The left is now rushing to accuse the right of ‘spin’ regarding the SOTU sentence heard round the world. For example:
Jesse at Pandagon: I love watching Republicans under the gun. So far, the spins (none of which are sticking, because none of them made sense): – It was one sentence!
The Atriettes: The “one sentence” — in the President’s constitutionally mandated State of the Union speech — was the one that implied Saddam Hussein was threatening us with nuclear weapons.
You’re at a wedding — the groom says “I don’t” instead of “I do” … “It’s just one sentence!”
You can laugh at the spin over the spin, should you choose. What should annoy you is the way the Democrat National Committee is editing the sentence to distort the President for their own political gain:
On Thursday the Democratic National Committee released a television ad, entitled “Read His Lips: President Bush Deceives the American People,” accusing Bush of lying when he mentioned the uranium issue in his State of the Union address.
The ad calls for a bipartisan investigation of the issue. It was produced by a group of veterans of the Clinton/Gore administration and several Democratic campaigns.
The ad begins with the words, “In his State of the Union address, George W. Bush told us of an imminent threat
Dean
Which is closer to a lie:
“The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.”
or
“I did not have sex with that woman.”
Just curious….
AnswertheQuestion
I’m curious too, Dean, which president has been held in contempt of court for lying and which one hasn’t?
Ricky
They’re desperate.
Now that the folks who brought you Bush pushing an old lady down the steps have given us the latest incarnation of their brilliance.
I’m trying to think of the last thing that party did that wasn’t absolutely idiotic……anyone?
Barney Gumble
“The left is now rushing to accuse the right of ‘spin’ regarding the SOTU sentence heard round the world.”
You’re attempt to collapse the black hole around the sentence is rather transparent.
Kevin Holtsberry
For what is is worth the SOTU speech is not constitutionally mandated.
Malaclypse
You seem to have it all mixed up. Bush said “The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.”
Now this is obviously a lie, how could it be anything else? The British couldn’t have learned this because it’s not true. So by saying they learned it they lied. They knew the British only perhaps at some stage THOUGHT they had learned something, but they were wrong. At the time of the speech they knew the British were wrong anyway.
Say I know someone who thinks the moon is made of cheese. If I say that he learned the moon is made of cheese I’m implying that he knows for a fact that it is made of cheese. If I really know it’s not, then I should say he THINKS or BELIEVES the moon is made of cheese. In the same way Bush should have said the British BELIEVE Saddam bought uranium, at least that would have some pretence of not being an outright lie. But they couldn’t even work out how to lie straight.
Mason
Malaclypse, how’s the view from your ass? The Brits have repeatedly confirmed intelligence, totally separate from the forged document, which supports the uranium assesment.
Green cheese, indeed. How does your brain function well enough to be able to use a computer?
Malaclypse
Unfortunately you have to be capable of understanding logic to see what Bush said wrong. The British didn’t learn anything because it wasn’t true. Try pretending someone else than Bush said this, perhaps the fog will lift from your brain and it’ll start working again.
Mason
[nameless person]: The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.
[The Brits, 20 minutes ago on the news]: We stand by this claim.
[Malaclypse]: It’s not true! Up is down! Bush is Hitler! I can’t hear you na na na na!
PeolesDru
HA!
Malaclypse
The problem is you are confusing being lucky with being logical. At the time Bush and his associates lied through their teeth. You know this as well as me, it’s all obvious. The thing is you are hoping that something lucky will happen so that in hindsight it makes it all look clever. Unfortunately that’s the problem with guessing and gambling instead of thinking and logic, it all looks good when things go your way but when the luck turns it all suddenly looks stupid, just like standing at a crap table. It’s like the looting of the museum etc, obviously they had no clue what they were doing, they are just hoping they’ll luck out and get most of it back and then say it was all in the plan. This was never clearer then when some reports came out the looting wasn’t too bad and all the gamblers started crowing. Now that it looks like the screwup it always was people are waiting to get lucky again so they can pretend it was all planned. It’s great when you’re lucky, makes you look like a phony when you’re not.
