President Bush: Is He a Liar?

Ticomaya: So Cyclopitchorn states that this is not an exercise in logic but an exercise in politics. The left wing wants to brand George W. Bush a liar.

Fine. But as has been repeated over and over by many on this thread, the judgment that GW Bush is a liar can only be made by people who have an opinion. They cannot and will not PROVE it.

Therefore, the drive of the left on this thread is political.

Why?

GW Bush will not run again. He cannot. Certainly, some of his initiatives will be passed( see the all important passage of the tax relief extension), therefore, that portion of the left who views any attacks, no matter how wrong headed as leverage to defeat candidates in November.

However, as one of our very wise colleagues(Ackerman) has pointed out on another thread- Two weeks is an eternity in politics.

We shall see what takes place in November!!!

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Also, Tico, having thought more on the "reasonable inferences" discussion, it sounds as if you are trying to do away with circumstancial evidence. After all, circumstancial evidence is something from which we draw inferences.

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Ticomaya wrote:

FreeDuck wrote:
An intent to deceive is needed, I think. But I think we have that in at least a couple of pieces. I've argued elsewhere that same thing about the 16 words in the SOTU address. Were they technically accurate? Probably, but what was the intent? The intent was to make us believe something that the person speaking those words had been told wasn't true. In my view that qualifies as, if not an outright lie, a deception. And I think if we look closely we will find many such deceptions.

FD, can you give me a link to where it's been established that the Bush Administration had been told the 16 words were not true?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/3056626.stm

Does that mean you're ready to consider this one as number 2? I kind of doubt I'll have much luck with it since the argument will be that because he pinned it on the British government, it's not a lie. But I think it fits with the definition of a lie as something said with the intention to deceive.

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It comes down to 3 choices.

Bush lied, Bush is incompetent or Bush is psychotic.

If Bush says something that any reasonable person believes would be untrue if given the facts Bush was given, those are the only 3 possible choices I see.

Bush made a lot of statements before the war that it turns out were not true and the intelligence was iffy on. That really only leads to the 3 choices. There aren't too many others. Any argument that Bush was relying on the intelligence fails when the intelligence report is the opposite or non commital. That means that those defending Bush are left to argue that those under Bush didn't give him the correct information which means Bush is incompetent for leaving such people in place.

Ultimately, we are left to argue the minutia of should Bush have known what he said wasn't true. It's a battle that will never be won.

For instance Bush stated that there were missles in Iraq capable of hitting Israel. No such missiles were found. UNSCOM at the time of Bush's statement had reported destroying the known scuds except for one. The Al Samoud, which violated the 150km restriction didn't have the range to reach Israel, 180km is not hundreds of miles. There is no credible evidence of Saddam having such missiles. Yet Bush in a speech in Cincinnati said

Quote:

Iraq possesses ballistic missiles with a likely range of hundreds of miles -- far enough to strike Saudi Arabia, Israel, Turkey, and other nations

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This whole thread reminds me of:

Quote:

Depends of what your definition of the word "is" is...

but now it goes:

Quote:

Depends of what your definition of the word "lie" is...

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okie wrote:

parados wrote:

I said we can all agree that Bush has made statements that have turned out to be factually untrue. Do you agree or disagree? You seem to be arguing that everything Bush has said is factually true. Is that your case?

No, you said: "I think there is little question that Bush has made statements that are factually untrue.

Everyone seems to agree with that. Can we see a show of hands that think he has never made a statement that has proven false?"

I did not say that everything Bush has said is factually true. I merely pointed out that your claim that "Everyone seems to agree with" "I think there is little question that Bush has made statements that are factually untrue." Where is your evidence that "Everyone" seems to agree? Everyone includes alot of people, more than your opinion, Parados. I think there is pretty good evidence that you probably told a whopper with your statement, Parados, because at least one person somewhere, probably many, would disagree with you. Using the yardstick employed by many on this thread, you are a liar Parados.

Find me one person that thinks every thing Bush has said is factually true.

Thanks for playing.. Have a nice day....

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It depends on the definition of lie. Truth is what is now, not necessarily what was, or what will be. The President is a very powerful man and sometimes exercises it to change how people think. Therefore the concept of a presidential lie is a misthought by those who thought they perceived it. imho

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I am very much afraid that Drew Dad has not kept up on Intelligence Assessments.

Editorial in the New York Times( They are NEVER wrong according to the left) during Clinton's tenure--

"without further outside interventioon, Iraq should be able to rebuild weapons and missle plants within a year and future military attacks may be required to diminish the arsenal again"

Washington Post which greeted the inauguration of GW Bush in 2001 with the admonition that:

"of all the booby traps left behind by the Clinton Administration, none is more dangerous-or more urgent than the situation in Iraq. Over the last year, Mr. Clinton and his team quietly avoided dealing wioth, or calling attention to, THE ALMOST COMPLETE UNREAVELING OF A DECADE'S EFFORTS TO ISOLATE THE REGIME OF SADDAM HUSSEIN AND PREVENT IT FROM REBUILDING ITS WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION. THIS LEAVES PRESIDENT BUSH TO CONFRONT A DISMAYING PANORAMA IN THE PERSIAN GULT WHERE INTELLIGENCE PHOTOS SHOW THE RECONSTRUCTION OF FACTORIES LONG SUSPECTED OF PRODUCING CHEMICAL AND BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS"

Drew Dad is invited to review the intelligence estimates coming from Germany and (yes) France concerning Saddam's WMD build-up. If he cannot find them,I will be glad to reference them for him.

