to local politicians.
I think this is not completely true, but it is close. The way the current earmark process works in things like the transportation bill, is that there is first a decision making process for dividing up the total budget among the states. Then there is the "earmark" process where congress can add a line item to allocate part of their state budget to a specific project. In the case of the bridge to nowhere, the line item earmark was removed by Congress in 2005 (before Palin became governor) , but the money was left in the total money given to Alaska to spend on transportation projects. When the cost estimates of the project went up from $330 million to $400 million and it was all coming out of Alaska state money, Palin canceled the project. The money that was part of the original earmark was spent by Alaska on other projects. No money was ever returned to congress.
This is part of the problem with earmark reform. McCain at times has said he wants to completely eliminate earmarks, but that by itself does not save a dime. It just changes who decides how to spend the money.
By the way, the foregin aid package for Israel is technically an "earmark". When McCain said he wanted to eliminate all earmarks, someone asked if that included the foregin aid package for Israel. McCain, of course, said no. He supports foregin aid for Israel. You all have seen the Obama ads where he claims John McCain wants to end foregin aid to Israel? Oh you haven’t. Either have I. If Obama had been a Rebulican, you would have seen that ad.
Cosmic,
How did anything that I wrote constitute something to which you could respond "touche"?
Martin,
It’s relevant because you brought up how something is abused precisely as an argument to end its use.
And of course "where have you been" is a dodge rather than a proof. If you want all conversation to come to a grinding halt, start demanding that a person prove every statement and assumption that comes out of their mouth (or keyboard). And then make them prove the veracity of their sources.
You can only carry on a useful conversation with someone who mostly agrees with you. If someone mostly disagrees with you, you’ll spend so long arguing about your premises that you’ll never get within a mile of a conclusion. Consequently, many if not most comments on blog threads with a varied readership are not really aimed at the people to whom they’re responding, but at the multitude of silent readers who mostly agree with the person writing the comment.
Anyway, I’m curious: how far do you take your principle of a link to back up every fact? Can we all take it as proved that mikeca has called politicians liars, or do we need to link it every time we say so?
It’s relevant because you brought up how something is abused precisely as an argument to end its use.
No, I brought it up as an example of how it’s not an argument, it’s a dodge, no matter who practices it.
Anyway, I’m curious: how far do you take your principle of a link to back up every fact?
How far do you want? Assertions without evidence are opinions, and should be stated as such.
Can we all take it as proved that mikeca has called politicians liars, or do we need to link it every time we say so?
Link every time. There are new readers every day, so you can’t assume today’s readers saw yesterday’s links.
Now I’m a lot less concerned when the disagreement isn’t personal. I don’t expect a link if you say, "mikeca posted here yesterday." But when the subject is "false accusastions of lying" and then mikeca is accused of same, that calls for evidence.
Dean, I like The Esmay Doctrine ;-)
Sorry, Cosmic, but the entire context of the Clinton lie was based on a fishing expedition that was pure BS right from the start.
It’s funny because one of the things that drew me to politics in the last 10-15 years was the ridiculous bile directed at Bill Clinton. It’s funny because at the time I felt like a Clinton defender, but 15 years later am a staunch conservative. And no, not the astroturf variety, but one that is 100% voting for McCain / Palin and whatever Republicans actually find their way onto the Massachusetts ballot.
CC: "This is not the time to discuss whether that is good or bad, it is a simple acknowledgment of fact that federal money flows into Alaska at an alarming rate compared to other states, and that the Federal Government in effect subsidizes people living there."
Not the time to discuss it? You’d think that a big enemy of wasteful spending and earmarks would find time to discuss it: like, say, when running for governor. Yes, Alaska is a special situation: it’s especially bad. I’m not quite seeing how this somehow reduces the expectations for someone that claims to have a principled stand on something.Â
I mean, are we in la-la land, or what? Plenty of conservatives runaround calling levels of government spending favored by liberals socialism or communism, full stop. And yet, here we are, looking at Alaska, which really IS pretty much a quasi-socialist setup (save for the fact that a heck of a lot of the money is simply funneled in from elsewhere). And we’re supposed to celebrate the record of someone who was slightly less socialist, but certainly made no noise about ending socialism as we know it, as the second coming of big government reform? Nice try, but no training wheels.