A lot of businessmen are like this, they gamble all the time hoping enough comes off and they become successful. The funny part is when they pretend it is somehow logical or they really planned it all. It’s a common delusion when the odds are with you to think like it’s all skill and when the odds go sour it’s all bad luck again.
The whole Iraq invasion was a big gamble that paid off in some ways but not in others. The dishonest part is when people claim the lucky parts are skill and then try to weasel out of when the luck runs out that it’s not their fault.
They lied about the WMD and the yellowcake and they gambled it wouldn’t matter. In a lot of ways they are right, it won’t matter to a lot of people. The problem now is it’s all being uncovered as a load of half assed guesses and they are now trying to pretend otherwise.
If they aren’t careful this lying will bring them down. Bush would be better off saying so, that he guessed the yellowcake deal was legit then trying to pretend someone actually tried to reason it out.
He already told the Palestinians that God or the voices in his head, whatever told him to invade Iraq so the rest is all probably window dressing anyway.
I have no problem with gamblers running things, I’m a businessman myself. Sometimes though people bet too much for the big score like Enron did, and like Bush is doing. If he had found something in Iraq by now he would be in Iran and Syria and saying how clever he was, but just pretending again that gambling is logic.
Now he’s on the other end of the luck, where it looks like the whole invasion was a bad guess. You can argue the merits of it but if Bush knew then what he does now there’s no way he would have invaded Iraq. He got nothing out of it except some contracts for his cronies.If the inspectors had have gone in, found nothing, and then he made Sadaam make deals with his cronies he would have had it all by now.
Now the luck is all bad, guerillas will continue to pick off soldiers and as they get better organised the kill rate will go up and up. That’s just the luck favouring the guerillas, just like it always does it in that situation. The gamble now is whether a proxy right wing dictatorship can be set up before the attrition gets too bad, to protect the crony oil deals, etc.
What they need is another Shah or Sadaam Hussein to hold off the religious leaders. It’s all a big game and all they are doing is guessing and gambling and then trying to pass it off as some kind of ability.
The gambler’s ruin though is lurking in the background and that’s why this kind of strategy usually fails in the long run. For any gambler sooner or later a run of bad luck wipes them out if they bet too large. It’s quite possible now Bush is finished if enough bad luck comes, and there’s a lot out there that could turn sour.
The tax cuts aren’t going to work, they already know this anyway. They tried the same thing with Stockman and Reagan and the trickle down theory is nonsense. They are gambling there will be enough of a bounce to get them through the election and then pray for something lucky. A lot of people thought getting their hands on the Iraqi oil would pull them out of the sh*t but bad luck there too.
I think they are done for because they bet the farm and now they look reckless. In trying not to look like gambling fools they’ll lie and try to make it it was all planned and then the web of lies and cover up will get them like it did Nixon.
That’s what happens when you substitute luck for logic, sooner or later it gets you like it did Enron. These people don’t understand that because they’ve always been in situations where the odds favour them, where gambling is good.
Now the odds are turning. You think Rumsfeld knows what to do besides look confident? Powell knows he lied to the UN he’s just hoping for a miracle now. Bush can’t pretend he worked all this out. Expect another big roll of the dice and pray it works. If the dice get hot again they can pretend it was all according to plan.
PeolesDru
Yeah – it’s so ludicrous to think that letting people keep more of their money would be beneficial to the economy. Clearly we need the elite, superior crowd to manage our money for us.
PeolesDru
Yeah – it’s so ludicrous to think that letting people keep more of their money would be beneficial to the economy. Clearly we need the elite, superior crowd to manage our money for us.
Malaclypse
I’m not sure which elite you are referring to. If either the government or the rich get it there’s no way you are getting any of it off them.
timekeeper
I’m not sure which elite you are referring to. If either the government or the rich get it there’s no way you are getting any of it off them.
The difference between the two is that the government didn’t make the money, it only printed it. I’m all for people being allowed to keep the wealth they create.
Ricky
If either the government or the rich get it there’s no way you are getting any of it off them.
