David Corn (see previous post) also wrote a recent article "White (House) Lies" about George Bush and lies. It covers some useful ground including how the perception of constant flow of lies from George's lips has literally driven the liberal left and now even mainstream Democrats crazy with rage, anger and venom.
Corn's article concludes that even if (or when), by presenting ill-researched or blatantly vacuous "evidence", Bush wasn't out and out lying, his failure to actually seek out the truth and consider contrarian evidence was as bad as, if not worse than lying. As even kids learn, ignorance of the law is not a valid defense, similarly ignorance of the truth is not an excuse for George Bush to use when as Fox Molder would say, "the truth is out there". In one case the truth was conveniently at hand in the 90 page National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq - unfortunately Bush never even bothered to look at it before making his statements about how necessary it was to invade. So Bush is either a liar, or grossly incompetent and unqualified to be Chief in Command and President, or even both.
Corn's follow up article "The Semantics of Lying" also provides a good discussion about the fallacy of letting Bush off with a lesser sentence of being "a classic truth-stretcher." (which probably applies to all politicians). In discussing the semantics of lying and using my favourite tactic of pulling out the dictionary to define "lie", Corn asks why it is so wrong to call someone who deceives and gives false information a liar when that is the very dictionary definition? Apparently some believe it is to inflamatory to use such a word against Bush and that Bush haters, liberals and democrats alike should restrain themselves to simply presenting the facts in a "Bush said this, but this happened, or this is the truth, so ...." where the blanks .... are left to the reader to fill in.
Maybe there is a point. "Liar!" is one of those things one is apat to spit out on a school playground in a fit of rage, and "you lied" is something that is usually dragged into court for rigorous analysis and proof before being allowed to stick. So I guess if its just another argument over a name you can take your pick - BushLies.com or Misleader.org, but the conclusion is the same - we need a new President.
1 comment:
Howdy friend, just wanted to drop by and tell you that I've enjoyed reading your posts for past couple of days. My honest belief is that Bush, deep down, thinks he's doing us all a favor, and is probably unaware of how stupidly he's been acting. I forgot who said it, but it was something along the lines of: Bush is like a blind man who is speaking infront of a bunch of deaf people. Regardless of good or bad intent, your conclusion is correct: not another 4 years.
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