Palin may have asked for fewer earmarks than her predecessor. But she still asked for more per person than any other state in the nation, period. You simply can’t run on that record as someone deeply and fundamentally opposed to earmarks, no matter what the situation of Alaska is (and remember "earmark requests" aren’t the same thing as whether or not a state gets federal money period).Â
You don’t have a leg to stand on with the bridge, and you know it (in fact, you may behind the party line in any case, because McCain seems to be showing signs of abandoning the claim, switching to the downright confused talk about "veto’ing earmarks" which confuses two very different things). She supported the bridge during her run. She supported it as governor. She didn’t just support it: she supported it getting passed in Congress ASAP, before Democrats took over (""The window is now, while our congressional delegation is in a strong position to assist,") and put the whole deal at risk. She supported it after it had already been killed. She supported it long after it had become a high profile national laughingstock. And at no time did she say "no thanks" to the earmark. Congress wasn’t offering the earmark anymore by the time she was in a position to say anything about it. But she did spend all of the same money on other things. And, in fact, there was another boondoggle bridge in a very similar situation that did make it through. So if she really wanted to say no thanks to a bridge to nowhere, she had another, real, chance to actually do so. She didn’t.
And let’s look at her actual statement about deciding not to build the bridge once it became clear it would have to come out of her own budget:
"Ketchikan desires a better way to reach the airport, but the $398 million bridge is not the answer," said Governor Palin. "Despite the work of our congressional delegation, we are about $329 million short of full funding for the bridge project, and it’s clear that Congress has little interest in spending any more money on a bridge between Ketchikan and Gravina Island," Governor Palin added. "Much of the public’s attitude toward Alaska bridges is based on inaccurate portrayals of the projects here. But we need to focus on what we can do, rather than fight over what has happened."
Does that sound like someone disgusted with the bridge as a wasteful boondoggle? No: it sounds like someone that’s respects the efforts of the delegation, upset that a national uproar and "unfair portrayals" made the bridge politically untenable, and so on. If anything, it sounds regretful that things played out the way they did. There’s no hint of her saying "no thanks" to anything, because of course, that would have been a nonsensical way to characterize it at the time (since there was never anything on the table to say no to, the earmark having already been killed), and this was pre-nonsense days.
The reality is that the rhetoric from McCain on earmarks and Palin’s actual record don’t add up. Here’s McCain on the campaign trail:
"We’re not going to spend $3 million of your tax dollars to study the DNA of bears in Montana," McCain said earlier this year, referring to a request from Montana for federal money to study the endangered grizzly bear. "I don’t know if it was a paternity issue or criminal, but it was a waste of money."
But what sorts of things were included in Palin’s earmark requests:Â "$2 million in federal monies to study crab mating habits; $494,900 for the recreational halibut harvest and $3.2 million for seal genetics research."
That’s a disconnect that simply cannot be wished away. It’s not really even so crazy. McCain is the odd one out here: the guy who has been unlike the vast majority of Congresspeople and Governors, anti-earmarks. It’s just that the claim that Palin is especially sympatico with McCain on this issue, let alone a pioneer, is patently absurd.Â
Face it: this is a very poor hill on which to stand and die. Of 149 towns/incorporations of Alaska, only 6 had pork lobbyists. And only one had a lobbyist who was the chief of staff for Ted Stevens. That was Palin’s innovation. There’s just no way to spin that into her being exceptionally anti-pork, or even ambivalent about pork.
"Dave Price: AK was sent the money for the Bridge. Palin could have built the Bridge, but did not. Ergo, Palin stopped the Bridge."
