President Bush: Is He a Liar?

Foxfyre wrote:

blatham wrote:

Why might anyone try to make the fellow look bad? I've never heard of him previously and I doubt the writer at Salon had either. All that is in question is a bogglingly inappropriate analogy and a completely blind eye to what Lay got up to.

But if we find the quote was inaccurate, I'll get in touch with the chap and Salon and we'll get a correction noted.

I left open the possibility that the quote was accurate. Maybe even inappropriate. I think intellectual honesty would have to leave open the possibility that even if it was accurate, that it might read very differently placed within the context in which it was said. Salon did not do that. Neither did you.

It looks very much that both Salon and you were eager to make the guy look bad. If you say that was not your intent, and perhaps if you explain a more edifying reason that you posted the article, I will apologize for my misperception.

No eagerness to make the fellow look bad. As I said, I've never heard of him before so have no motive or reason. I have no quarrel with Baptists (though I surely have with the SBC) and none with preachers for being preachers. My quarrel is with ideology or partisanship so thorough and extreme that big stupidness results. I take that to be the case here and it is why I posted the bit.

But if the statement is quoted accurately, what broader context could possibly justify or excuse it? Care to have a go at filling in that blank?

So posting something 'so thorough and exteme that big stupidness results' isn't trying to make somebody look bad? Boy, I wonder what would constitute trying to make somebody look bad?

As to 'filling that blank", how about giving me the full context of the quote if in fact he actually made it? Then I might or might not be able to see a justification or excuse for it. Salon put it into a context that I would bet a steak dinner that the Reverend never did. But of course they weren't trying to make him look bad either.

Quote:

So posting something 'so thorough and exteme that big stupidness results' isn't trying to make somebody look bad? Boy, I wonder what would constitute trying to make somebody look bad?

Assuming the statement was accurately duplicated, then the fellow does look bad, really quite bad. But that is a consequence not of anything other than his own statement/behavior. It isn't a consequence of me repeating the statement. Is a by-stander who films a robbery "trying to make the robber look bad" by giving the film to the police? When you quote someone here who says something irrational or counter-factual, are you merely "trying to make the person look bad"?

As to 'filling that blank", how about giving me the full context of the quote if in fact he actually made it? Then I might or might not be able to see a justification or excuse for it. Salon put it into a context that I would bet a steak dinner that the Reverend never did. But of course they weren't trying to make him look bad either.

I asked you to come up with ANY possible context which might justify such a statement/analogy (two analogies actually, that Lay's situation is comparable to the brutally murdered man or that Lay's situation (indictment, trial, guilty verdict) is comparable to a lynching).

Lay, who died at 64 last week of a heart attack in Colorado, was praised for his deep devotion to his family and respect for all people, whether executives or janitorial staff.

"I am glad to have known Ken Lay and glad that he was willing to reach down and touch people like me," said the Rev. William Lawson, pastor emeritus of Wheeler Avenue Baptist Church. "Ken was a rich and powerful man, and he could have limited his association to people who were likewise rich and powerful."

Lawson said Lay helped untold numbers of people with college tuition, medical expenses and other needs.

More than 1,000 mourners gathered at First United Methodist Church, where Lay had been a member. They included friends, former Enron employees and erstwhile dignitaries, including former President George H.W. Bush, former Secretary of State James A. Baker III and ex-Houston Mayor Bob Lanier, who collapsed just before the service began and was taken by ambulance to St. Luke's Episcopal Hospital.

Lawson likened Lay to James Byrd, a black man who was dragged to death in a racially motivated murder near Jasper eight years ago.
"Ken Lay was neither black nor poor, as James Byrd was, but I'm angry because Ken was the victim of a lynching," said Lawson, who predicted that history will vindicate Lay.

His comments, met by hearty applause, referred to Lay's recent federal trial on fraud and conspiracy charges stemming from Enron's unraveling in 2001 and four charges of bank fraud. Lay had planned to appeal his conviction and was awaiting sentencing when he died.

