"Splitting the Difference" and the (Very) Big Lie
Michael Barone is a columnist for US News & World Report -- and one of the most respected political analysts working today.
His column today, called "The (Very) Big Lie" and focusing on Democrat charges that President Bush deliberately manipulated intelligence, is well worth reading. Yes, of course, it sets forth (in terms so clear that even a 7 year old could understand) why the whole "Bush lied" canard is so ridiculous.
But what's even more remarkable is that Barone wrote it at all. In the press, particularly when "truth telling" would involve defending Republicans, there's a marked tendency toward an "on the one hand/on the other hand" style of reporting -- an unspoken assumption that, of course, both sides are misstating the facts a little bit.
In the end, those telling the truth are disadvantaged. Just as one can't prove a negative, the truth can't be exaggerated, and so when the press "splits the difference" -- well, then they haven't told the truth.
Michael Barone has. And it's admirable.
His column today, called "The (Very) Big Lie" and focusing on Democrat charges that President Bush deliberately manipulated intelligence, is well worth reading. Yes, of course, it sets forth (in terms so clear that even a 7 year old could understand) why the whole "Bush lied" canard is so ridiculous.
But what's even more remarkable is that Barone wrote it at all. In the press, particularly when "truth telling" would involve defending Republicans, there's a marked tendency toward an "on the one hand/on the other hand" style of reporting -- an unspoken assumption that, of course, both sides are misstating the facts a little bit.
In the end, those telling the truth are disadvantaged. Just as one can't prove a negative, the truth can't be exaggerated, and so when the press "splits the difference" -- well, then they haven't told the truth.
Michael Barone has. And it's admirable.
posted by LadybugUSA at 1:49 PM
10 Comments:
Your comments on Barone's article are laughable. It's seems just like Bush you cherrypicked some facts. And Iraq is still a mess, and so is Afghanistan. But you wouldn't know that having never been there!
And you have been there?
hehe...
Hey rzafft,
Could you please post your real name, address, phone number, birth date and social security?
I'm baking a cowpie and want to know who to send it to.
Love,
Martha
A post by "predatory_pray" has been deleted. I'm a believer in free and open debate, but profanity and other abuse isn't going to be tolerated here. With every day, I'm steadily losing respect for the debating skills of the left.
If you want rational reporting and commentary, listen to or read Barone!
Am I mistaken, or did these crude attacks on Carol begin when the House Republicans forced the Democrats to put up or shut up on the policy of surrender in Iraq?
that's ok sweetie, I can't lose any respect for you as I never had any to begin with..
LOLIYF
The first Anonymous must not have read the article. Quoting Mr. Barone:
"To the charges that Bush 'cherry-picked' intelligence, the commission cochaired by former Democratic Sen. Charles Robb found that the intelligence available to Bush but not to Congress was even more alarming than the intelligence Congress had."
In other words, if they were really doing that, why wouldn't they have picked the best cherries? Why keep those in reserve?
You act as if Mr. Barone is a journalist. He's as much of a journalist as you are. Both of you are partisan commentators, not journalists.
As a Reagan Republican, I don't think the Bushies lied...at least not anymore than Clinton lied about Monica. Both created a parallel universe of self-deception that allowed them to actually believe what they were saying and therefore not be willfully telling an untruth.
Clinton constructed a Bizarro World in his own head in which fellatio is not sex. The Bushies created a similar world of intellectual incuriosity and paranoia where the drunken ravings of Curveball and other "burn list" sources were taken as absolute certainties and volumes of contradictory evidence was discarded and its sources attacked as unpatriotic or worse. We now know that Bush et al. used information from a source that German intelligence warned was psychologically unstable. We now know that, in a likely game of "telephone line", they even made claims attributed to Curveball that he did not make. We now know that Bush “ignored evidence that UN weapons inspectors had disproved virtually all of Curveball's accounts before the war.” http://www.boston.com/news/world/europe/articles/2005/11/20/germans_say_informant_us_used_to_justify_war_in_iraq_was_unreliable/
You're right, Carol. Bush didn't lie. And neither did Bubba. As much as I objected to his amorality, at least with Clinton we were treated to questions on the definition of “is”. With Bush, we’re treated to questions on the definition of “torture”.
*****
"In times of universal deceit, telling the truth will be a revolutionary act." - George Orwell
"Anyone who has proclaimed violence his method inexorably must choose lying as his principle." - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
I truly believe Bush didn't lie. It was Cheney et al.. Bush was just the "useful idiot" ; he's too unintersted and unknowledgeable in foreign affairs. Besides all the energy and time spent on his cross-country cycling keep him from really reading any forgeries or discredited confessions by unstable defectors for him to come up with any of the fairy tales fabricated to brind us to war. Does it really make sense to think that he could come up with the aluminum tubes story and the 'yellowcake from Niger' canard. C'mon who are you trying to kid????
By the way tell Mehlman he's wasting his money paying you to lie about the lying.
Haven't you seen the polls?
Haven't you seen the articles by the Italian press? The German press? The British press?
Give it up ; it's too far gone now.
Remember just one thing : YOU CAN NEVER PUT THE TOOTHPASTE BACK INTO THE TUBE!!!!
The Democrats claimed Reagan was too stupid to be President. They also called him a cowboy and said he was too dangerous to be President.
Reagan re-vitalized the American economy and defeated the Soviet Union. He changed the world for the better.
Today, the Democrats are saying Bush is too stupid to be President. They also call him a cowboy and say he's too dangerous to be President.
Bush has set policies in place that, if followed through, will establish a free and stable Middle East. He's changing the world for the better.
If I were a Democrat and my only goal was to defeat Republicans, I'd probably also be a bitter moonbat by now!
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