Her claim was that she said "no thanks" to the bridge, the implication that congress was trying to wastefully force it on her. Compare that to reality: to what she actually said at the time both when running for governor and even when she decided not to spend the money. Her position was basically: ‘After all the money we’ve allocated to spend on other stuff, there’s not enough money to fund this bridge, it’s really hurt the image of our state, and we’ll have to look for cheaper alternatives’ not "what a waste of money!"Â
Martin,
"Assertions without evidence are opinions…"
Got a link to back that up? ;)
Bad,
"Compare that to reality: to what she actually said at the time both when running for governor and even when she decided not to spend the money."
How is it that you strongly imply that of two actions, the more recent is the less indicative of a person’s current position?
Also, your description of congress removing the requirement for the money to be spent on the bridge as "killing the bridge" is questionable at best, and really seems more like rank dishonesty.
Plus, you’ve fundamentally got the problem that while governer Palin originally supported the bridge, when push came to shove she cancelled it in favor of more responsible options.
Also, taking the language she was using to her constituents who would be disappointed in the outcome is hardly a clearer indication of how she felt about the bridge than her actual actions about it.
Remember that whole idea that actions speak louder than words? You’ve got the words on your side, we have the actions on ours. And the actions are the more recent stuff, too.
Cosmic: my view has always been that a special prosecutor shouldn’t have been appointed (I was glad to see that statute expire), and, once he was appointed he shouldn’t have been given the go-ahead to investigate the President’s sex life. It was inappropriate. Once the evidence was there, then of course a trial was warranted, but Starr shouldn’t have been poking his nose into that in the first place.
The fact that the President commtted a minor felony does matter, which is why I also think an impeachment was in order and that the Senate decision not to remove him from office was the right one.
My position on all that leaves many people unhappy, but there it is.
ctl:
How is it relevant? Because I used the "where have you been" locution on Martin. In fact I assumed that was what you were referring to.
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Dean:
I never liked the "special prosecutor" law. I thought it would be abused when it was written, and it was abused by both sides.
Having said that, no person, not even the sitting President of the United States, should be able to lie in a legal trial with impunity. And the President has SPECIAL need to honor the need for justice since he is the head law enforcement officer of the land.
I have for years tried to explain to the Left how Bill Clinton’s crime was not that he had cheap, tawdry sex in the oval office with a "woman" young enough to be his daughter. His crime was that he KNEW that if he told the truth about his many sexual liaisons, Paula Jones would win her case against him.
So he lied. Under oath. With the specific intention to contravene the discovery of truth in a legal trial. Truth that was directly relevant to the charges against him.
If he had cheated on his taxes would you feel the same? How about if he was hiding a marijuana habit? Or if he was selling secrets to a foreign government?
The position of the Left on this situation seems to be "It’s fine with us if Bill Clinton lies about sex to cover up his probably sexual harassment of a woman who is attempting to bring him to justice." Now I guess you could argue that there are some corners of the Left that don’t care about sexually harassing women, but the thing that creeped me out more than anything in that trial is how feminists vacated decades of woman’s rights advocacy just to protect someone who they thought would appoint abortion supporting justices.
It was at that moment that I realized that the "women’s rights" movement in this country had devolved into one thing. Abortion trumps everything.
Of course that’s why you are seeing them slime Sarah Palin now, for the same reason. Forget that Sarah Palin is a model of feminist achievement. Forget that Sarah Palin has made it seem possible to actually BALANCE a work and a home life. Forget that Sarah Palin can "bring home the bacon, cook it up in the pan, and never, never let you forget you’re the man."
Because she is pro-life.
And that is ALL that matters.
Bill Clinton is pro-abortion. Therefore he must be protected. At all costs.
Sarah Palin is pro-life. Therefore she must be destroyed. At all costs.
It really is that simple.
CosmicConservative’s last blog post..Dadman’s iPod Sampler
An interesting case of political "lying" is the famous Al Gore, I invented the Internet story. On March 9, 1999 Al Gore gave an interview to Wolf Blitzer on CNN. Gore was giving a list of accomplishments in this interview and he said, “During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet.†What he meant was he had taken the lead in pushing funding for research programs that led to the internet. It was somewhat awkwardly worded, but this was a live interview, not a prepared speech.
