the flip flop canidateFollow

As opposed to WMDs?

There's absolutely no difference in what I said. Regardless of context, regardless of motive, regardless of anything, either foreign leaders told Kerry they supported him or they didn't. All the playground taunting in the world from Powell and Cheney doesn't change that fact. We can argue whether or not it was a good idea to bring it up, but we can't argue over the truthfulness of it because neither of us know and little ultimatiums from the Bush camp do nothing to change that. I can certainly imagine it being true, given Bush's reputation in the world at large. Really, it's up to me as an individual to determine the likelihood of it being true based on what I know. Of course, all the Republicans are going to say "He didn't tell us! Teehee! He's lying!" and the Democrats are going to say "Yeah, because the King of Whereverstan needs Bush huffing around at him.." so it's a moot point here anyway. I don't get the impression this forum has many swing voters

Edited, Thu Mar 18 00:07:55 2004 by Jophiel

And what is his reputation in the world at large? I'm not talking what you think of him or the small pockets of anti-American zealots that get played on the liberal media stations, I would like you to show us proof that his and America's reputation is as poor as you tend to believe it is by showing what governments official policy is against the United States and the leadership of GW. Statistics would help, but I know that when people blow smoke out there *** they truly don't have much to back it up. :) Just saying ya know.

Actually it would be nice if you name names, but then again this would be 5th grade recess tactics, wouldn't it?



Respected by whom? Perhaps if you named a couple I could agree or disagree with you.



Actually I am very pleased to know that these investigations if true are being spearheaded by Republicans. This means that the moral fortitude of the ones spearheading the investigations is above party partisanship. If an administration official has done anything wrong then he/she should be punished at least some Republicans understand this. Yet, you make it sound like because these Rep are spearheading these investigations they are anti-Bush. Could you please post a link to these stories you talk about? Thanks.

http://www.munsters.com/

Does it get any better than this? And check out Ker-ry up top in that scrolling banner! Lol!

Totem

Hmmm... I still see a distinct difference, even between the WMD and Kerry's claims.

If you state something like: "There's a blue ball in that box over there". Even if it later turns out that there isn't, you weren't necessarily lying. If you believed there was a blue ball in that box, you were simply wrong. Not a lie.

That's a simple "It's either true or it isn't", but a person's statements about something are *always* going to be their belief at the moment they made the statement.


On the other hand, if you make a claim about what someone else did or said to you personally, you aren't stating your belief about the state of something external to you, you are specifically relating something that either did or did not happen to you. While I suppose you could technically state later that the person mis-remembered the facts, that's a pretty bogus excuse. The person either said what they said to you (in this case support for Kerry), or they didn't. However, when Kerry states that he has this support, he's saying that specific people told him that they supported him. He's not talking about something unseen and basing a conclusion on the information he has available. He's relating something that happened directly to him. If he can't relate the actual events that occured, then he's either lying, or has an absolutely horrible memory.


Bush's statements were *very* clearly not based on personal experience. I don't think even the dimmest liberal bulb out there believes that Bush personally toured Iraq and saw stockpiles of WMD and based his statements off that. Therefore, if his statement turns out to be wrong, there are a dozen different points between the facts and the information he related where the falsehood could have originated. You can't just assume that all his analysts told him that there were no WMD but he then turned around and said the opposite.

Kerry's statements were specifically about personal experiences. He claimed that foreign leaders told him directly that they supported him. There are no points where he could have recieved false information. They either told him that, or they didn't. This was an event he personally witnessed. Therefore, not being able to back up his statements does seriously call his honesty into question.



To put this back in context, when Bush made his claims about WMD in Iraq, did not tons of folks ask for "proof"? Did not Colin Powell then detail the intelligence that we had that indicated the existence of a WMD in Iraq? While none of that proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that WMD actually existed in Iraq, it did provide adequate support for Bush's statements. When people asked: "What do you base that statement on", he pointed to the intelligence as his source.