In 1998, three Texas men attacked a 49-year-old African-American named James Byrd. They cut his throat, chained him to the back of a pickup truck, then dragged him along a road for several miles. Byrd was alive for at least part of the ordeal; a forensic pathologist said that Byrd lived until he hit a culvert and his arm and head were severed. His attackers dragged what was left of his body for at least an additional mile.

Gruesome? Yes, but it's apparently no worse than what happened to Ken Lay.

The former Enron chairman died of a heart attack at his vacation home in Aspen, Colo., last week. At a memorial service in Houston Wednesday -- with former President George H.W. Bush in attendance -- a local pastor likened Lay's prosecution in Enron's collapse to the attack on Byrd. "Ken Lay was neither black nor poor, as James Byrd was," said the Rev. William Lawson, pastor emeritus of the Wheeler Avenue Baptist Church. "But I'm angry because Ken was the victim of a lynching."

If you catch the person in the act, no. If you send a picture of a person with a note that he was speaking well of the bank robbery for the express purpose of giving the impression that he was guilty when you don't know whether he was or not, yes. The analogy sucked as a comparable metaphor, but the principle remains the same.

If you were going to criticize Ken Lay's friends for sticking by him, it would have been more appropriate to do at the beginning or during his trial instead of at the man's memorial service, don't you think? Even if this was said at the memorial service. And I think the evidence might still be out on that too.

Quote:

If you catch the person in the act, no. If you send a picture of a person with a note that he was speaking well of the bank robbery for the express purpose of giving the impression that he was guilty when you don't know whether he was or not, yes. The analogy sucked as a comparable metaphor, but the principle remains the same.

What is that principle of which you speak? Can you explicate it? Perhaps that one ought not to repeat some charge against someone until and unless one has incontrovertible evidence that the charge is so? If that is your principle, what percentage of your own posts stand in violation of your principle? Have you, say, quoted Nancy Pelosi or Dean speaking something which in your eyes was foolish, bigoted, stupid, etc? And if so, were you there to hear it? Did you include all sentences which preceded and followed? What is your principle?.

If you were going to criticize Ken Lay's friends for sticking by him, it would have been more appropriate to do at the beginning or during his trial instead of at the man's memorial service, don't you think? Even if this was said at the memorial service. And I think the evidence might still be out on that too.

You might hold some notion regarding allowable commentary of speech acts at a funeral. You might hold that we ought to ignore or forgive any such speech from a friend who grieves. Is that something like what you are suggesting? And if something like that is what you hold as a value then ought we to go to the threads that dealt with Coretta King's funeral and what was said there by her friends and see how consistent your values on this point are. Should we do this together?

Again, I didn't ask you to "speculate" as regards context. I asked you to provide ANY imaginable context wherein such analogies/statements would be appropriate morally or logically.

As I said before, if this account proves inaccurate, I'll contact the writer at Salon and insist on a correction.

So, now you have your context and have found that the reported statements made by the Reverend were correctly duplicated in the Salon piece.

Yet, for you, the proper party to disparage is the Salon writer (or me) and not the Reverend. And Lay is probably innocent or at least possibly innocent regardless of court procedings, evidence, etc.

Do we have your views correct in this matter?

blatham wrote:

So, now you have your context and have found that the reported statements made by the Reverend were correctly duplicated in the Salon piece.

Yet, for you, the proper party to disparage is the Salon writer (or me) and not the Reverend. And Lay is probably innocent or at least possibly innocent regardless of court procedings, evidence, etc.

Do we have your views correct in this matter?

No, I still do not have my context. I only have more of it than you provided. I think you and Salon intended to present an unacceptable image of the Reverend. I don't know if Salon did so without benefit of having the full context, but if they did it was irresponsible of them to report it. If they didn't, then they definitely were putting their own critical spin on it. If you had benefit of the full context, you didn't offer it.

I am not disparaging the Reverend because I do not have sufficient information to do so. Nor do you.