I’m not rich & I don’t work for the gov’t & my tax cut went into effect last week.
Try another talking point.
LAughin@Malaclypse
That was a interesting spew, “bush and co. have just been lucky so far”
Maybe if you look at that spewage of yours from another view, You can say “the left press has been terribly unlucky at the crap table of jouranism, but one of these days they will get lucky and truth will match a headline”
Mason
Hey Malaclypse, the Brits (specifically Jack Straw) re-re-reconfirmed the uranium deal:
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20030712/wl_mideast_afp/iraq_britain_us_africa_030712164248
Don’t let that stop you from changing the subject again, though.
Malaclypse: “At the time Bush and his associates lied through their teeth. You know this as well as me, it’s all obvious. […] They lied about the WMD and the yellowcake and they gambled it wouldn’t matter.”
Explain the dozen-plus UN resolutions? Explain why congress voted authorization for war *months* before the SOTU speech? Explain why a gaggle of Dems are on record talking about Saddam and his WMDs? Should I go on?
Ah, screw it. BUSH LIED! PEOPLE DIED! BRAAAAINS! grRWAARK uuunhhh BRAAAINS!
Barney Gumble
Then: It’s not the sex, it’s the lying.
Now: It’s not the lying, it’s the…uh…
Malaclypse
Mason your arguments are all phoney, like you no doubt. We both know that when we get to the bottom of this the British will have no evidence at all. You are crowing now but you attitude is all nonsense. That’s because if there does turn out to be no evidence you don’t accept you have to do the opposite of crowing which is to eat crow.
You’re just a gambler like Bush and co. You have nothing but hope that some miracle will come along and justify the lies they told, and will jump on any scrap and crow about it. When it turns out to be the usual lies you won’t admit to anything because you’re too busy gambling the next miracle down the pike will save your argument. It’s not a bad strategy when it works, it makes you look very clever. Here unfortunately it just makes you look gullible.
You can’t get out of that because your arguments are irrational, all you can hope for is maybe Sadaam forget a warehouse 10 years ago when he destroyed all the weapons.
You end up on the side of people who claim the gliders of mass destruction were going to attack the US like a barrage of ICBM’s when they couldn’t have flown as much mail as a few carrier pigeons. Defending a story like that will make you look stupid to the left because it is stupid. It was a stupid gamble that lost. If there had been a secret fleet of paper airplanes dipped in anthrax ready to float their way to America Bush would have been a hero.
That’s the problem when you gamble, when you lose you look like a loser. You can pretend something will come along and make it all look worthwhile but nothing can any more, the game is over.
When you gamble you can’t be too faced about it. Bush took a chance and he crapped out. If he just says that then people won’t mind. If they try and pretend they thought all this through then they’ll get in more trouble for lying.Condi Rice is gambling now she can bluff around that she pushed to get the lies into the speech, and that Tenet won’t expose her. At the time the majority of people were against the war and they gambled that lying about uranium would sway enough people, and it worked.
Mason
Close, Barney. See, some of us out here don’t see a bunch of lies (or even a singular, honest-to-god lie). Some of us see the leaders of half of the god-damned *world* agreeing that Saddam possessed WMDs, including most of the leaders, GOP, DEM, or otherwise, in our own country, and the real debate was *what to do about it*.
Even better, we see Dems rallying behind a Dem president saying Saddam and his WMDs are a threat, then we see those SAME Dems voting to give authority to Bush to go to war (well before the Niger claim which the British STILL stand by so how was Kerry, who by the way served in Vietnam, misled?!), but now… now, inexplicably, Bush might as well have a forked tounge and pay no attention to the steaming pile of Dem crap in the middle of your living room floor.
A few months down the road… to a bunch of chowderhead zombies wearing Helmets of Screeching Fury Bush Hatred +8 chanting “BRAAAAINS!!! BUSH LIED!! BRAAAAINSSS!! grRWAARK uuunhhh PEOPLE DIED!!”.
You want to know something else, Barney? This all comes from someone who is NOT a Bush cheerleader, from someone who has some serious problems with choices and policies of the administration. These asinine claims and repeated attempts at manufacturing scandals are pushing people like me, who might otherwise be critical of Bush, to defend him!