So... When people ask Kerry: "What do you base that statement on?", in relation to the foreign leaders alleged statements of support, shouldn't we also expect at least some information that supports what Kerry said? Isn't that reasonable? I think it is...

It was a joke. Hence the little laughing smiley-faced guy. I won't bother with the rest of your post comparing the two because you wrote eight paragraphs refuting a joke.

If you really believe that most left-wingers are stupid, poor, promiscuous, immoral, and generally repulsive, you're a sucker. Right-wing media has been pushing that propaganda for years now. It's totally untrue.

Most stupid, poor, promiscuous, immoral, and generally repulsive people don't have a political thought in their heads, much less a voting card in their wallet.

SUCKER! ha ha ha ha ha ha!!

Well. Yes. That's what the reporter later claimed his recorder actually recorded. Um... a full week after the fact. His "correction" was released on Monday the 15th. The original statement was made by Kerry on Monday the 8th.

Odd that the Kerry camp didn't make the correction themselves. They have the transcript of the speach he gave right?



Again. fine. However, you've got a one week period during which, to all appearances, the words "foreign leaders" was what Kerry said. Are you suggesting that we should not listen to anything that is printed about Kerry because at any point any of it could have been mistranscribed by a reporter? Sorry. The Reps have to respond to the statement as it is reported (and did).



Oh? Like one that mistranscribes a speach by a presidential candidate in such a way as to imply that that candidate has the support of foreign leaders, but then when folks ask for proof, that reporter corrects his mistake? I suppose that's where we should all be getting our news?

The same source that made the correction is the one that made the initial mistake Smash. One can't possibly be more believable then the other...



I'd also like to point out this: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,114177,00.html

Now. Admittedy, this is Fox news, but I'm sure if we dug, we could find more sources for this quote. What's interesting is that this report comes out on March 15th (the same day the Globe reporter submits his correction), and refers to events that occured the day before (Sunday, March 14th). Let's see:





Um... Oops! He said it there again... Was he was mistranscribed a second time?


Now maybe the tail was wagging the dog. Maybe Kerry took the original mistranscribed story and figured he'd run with it since the damage was already done. However you look at it though, he's claiming support that he doesn't have.

Sunday the 14th is the same day that Colin Powell challenged Kerry's remarks btw. Did Kerry know the Reps were on to him at the time he made his second speach? Was it a mistake? Who knows? Point again is that he's willing to just kinda make stuff up as he goes along if it sounds good.

Think really really hard. Voting in Kerry simply because he's "against the other guy" just seems like a bad approach. What is he "for"? Other then bashing the policies of the Bush adminstration and the Republican party, I haven't seen a darn thing. Ok. I've seen the generally vague: "make things better", "help the poor", "do things different" kind of stuff that sounds great, but really isn't saying anything. What is his plan to deal with international terrorism? How's he going to handle the economy? How's he going to prevent jobs from going overseas (since outsourcing is apparently such a big issue)? Does he think raising taxes on big business will somehow make them want to do more manufacturing business in the US? What other ideas does he have? Does he have any plan beyond "Make Bush look bad so folks will vote for me instead"?

What? Um... Look. I just responded to statements made by others in this thread. I didn't make up the bit about Kerry's statement. I simply responded to it. Find me a statement that I said that was incorrect please.

My argument was not about whether Kerry made the statement or not. Heck. When it was mentioned in the thread was the first I'd heard of it! My argument was that if Kerry made the claim that he had the support of foreign leaders, that he should in fact suppoort those claims. End of story.

Um... Factual information? I just posted a "fact" that completely blows Smash's post out of the water. Were you reading?


Here. Let me refresh:

On Monday, March 8th. Kerry is quoted by a Boston Globe reporter named Patrick Healy with the following statement:



Over the next week, this kinda raised a storm as folks were questioning which leaders he may have been talking about.