Newt Gingrich said, "In all fairness, it’s something Gore had worked on a long time. Gore is not the Father of the Internet, but in all fairness, Gore is the person who, in the Congress, most systematically worked to make sure that we got to an Internet, and the truth is—and I worked with him starting in 1978 when I got [to Congress], we were both part of a “futures groupâ€â€”the fact is, in the Clinton administration, the world we had talked about in the ’80s began to actually happen."
So Gore made an awkwardly worded, but basically accurate statement, in a live interview. Some might claim he was exaggerating his role, but he had a role.
No one in the media questioned the accuracy of Al Gore’s statement for several days. It was Republicans who began to spin this statement, saying the Al Gore claimed to be the "father of the internet". Within a few days this had changed to "Al Gore claimed to invent the internet." This story was used to characterize Al Gore as a serial exaggerator/liar.
Now I have always found it interesting that it was a deliberate distortion and exaggeration of what Al Gore said that was used to characterize Al Gore as a exaggerator.
Now Palin said in a prepared speech, "I told Congress ‘thanks, but no thanks’ on that bridge to nowhere." The earmark for the bridge to nowhere was removed by Congress in 2005, before Palin became governor. While running for Governor, Palin voiced support for the bridge to nowhere. Palin canceled the state project to build the bridge at state expense after costs estimates had gone up. It is hard for me to see how Palin ever told Congress anything about the bridge to nowhere.
Today, when questioned about the bridge to nowhere claims, John McCain said:
"The important thing is she’s vetoed a half a billion dollars in earmark projects — far, far in excess of her predecessor and she’s given money back to the taxpayers and she’s cut their taxes, so I’m happy with her record."
Now it is a little hard to figure this out. Governors do not have veto authority over Congressional earmarks. They can, of course, decline the opportunity to ask for earmarks, but there is not record of Palin killing that many earmark requests. There is a claim that Palin used her line item veto on half a billion worth of Alaska state spending, but these are not earmarks at all.
Now on Palin cutting taxes in Alaska, this is true I think. Of course the state budget situation in Alaska is completely different that the rest of the country. Alaska has no state income or sales tax. Almost all of the taxes come from the oil industry, and right now with the high price of oil, Alaska is swimming in money. I think Alaska actually has a negative income tax, which pays money back to all the residents. It is much easier to cut taxes when you are swimming in money.
Â
Cosmic,
No, I wasn’t referring to you. I was just making reference to the general principle of "the abuse does not abolish the use", since martin had just argued that a particular locution is often abused and therefore shouldn’t be used.
Mikeca,
So, basically, your claim is that Gore didn’t exaggerate his role because if you interpret what he really meant, which is a vastly reduced claim from what he actually said, a much weaker version of that may actually be true?
Later, "It is much easier to cut taxes when you are swimming in money." Sure. It’s also much easier to raise spending and not cut taxes. That Palin chose the one over the other still says something about her.
Mikeca:
You are absolutely correct that the Right turned a fundamentally accurate claim by Al Gore that he was instrumental in the "development" of the Internet into a source of ridicule. And unfairly so in my opinion. Of course there is plenty of opportunity to parse Al Gore’s claim to "prove" that he was exaggerating, but I believe in giving credit where credit is due, and Al Gore did, in fact, play a pivotal role in turning what was a Defense Department research project into what we now know as the Internet. Al Gore certainly did more to ensure that than any Republican I can think of.
Now, let’s talk about Al Gore’s claim that he and Tipper Gore were the inspiration for the novel "Love Story." ;)
Believe me, even giving Gore credit for the Internet thing, the number and degree of exaggerations he has been caught on are completely deserving of his reputation as a self-aggrandizing blowhard.
But he does deserve credit on the Internet thing.
Now, using that same analysis, Sarah Palin deserves credit for delivering one of, if not the, final nail in the Bridge to Nowhere coffin.
