Dick Cheney: The Liar Who at Least Knows When He's Lying
Well, yippee, we’re back on line at home, more or less. El Dingo came over last night and hooked up the Dell for us. He managed to get the SBC Global email software configured to work with our upgrade, though that necessitated an 877 to somebody in India named Pete. He was less successful in transferring the data from our old brand-new (just got it in ’99) hard drive to the new one – something about Windows 98 partitioning drives in some way incompatible with XP, but do you really want to hear all about it? Didn’t think so. He got us about as up and running as we need to be for now, at least. This morning I downloaded the Norton Internet Security software that we ordered too late to save the old computer and Firefox from Mozilla, by recommendation of Charles and others. It’s my hope that between these two applications we’ll be Internet-safe for the ten years or so that this will be our brand-new computer. I can’t urge you all enough to take security measures for your computers. These last couple weeks have been a monstrous aggravation.
While El Dingo was working on the computer, we had the debate on both TV and radio. Of course, it was already well underway by the time I got home from work and it was hard to pay attention while fretting about the installation, so it’s a good thing I remembered to tape it this time. Finally got the whole thing watched this afternoon. On balance, I’d have to say it was a closer contest than Kerry’s recent use of Governor Bush as a funny-talking floor mop. Cheney is probably a much more evil individual than Dumbya, whose ignorance, if nothing else, seems genuine. Cheney, by contrast, has some idea what life is like for the
Speaking of lies and distortions…Cheney’s biggest gaffe was probably his confusion between Factchecks dot com and dot org. He invited viewers to look at Factcheck.com to see the truth about what he called misrepresentations by Kerry and Edwards. Only problem is - as you've seen if you clicked on either of the preceding links, Factcheck.com redirects to Georgesoros.com, a staunchly anti-Bush site. Cheney meant Factcheck.org. Funnier still, Cheney was citing – or intending to cite – Factcheck.org to defend his actions as Halliburton ringleader. It turns out that over and above the com/org confusion, this is a typical Cheney/Bush departure from reality, and one that Factcheck immediately busted him on.
So – keeping score – in trying to minimize the political damage stemming from his Halliburton adventures, Cheney directed viewers to look at an anti-Bush website. That anti-Bush website politely redirected those viewers to the site Cheney meant to cite, where they could then read a story detailing how Cheney was in fact lying to them about what they would find on the site. Good damage control.
And yeah, Edwards got facts wrong too. But a close look at the Factcheck.org article reveals that Cheney was by far the greater abuser of facts, both quantitatively and qualitatively. He lied more frequently and about more important things. But you probably knew that before the debate started.
posted by PapaDogDuvalier | 5:10 PM
1 Comments:
Despite the lies, distortions, and misdirection, Cheney is the better statesman than Bush. He isn't obviously lying, and because Edwards did such a poor job of calling him on it, it's up to lefty wackos like you, me, and MoveOn to call him on it.
All that said, there has been some good commentary with Dave Pell leading the pack.
For instance:
There were several other major misstatements or ridiculous comments made by the Veep. And some of them will likely be fodder for the media. But none of this stuff is what you should be focusing on right now. There was a bigger moment in the debate. It is a line from Cheney that should be printed, typed, played, sung, tivoed, downloaded, ipoded, broadcast, wifi'd, emailed, bluetoothed, text messaged, personalized license plated, social networked, skywritten and etched into stone from sea to shining sea.
Here are two quotes. The first is the set up by the cross examiner. The second is the line from the defendent that they will talking about in the jury room throughout deliberations:
Edwards: "Mr. Vice President, there is no connection between the attacks of September 11th and Saddam Hussein. The 9/11 Commission has said it. Your own secretary of state has said it. And you've gone around the country suggesting that there is some connection. There is not ... I want the American people to hear this very clearly. Listen carefully to what the vice president is saying. Because there is no connection between Saddam Hussein and the attacks of September 11th -- period."
Cheney: "I have not suggested there's a connection between Iraq and 9/11."
And the best visual commentary can be found here
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