On Sunday, March 14th, Kerry made the following statement in response to the questions:




Ok? You following this? Note. Almost a full week. Not one statement from Kerry or his camp denying that he said the words "Foreign Leaders" in his speach from March 8th. A second statement on March 14th that again uses the exact words "foreign leaders". Remember that. It's significant.


On Monday, March 15th, Patrick Healy releases the following statement (I've got a link here): http://www.drudgereport.com/kerrybo.htm

In it, he says that he mistranscribed the words from one week earlier on the March 8th Kerry speach. The word that he though was "foreign" was actually "more". So the actual quote was (my bold btw):




That's the mistranscription that Smash is talking about. And that's all well and good. But what about the statement he made on March 14th? That's a *different* statement, made on a different day, presumably before different reporters, a full 6 days after the first speach, and clearly *after* there was already an uproar about his use of the phrase "foreign leaders" in the first one.


Those are facts Fell. If you don't like them, then feel free to come up with something to refute them. I don't just make stuff up. Smash does. But I don't.

I'll repeat my original argument. If Kerry is making claims that he's hearing from foreign leaders who are telling him that Bush has got to go, then he damn well needs to support his claims. If he can't or wont, then it really does seriously call his credibility into question. That's not just a matter of opinion. That's a matter of fact. Whether the original quote was correct or not is irrelevant. He made essentially the exact same statement a week later. It's still a valid issue.

Yes, it is. So what relevance does that statement have with mine?

Here. I'll give you one right back:


Isn't it ironic how folks who lack facts to back up their position use innuendo and implication instead?


And yes. That does match your statement.

Hmmm... Ok. But I think you are using the terms "lie" and "liar" incorrectly.

A liar is someone who knows one thing to be true, but attempts to convince people that something else is instead. A lie is the statement someone makes when doing that.

The statement you quoted from me is my opinion of what the democratic party is about. By definition, an opinion can never be a lie.

There are, of course, degrees of lying. Everything from knowing that something is one way and telling someone that it's something else (you look in a box and see a red ball, then turn around and tell the guy next to you that it's blue), to making up "facts" when you don't actually have them (you have no idea what color the ball is, but you tell the person next to you that you know for a fact that it's blue).


Smash throws the second kind of lie around all the time. The sheer number of times that he'll make a claim about something, and even include a link to a source that he insists supports his statement, but then it turns out after the fact that the source says nothing close to what Smash claimed is staggering. I'm sorry, but if you read a source of data about outsourcing (to use a topical example), and then argue that the source says that 14 million programmer jobs were outsourced to India, but the source doesn't actually say that, what exactly are you doing? Isn't that a lie?

If you read War and Peace, and then turn around and tell someone that it's about the Vietnam war, wouldn't you be lying? I suppose you could just be mistaken, and maybe making a mistake the first time is acceptable. But after doing it over and over, some people might start to think that maybe you aren't a very reliable person to go to if you want to know what books are about. Same logic applies here. The number of times that Smash has "mistakenly" misinterpreted a source is simply beyond belief. No one can make that many mistakes folks. He does it nearly every time he posts a source for any statement he makes. Maybe some people don't see the pattern, but I do...


And all of this is still just more obfuscation. Someone posted about Kerry's claims of having the support of foreign leaders. I agreed that if he made those claims, he should have to back them up. Smash responded that Kerry didn't actually make it, but that a reporter mistranscribed him. I responded with another quote from Kerry where he also refers to foreign leaders giving him support that was *not* mistranscribed. So... Um... Where's the rebuttle to this? Is there one? Why do I suddenly hear birds chirping in response (and a quick change of subject from the topic to an attack on me)? Why am I not surprised?


I just find it funny that when someone (like me) actually pull out completely irrefutable proof of something, certain parties suddenly get very very quiet... Odd that. I was taught that you debate with facts and reason, not rhetoric and emotion. Now maybe it's unreasonable to expect others to do the same, but I'll keep trying in any case.