What you and Bad are whining about is not that there isn’t a kernel of truth in both the Internet and the BTN story, you are whining because the Republicans managed to spin the Internet thing in a negative way and the Democrats haven’t managed to do the same yet on the BTN.
Perhaps you should be heaping your scorn on Obama’s army of spin-meisters.
Seems like THEY are the ones dropping the ball.
And it’s not for lack of effort or volume. I mean they are whining ALL OVER the place.
They just aren’t doing it well.
CosmicConservative’s last blog post..Dadman’s iPod Sampler
Cosmic,
Do you have any proof that Gore did anything really meaningful in developing the internet?
ctl
See, there’s the rub. The word "developing" is an ambiguous word.
When Al Gore uses it, he means he was instrumental in pushing specific bills through Congress and communicating the potential benefits to the public of making the network a general instead of a defense department tool.
When a technical person says "developing" they mean the hands on work of actually MAKING stuff.
Al Gore’s work on making the Internet a reality for the general population was exactly where it should have been, in the back rooms of Congress, in getting specific wording into bills and into pushing for consensus from Congress that they should write the laws that allowed the Internet to become a reality.
If you want a link go check this one out.
As I said, I like to give credit where credit is due, and Al Gore does, in fact, deserve a good bit of credit for his work on the creation of a publicly available computer network based on DARPANET. I may be a partisan, I may think Al Gore is the biggest hypocrite and pompous ass in the history of the world, but he HAS actually accomplished some significant legislative measures in his life.
As opposed to, say, Obama.
CosmicConservative’s last blog post..Dadman’s iPod Sampler
When Al Gore uses it, he means he was instrumental in pushing specific bills through Congress and communicating the potential benefits to the public of making the network a general instead of a defense department tool.When a technical person says "developing" they mean the hands on work of actually MAKING stuff.
…snip…
As I said, I like to give credit where credit is due, and Al Gore does, in fact, deserve a good bit of credit for his work on the creation of a publicly available computer network based on DARPANET.
With those two statements, It may be better said that he deserves credit for his work on *obtaining funding for* the creation of a publicly available computer network based on DARPANET.
With those two statements, It may be better said that he deserves credit for his work on *obtaining funding for* the creation of a publicly available computer network based on DARPANET.
In original Al Gore quote he is talking about his legislative achievements. In that context it is obvious what he means. This also was interview, not a prepared speech. When you take the quote out of context, it is less clear and it becomes possible to spin it, so that it seems like Gore meant all kinds of crazy things.
If Congressman said, I helped create the Hover Dam, no one would think he meant he was an Engineer or a construction worker on the Hover Dam.
By the way, did you know that John McCain invented the BlackBerry?
http://www.politico.com/blogs/jonathanmartin/0908/HoltzEakin_McCain_helped_create_BlackBerry.html
" With those two statements, It may be better said that he deserves credit for his work on *obtaining funding for* the creation of a publicly available computer network based on DARPANET."
Which is exactly what "developing" it means to a person in the role of writing laws and not in writing software or designing hardware.
Look, we on the right don’t need to assassinate the character of every person we disagree with, or to diminish what accomplishments they may have through rhetorical circumlocutions or through outright denial of fact.
That’s the Left’s game, and what it got the Left was eight years of Ronald Reagan and eight years of George W. Bush. If we on the right start playing by their rules, we can’t complain when we get their results. If they keep playing by those rules, they’ll get eight years of John McCain and possibly eight years of Sarah Palin.
I do my best to play fair and be as accurate as possible. I play hard, no doubt and I sometimes play rough, but I try never to let my ideology blind me to plain objective reality. Al Gore deserves as much, credit for the "development" of the Internet as Sarah Palin does for killing the Bridge to Nowhere. And vice versa.
That’s my view of objective reality. Believe me, the average voter has a much clearer view of objective reality than us hyper-partisans do, and the more our rhetoric conflicts with their observations, the more they’ll distrust us.
