Ticomaya wrote:blatham wrote:tico said
Quote:You've managed to convince yourself that Hughes is a liar .... congratulations. (And, BTW, I'm not sure if I could care any less about this than I do at the moment -- which I'm sure you will find as another flaw in my character.) But you should not give yourself points in "personal integrity" as a consequence. I do not share your predilection towards assuming someone is a liar based solely on the leveling of a charge, and the presence of a motivation to lie. I did not do it to Clinton, I have not done it to Bush, and I see no reason to do it to Hughes. But the fact that you've cast aspersions on my character for not doing so says more about yours than mine, IMO.
Of course, it isn't merely the "leveling of a charge". Tucker Carlson's witnessing of the matter puts it in quite another category. And rather obviously, one of them is lying so motive is important.
Considering rules of evidence, the principles and rationale behind the need for them and the civil or justice consequences for ignoring them, it seems rather unbalanced that you'd need a trial by jury in this case to give yourself licence to say she lied (with what real consequence for anyone?)
but at the same time you are quite happy to see most of those principles and rationales eviscerated in another sphere where the consequences have reached as far as torture and death.
Please explain the bolded portion above. Are you sure you don't have me confused with someone else?
Quote:Yes, that is an integrity, justice, truth and character issue. I like you. To see you go so far off the rails baffles me entirely.
What's baffling is your insistence that I must acknowledge Karen Hughes to be a liar simply based on Tucker Carlson's say so. Do you have some specifics? Does Carlson enunciate a specific lie that he caught her telling, or is he completely generic in his accusation? I don't know Carlson's level of integrity any more than I know Hughes (and neither do you I suspect), yet you are baffled by my reluctance to presume Carlson is without error and Hughes is a liar, simply based on Carlson's one-sided account. As I said, your position here is the truly baffling one.
In response to your first question:
To your mind (at least insofar as your mind is actually reflected by your arguments) it is an injustice to charge or conclude that Hughes has lied even where she and Carlson, both conservatives, both Republicans, have given directly contradictory reports of an event, and even where Hughes has an obvious motive to lie and Carlson does not. Being contradictory, one must be false, per a fundamental axiom of logic. The nature of the matter rules out either even the most minimal chance of 'forgetfulness' or misapprehension as factors to account for the contradiction. The evidentiary or justice reason which your arguments here rely upon are that one ought not to make accusations about another with insufficient evidence because an individual can be unjustly damaged where such evidentiary rules are ignored. Perhaps too, you hold to a related rigorous epistemological standard...people ought not to suggest they "know" or that a matter is "factual" in such a case as this.
Yet, contrast your evidentiary or justice or epistemological concerns here with your stance on the treatment of people rounded up in Afghanistan often because they were merely within a certain targeted geography, held without access to legal help for indeterminate periods of time, subject to treatment which falls under the definitions of "torture" in both American military codes and international codes to which the US is signatory.
As regards the second part of your post:
Perhaps you actually ought to have read the materials. Again, Carlson wrote a book several years ago wherein he stated that while on a AF1 flight with Bush and with Hughes present during the conversations, he head Bush use the F word a number of times. Hughes later denied the truth of this account, saying Bush had never used the F word on that flight, and one instance of that denial was in a phone conversation with Carlson.
The entire and only reason I brought this matter up at all was to make a measure of you and your participation here. I have absolutely no judgement to make on Bush using or not using the F word, nor Cheney, nor anyone else. I consider such as important or revelatory as what side of the head one might part his hair.
I wanted to see if we might find common ground through addressing a principle (the desireability of honesty and integrity in our politicians). I wished to measure whether you would be able to rise above loyalty to party.
It isn't a happy thing to find you can't seem to do this.
We won't be talking again on political matters.