Ok. Still lost here Meadros. Exactly how do you interpret this as anything but someone's opinion:




Let's see. Dems want to increase taxes on big business. Reps want to lower it. Following this? Therefore, if one believes that big busines generates prosperity (which I do), then the statement I made is 100% in keeping with my economic beliefs. It's consistent, it's logical, it makes sense. It may still be "wrong", but given that you could put 100 professional economicists in a room and get 100 different answers about what "right" is in that context, that's perfectly acceptable.


Here's the thing. I know that Smash disagrees with me on that point. And I'm fine with that. However, here's where an opinion becomes a lie:


(this is not a real quote btw, I'm just making it up)


Now. If I made this statement, and you went trundlng off to the link I included, and found that we didn't lose 15 million jobs, and there was a decrease in starvation, and maybe the standard of living went down, but not as a result of any Dem policies, wouldn't you think that I was lying? Or at the very least, misrepresenting the facts?


Now. Think really really really hard on this. Feel free to go read some of the longer threads appearing on the first few pages of this forum. Then come back and tell me which of Smash and I does that kinda of "lie about the data" post. Not occasionally. Not "once or twice", but in nearly every political thread.

Look. I have no problem with people having different opinions about things. That's the whole point. It's just that when someone pulls out total garbage, or deliberately misinterprets data to make it look like their opinion is more right then it is, I will nail them for it. It's not like I go out deliberately picking on Smash because of this. He just happens to do it more often then anyone else on this forum. If he'd just stop trying to use bogus data as support for his arguments I wouldn't have to keep calling BS on him.

Heh. Depends on what you think "actively" means. On a forum, I'd say that "actively" means going out of your way to push your opinion on others. "Folks like Smash" would include people who have similar ideas as Smash. In this context, we're talking about economics.

Smash has on several occasions professed a belief that we should be taxing everyone and everything at 50% or higher and using that money to provide free housing, food, education, and medicine to everyone.

How exactly does that not match the statement: "...folks like Smash, who actively desire to crush our economy by taking as much from those who generate our prosperity as possible, while saddling us with mounds of entitlement in some vain attempt to make an inherenty unfair world "fair".[/quote]


Ok. Maybe you dislike the phrase "crush our economy". However, it is my firm belief that paying for the level of entitlement that he actively advocates would crush our economy. You may disagree with my opinion, but that's the point of debate.


I have no problem with people having different opinions then myself. Heck. It would be boring if no one disagreed. However, if you see one pattern to my posting its this: When I see someone using exagerations or incorrect data to support their opinions, I'll correct them. I do it all the time. If you look at most of the threads on this front page, I'm constantly interjecting facts into posts that are otherwise full of innuendo and exageration. Call it my own contribution to the board.

When flish started out a post about "big government" and the Bush administration, and he used a number like "50 times" to describe Bush's budget in relation to Clintons, I corrected him. I did so by finding the actual budget numbers and providing a link, and posting the figures.

When Smash supported his postion on outsourcing with a "14 million programmer jobs moved to India" statement, I looked up the data and corrected him.

When Smash responded by claiming it was still 1 million. I looked at the data and corrected him again.

When he then posted an article about a few thousand (4700?) jobs being outsourced at IBM, I looked at the article and pointed out that the data came from a union source (vested interest?), was unofficial (no confirmed source for the info), and was still talking about something that *might* happen, not something that had happened.

When folks simplify the war in Iraq to whether or not we find WMD, I point out that there were a great many reasons for that war, only the most basic of which was the possible presence of WMD. Heh. In this case, I'm not even necessarily in disagreement with them. I've never been a big supporter of the Iraq war, and actively criticized it when it was happening. However, I still feel compelled to inject some realistic data into the argument.


There are enough legitimate reasons to ***** about one thing or another in this world, I simply don't understand why some folks feel the need to exagerate facts in order to argue a point. If it's "lying" to simply insist that people actually use real data to support their arguments, then call me a liar. Personally, I don't think that is the correct definition, but I suppose we could argue over that as well if you want... ;)