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Steve (as 41oo) wrote:

It depends on the definition of lie. Truth is what is now, not necessarily what was, or what will be. The President is a very powerful man and sometimes exercises it to change how people think. Therefore the concept of a presidential lie is a misthought by those who thought they perceived it. imho

Oh. My. God.

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Massagato/Italgato/Mortkat/BernardR is starting to shout now. It should only be a matter of time before he gets banned.

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Well, we all know that Brandon will never accept silly things like facts, opinions or polls that criticize or diminish the credibility of Dubya.
But we do have to be honest with ourselves when we accuse the shrub of lying because we can never prove his intent. Someone tells him to say something and he says it.

The failure of this administration to own up to repeated falsehoods, factual errors or errors in judgement, is perhaps an endeavour worth examining.

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Again, I though the thread was dealing with Bush.
Looks like John's Law isn't dissimilar to gravity Set.

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There is nothing new in a government lying to their people to start a war. Indeed because most people prefer living in peace to bloody and horrific death in war, any government that desires to initiate a war usually lies to their people to create the illusion that support for the war is the only possible choice they can make.

President McKinley told the American people that the USS Maine had been sunk in Havana Harbor by a Spanish mine. The American people, outraged by this apparent unprovoked attack, supported the Spanish American War. The Captain of the USS Maine had insisted the ship was sunk by a coal bin explosion, investigations after the war proved that such had indeed been the case. There had been no mine.

Hitler used this principle of lying to his own people to initiate an invasion. He told the people of Germany that Poland had attacked first and staged fake attacks against German targets. The Germans, convinced they were being threatened, followed Hitler into Poland and into World War 2.

FDR claimed Pearl Harbor was a surprise attack. It wasn't. The United States saw war with Japan as the means to get into war with Germany, which Americans opposed. So Roosevelt needed Japan to appear to strike first. Following an 8-step plan devised by the Office of Naval Intelligence, Roosevelt intentionally provoked Japan into the attack. Contrary to the official story, the fleet did not maintain radio silence, but sent messages intercepted and decoded by US intercept stations. Tricked by the lie of a surprise attack, Americans marched off to war.

President Johnson lied about the Gulf of Tonkin to send Americans off to fight in Vietnam. There were no torpedoes in the water in the Gulf. LBJ took advantage of an inexperienced sonar man's report to goad Congress into escalating the Vietnam

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DrewDad wrote:

Also, Tico, having thought more on the "reasonable inferences" discussion, it sounds as if you are trying to do away with circumstancial evidence. After all, circumstancial evidence is something from which we draw inferences.

I am certainly not minimizing circumstantial evidence ... guilty verdicts in court can be rendered based solely on the adducing of circumstantial evidence at trial. But the question is to what standard are you applying the evidence against ... and what is the definition of "lie."

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FreeDuck wrote:

Ticomaya wrote:
FreeDuck wrote:
An intent to deceive is needed, I think. But I think we have that in at least a couple of pieces. I've argued elsewhere that same thing about the 16 words in the SOTU address. Were they technically accurate? Probably, but what was the intent? The intent was to make us believe something that the person speaking those words had been told wasn't true. In my view that qualifies as, if not an outright lie, a deception. And I think if we look closely we will find many such deceptions.

FD, can you give me a link to where it's been established that the Bush Administration had been told the 16 words were not true?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/3056626.stm

Does that mean you're ready to consider this one as number 2? I kind of doubt I'll have much luck with it since the argument will be that because he pinned it on the British government, it's not a lie. But I think it fits with the definition of a lie as something said with the intention to deceive.

Thanks. Frankly, I think there is still a question about the legitimacy of the claim. You have some people questioning the claim, and others maintaining the claim. I don't find conclusive the finding of Joe Wilson, who went to Niger, sipped mint tea with old friends, and concluded that he could find no evidence to support the claim.

It does go to the question of the President's "good faith" belief in the truth of the utterance, though, I do agree.

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Anyone who has the slightest knowledge of the operation of a "deposition" knows that when a person is questioned about what would appear to be a gigantic lie, there are elements that are unknown to the questioners which prove, that, at least techinically, the response of the deposed one is not a lie.

Case in point--

When William Jefferson Clinton was deposed by the attornies hired by Paula Jones, he escaped being pinned down for perjury.

According to RIchard A. Posner, in his "An Affair of State"

"Jones's lawyers failed to ask him about SPECIFIC sex acts..as a result, many of his answers, though PROBABLY lies, would not expose him to prosecution for perjury."

When Administrators who are responsible, in the final analysis, for the operation of an enterprise are queried by appropriate investigators, they sometimes refer to a report given to them by members of their staff. Intelligence analysis is not always accurate, but the administrator must rely on it and the advice of other staff before he makes a decision.

How "lies" can be construed from such a process UNLESS ONE IS ABLE TO DISCERN THE 'INTENTION" TO LIE, is beyond my understanding!!!

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Bush a Liar?

Amazing how we all seemed to know exactly what a lie was when we were growing up. Now, we have to get into all this definition of a lie, as if it's so complicated. It isn't.

One thing I can say with honesty about Bush is that he certainly wasn't lying when he said:

"See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda."

Now, THAT's the truth!

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squinney:

I have to totally agree that Bush was being honest in that instance.Heck I was surprised when i heard that the first time!

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When we tell our children about Santa Claus, it's a lie because we are intentionally deceiving them even though it is for their pleasure and benefit and no harm is intended.

When our children tell others about Santa Claus, it is not a lie because for them, he's the real deal.

In both cases you have untruths, but in only one case a lie.

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and no harm is intended...

Exactly, Now go tell the Iraqi people about Santa Claus.

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President Bush: Is He a Liar?

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