I will not disparage him because he expressed his loyalty to a dead friend or because he is convinced of the innocence of that friend.

I did not comment one way or the other whether I think Ken Lay was innocent or guilty, so your conclusion that I did is quite incorrect.

I think it was a cheap shot at a friend of a dead presumed criminal

you seem quite incapable of even a basic level of objectivity. You avoid almost anything if it discomfits.

Quote:

you seem quite incapable of even a basic level of objectivity. You avoid almost anything if it discomfits.

Fox will probably avoid this line.

Cycloptichorn

Foxfyre wrote:

blatham wrote:

So, now you have your context and have found that the reported statements made by the Reverend were correctly duplicated in the Salon piece.

Yet, for you, the proper party to disparage is the Salon writer (or me) and not the Reverend. And Lay is probably innocent or at least possibly innocent regardless of court procedings, evidence, etc.

Do we have your views correct in this matter?

No, I still do not have my context. I only have more of it than you provided. I think you and Salon intended to present an unacceptable image of the Reverend. I don't know if Salon did so without benefit of having the full context, but if they did it was irresponsible of them to report it. If they didn't, then they definitely were putting their own critical spin on it. If you had benefit of the full context, you didn't offer it.

I am not disparaging the Reverend because I do not have sufficient information to do so. Nor do you.

I will not disparage him because he expressed his loyalty to a dead friend or because he is convinced of the innocence of that friend.

I did not comment one way or the other whether I think Ken Lay was innocent or guilty, so your conclusion that I did is quite incorrect.

foxfyre wrote:

Quote:

I think it was a cheap shot at a friend of a dead presumed criminal

I gather then that "presumed" means the same as "convicted" for you.

This little discussion today is typical of how discussions with you have gone for a very long time.

Whether it is a matter of some truly warped notion of partisan/ideological fealty or some other personal characteristic, you seem quite incapable of even a basic level of objectivity. You avoid almost anything if it discomfits. Had Bill Clinton died and had some friend doing the service analogized Clinton's impeachment (for lying about a blowjob as opposed to eradicating a lot of people's savings) to the incomprehensibly savage and brutal murder our Reverend referred to, or analogized Clinton's travails to a lynching, you would have gotten a bit sick. Me too. That would be high stupidhood as a consequence of partisan ideology probably or blind personal loyalty. And if that imagined speaker had spent a lifetime doing good works, that would make the statement no less stupid and the analogies no less inappropriate.

Cycloptichorn wrote:

Quote:

you seem quite incapable of even a basic level of objectivity. You avoid almost anything if it discomfits.

Fox will probably avoid this line.

Cycloptichorn

Better she call people idiot, moron, incapable of thought, retarded, a$$holes, or any of the other assorted insults so many on the left call those few on the right on these boards.

Much better to do that.

But yes, our conversations always come down to you feeling moral superiority and assigning the stupid/ignorant/prejudiced/immoral/biased/blind/excessively partisan etc. etc. etc. role to me.

But I still prefer what I believe is a much more realistic world that I live in

foxfyre

I've never said you are "evil" nor have I ever had that thought. It's a term that doesn't have meaning for me outside of commissions of unnecessary cruelty or, less clearly, of ommissions permitting such cruelty.

And there is only a single instance where I can recall indicting you for a strictly moral failing - on the support of an administration which is guilty of torture, which I consider an instance of the value stated in the paragraph above.

Otherwise, yes, I find your partisanship seriously excessive with the predictable consequence of serious detriment to your thinking, perceiving and arguing. When I speak of "integrity", it is in this context...intellectual integrity, valuing truth and accuracy above partisanship. Even a mother, defending the reputation of her child by denying his guilt when that child is guilty of something, sacrifices some degree of her integrity (in that sense) even if her behavior is completely understandable. We can empathize, but she'll still be wrong on the facts.

Other than in that single instance above, I don't consider myself a superior moral agent to you. There will be, without a doubt, some comparable sphere where you'll come out better than I. Make inquiries to my twin brother...he'll burn your ears off.