And I thought Clinton was a master at getting his opponents worked up to a foaming-at-the-mouth lunacy.
David Perron
Obviously those on the Left haven’t seen fit to actually pick up a dictionary.
lie: n A deliberate falsehood.
Mason
Tony Blair, addressing Parliament last week: “In the 1980’s Iraq purchased somewhere in the region of 200 or more tons of uranium from Niger. The evidence that we had that the Iraqi government had gone back to try to purchase further amounts of uranium from Niger did not come from so-called ‘forged’ documents, they came from separate intelligence.”
BLAIR LIED! BRRAAAAINS!! grRWAARK uuunhhh PEOPLE DIED!! MOOOOORE BRAAAAINS!
Malaclypse
This is all absurd as well. For many years governments alleged Sadaam had WMD. Their intelligence services said so. That doesn’t mean they knew this, but that they thought so. At the time this was considered to be justification for sanctions. The Iraqis didn’t cooperate because the real agenda was the sanctions would only be lifted if there was regime change.
Since the Iraqis couldn’t get rid of Sadaam they had no incentive to deal with inspectors.
This was painted as being evidence the Iraqis were hiding something. They saw no point in arguing about it until an agreement was reached that cooperation would lift the sanctions. There the matter stood.
Then Bush examines the evidence and there’s still no proof Iraq has WMD. He decides their refusal to let in inspectors is because they are hiding something, not because they have no incentive to do so.
The intelligence services say they think Sadaam still has WMD and so do a lot of democrats. Nobody knows they do, a lot of people “think” they might. Up till now no one has been prepared to invade Iraq because their evidence is not strong enough. We know now it wasn’t strong enough because it was all wrong.
So there’s no contradiction there at all between democrats saying years ago they thought he had WMD. They weren’t sure enough to do something about it and they were right. Bush had to make up half of it to convince people to support the invasion and as it turns out the Iraqis were telling the truth when they said for years they had destroyed it all.
If someone had have offered them lifting of the sancitons in exchange for full inspections they would have jumped at it, Iraq would have been certified free of WMD, and the sanctions lifted. They didn’t work to get rid of Sadaam anyway. All they did was kill innocent people.
The whole thing is probably Clinton’s fault for not giving the Iraqis a chance to get the sanctions lifted. That doesn’t excuse lying to everyone about the evidence to justify an invasion though.
I guess no one will face up to this here because they’re still waiting for that miracle bit of evidence to be found. Bush said it best. “You can fool some of the people all the time and those are the ones you concentrate on.” You guys are the fools. Bush lied to you because he thought you were too stupid to work it out. Treat me like a fool, treat me sweet and cruel…
David Perron
No incentive, eh? I’ll bet it looks like incentive from this side of the war.
One sentence is not “half”. That once sentence was omitted from the considerations Congress used to decide whether to go to war or not, and was also omitted from what Powell presented to the U.N., which likely was a major factor in our allies going to war with us. But since it looks like maybe, just maybe, that one sentence turned out not to be true, latch onto it and never let go. Please. You’re doing us a big favor here.
Sincerely,
Dave Perron
Chairman, VRWC
HH
Dean: We all know and Clinton knew at the time for a fact that he was lying and he continued to do so under oath again and again and this question was the central question of the sexual harassment lawsuit at the time. Bush said once that Saddam sought something he very well may have sought in a wide-ranging speech, and at the time at least he had enough confidence in British intelligence to believe he sought it. No one in their right mind at the time or now believes this was a central issue. The American people had the choice whether or not to believe Bush’s citation of the British but it was not really a question of believing Bush himself. In Clinton’s case, it was.
David Perron
I just reread this thread and got quite a chuckle out of Malaclypse’s absurd claim that it’s manifestly obvious Bush is lying; if we don’t admit that we’re lying too.
Circular reasoning, anyone? How about some evidence-based argument, rather than the midden-heap of opinion we’re being subjected to?
bdf
this is a strange,strange world