CosmicConservative’s last blog post..Dadman’s iPod Sampler
mikeca:
I think it is fair for John McCain to take some of the same credit that Al Gore did for technological innovations.
I mean this just cracks me up. There are 100 Senators in the nation’s capital and NONE of this technology can become consumer electronics without laws on the books to direct and regulate that technology.
Do people think that just appears magically out of thin air?
It is 100% accurate to say that NONE of our hi-tech would would be in our living rooms and offices without legislation written by Senators and Congressmen, and signed into law by the President.
That’s what they DO people. Geeez what do you think they are DOING in Washington?
So, yes, it is not at all unusual or unexpected for someone like John McCain or Al Gore, who have been in the Senate for most of my life, to be able to point to specific legislation and say "that is what enabled the Internet" or "that’s what enabled the BlackBerry" or "that’s what enabled HD TV" or WHATEVER.
That’s how our system works. That’s WHY we send them to Washington. Every now and then they actually DO THEIR JOBS.
Sheesh.
CosmicConservative’s last blog post..Dadman’s iPod Sampler
CC,
I guess that the problem is that in plain english, "I developed" and "I obtained funds so that other people could develop" are radically different. And true, being a programmer myself I really don’t think highly of people being unclear in their distinctions of what they did.
You make a good point about Gore’s contribution, though.
That being said, there’s only so impressed I can be with the accomplishment of throwing someone else’s money at a problem and letting smart people do the actual hard work.
There are some pretty low limits to how impressed I can be with a senator’s senating, I guess. :)
(That does cut both ways; I know very little about what McCain accomplished in the senate, and I’m not much interested to learn.)
ctl:
The truth is that without those Senators "senating" all of your hard work would go for naught.
This is not to single you out ctl, because I don’t think it applies to you, but your comment did provide me an opportunity to vent about this…
What Al Gore and John McCain do as Senators for technology innovation is IMPORTANT! It is every bit as important as the actual hands-on technical work that creates the innovation. In fact you could easily argue that it is FAR MORE important because what they do creates the context which allows what YOU do to be DONE.
(Wow, let’s see how many people can work their way through THAT paragraph….)
I don’t diminish the power or the accomplishments of our elected leaders. When people call them "powerful" they are exactly correct. That "senating" is where the bulk of the power of this country is focused and provides the fulcrum for economic and technical development for this country and in some respects for the entire world.
In fact, this is EXACTLY why POLITICS MATTERS.
Because those people we send there ACTUALLY DO THINGS that make huge differences in our lives every day.
{entering sarcastic snark mode, this portion is not to be taken seriously}
Well, except Obama who seems to think that being "present" is all that’s required.
Frankly, in some respects, we need more Senators like Obama…. ;)
{OK, sarcastic snark mode over.}
CosmicConservative’s last blog post..WoW! Terrorists!
Creators usually underestimate the importance of financiers and facilitators.
Financiers and facilitators usually underestimate the difficulty of creation.
And we all hate sales folk, and wonder why they make those fat commissions for merely pounding thousands of miles of pavement and making hundreds of calls per sale.
Well said Martin…
There’s a reason sports teams have managers who can’t throw, hit, run or jump….
CosmicConservative’s last blog post..WoW! Terrorists!
Does "idiot son of a rich man" fall under the same category?
I pay about as much attention to hyperpartisans’ screams of BASELESS LIES and DISGUSTING SMEARS as I do to North Korean official pronouncements. Occasionally they’re amusing for the stupidity value, but mostly I just put the speaker down in the "imbecile" column, ignore whatever message they’re peddling, and move on.
I don’t think I’m alone in this. You’d think that the hyperpartisans (of either or any persuasion) would eventually learn that screeching at the top of their lungs says more about them than it does about their target. But then I suppose screeching and learning are probably mutually exclusive.
And every time I read "WORST CAMPAIGN IN HISTORY" I flash on Comic Store Guy from the Simpsons. "Worst. Campaign. Evar."
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