Why do they always do this?
“Thank you, Sen. Reed, for your comments. You can stop spinning now.”
Republicans, Democrats—why? Why do they think, when they are caught in an obvious example of misconduct, it is smarter and more useful—it certainly isn’t honest, courageous or ethical—not to simply confess and apologize, even if it’s with hardly an ennobling statement no better than, “You got us. Yeah, we were lying. That was wrong. Sorry,'” rather than continue to lie? The now ridiculous contortions of Democrats (and their knee-jerk supporters in the public and the media, but forget about them, for they are merely pathetic) are doing independent harm, because they destroy trust in government generally, and that, for a democratic republic, is potentially fatal.
Way back in September, when U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice disgraced herself by going on five Sunday talk-shows and stating with deceitful certitude ( “our current best assessment”…”we believe”) that the deadly attack on the U.S. outpost in Libya was solely the result of spontaneous outrage on the part of extremists over a video, and not an organized terrorist attack, critics said that the Administration was covering up what really happened, and lying about what they knew. The accusation was shouted down and indeed ridiculed by Administration officials, Democrats in Congress, and the Obama-promoting media (it was in the middle of an election campaign) as a partisan smear, but in fact the critics, partisan though they were, were right. Rice was disseminating disinformation. The Administration and its State Department were intentionally blaming a video when they knew better. Why is another story: conservative pundits believe it was to avoid having to admit, mid-campaign, that the signature accomplishment of the President’s term, killing Osama bin Laden and supposedly crushing al Qaida, was not quite the complete victory the Democrats were claiming. If that was the reason, it was a stupid reason, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen that way. Hiding inconvenient facts before an election is despicable, but lying to the public and the world is serious enough, whatever its motive.
When she was questioned in Congress about the misleading descriptions, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton signaled that the Administration was in cover-up mode, both by lying outright (“I did not say … that it was about the video for Libya.”) and making her infamous and ethically indefensible statement, ”With all due respect, the fact is we had four dead Americans. Was it because of a protest or was it because of guys out for a walk one night who decided to kill some Americans? What difference at this point does it make?” Now, thanks to multiple revelations, the testimony of whistle-blowers, and newly released e-mails, there is no question that Clinton’s State Department took the lead in scrubbing the CIA talking points that immediately attributed the attack in Benghazi to identifiable terrorist elements connected to al Qaida, and not a spontaneous demonstration against the video. Not only are the Administration’s defenders refusing to admit that what happened happened, they are recycling old tactics from other scandals to do it, which if nothing else is lazy and boring:
- “This is old news.” Or, as (Liberal! Obama-loving!) NY Times columnist Maureen Dowd termed it, “It’s not true, it’s not true, it’s not true, it’s old news.” Dowd also correctly identified this as a classic from the Bill Clinton playbook, used for too many bona fide scandals to list.
- “Republicans are just exploiting the story for political gain.” Yes, this is a Watergate era oldie-but-goodie. Of course they are exploiting it for political gain—that’s one small way in which adversary politics works in a democracy, or should. The side that didn’t cheat, lie, screw up, or botch things badly (this time) has extra motivation to make sure the full truth gets out because it will help them politically as well as keep the nation informed about how well its government is doing its job. The system is also supposed to be tempered by a vigorous, objective, competent, non-partisan news establishment, which we don’t have today, but still: When an administration under fire and suspicion starts channeling Spiro Agnew, you know it is caught red-handed.
- “It’s just a distraction.” This is another Clinton special, as it was pretty much his refrain until the infamous blue dress forced him to admit that the whole Lewinsky incident wasn’t a figment of Linda Tripp’s imagination. Now, sadly, it’s Obama trying the excuse on for size, telling reporters that the whole issue is a “side-show.” Translation: “What difference does it make?” Come to think of it, Hillary was channeling Bill after all.
- “It was their fault!” Sen. Jack Reed, who either deserves a medal for taking one for the team or a one- way ticket to Palookaville for treating the viewing public like idiots, evoked this one when he was sent out to ABC this morning as a designated defender, and spun like a top. He took pains to point out, and this was obviously in his own talking points, that Victoria Nuland, the State Department official whom the e-mails show insisted that the CIA talking points be altered, had worked for —oh-oh!–Vice President Cheney, who is, as you know, a Bush loyalist, a Republican and eeeeeevvviillll. She was a bad apple, you see. Watch the Administration try to scapegoat her, as if she were a renegade Cheney spy. (This tactic is also being used by Team Obama to deal with its other scandal of the moment, the revelations that Obama’s IRS was targeting his political adversaries as early as 2011. The President’s mouthpiece, Jay Carney, took pains to note that the head of the IRS in 2011 and 2012 was a Bush appointee. )
In fact, the rest of Reed’s performance had the full range of double-talk, deceptions and pat denials for your stomach-churning pleasure. My comments, as usual, are in brackets and bold.:
MARTHA RADDATZ: And joining us now, Rhode Island Democrat, Senator Jack Reed. You heard Senator McCain call Benghazi and those e-mails a cover-up.
REED: Absolutely not. The congress has already had 11 hearings on the topic, over 25,000 pieces of documentation have been provided to the Congress. In fact, the e-mails in question, I believe, were available in February in the context of the John Brennan confirmation hearing. [ There are two tactics here—the always useful “Move on!” argument—“Haven’t we spent enough time on this? What more do they want? Aren’t there more important things…like what we want to talk about other than our own dishonesty?”—and the mind-blowing misleading answer. The “cover-up” or whatever the intentional misinformation occurred in the Fall of 2012. The Hearings occurred in 2013. This is like a Nixon defender saying, in 1974, “What Watergate cover-up? Why, White House counsel admitted the whole thing in the hearings!”]
And more critical I think is two of the most respected Americans, Ambassador Thomas Pickering and former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mike Mullen, conducted a thorough report, assessing…
RADDATZ: They did not look at those e-mails. And in fact Thomas Pickering told ABC News you have to be totally naive to not believe politics was injected in some role.
REED: Well, I think what I would suggest in looking at the play-by-play, is what was going on was not so much the politics of electioneering, but the institutional sort of positioning. [ That’s right, Senator, don’t respond to the embarrassing rebuttal. Maybe nobody will notice. You cited Pickering as bolstering your position, and Raddatz came right back and said the authority you just relied on thinks it was a politically motivated deception. The meaning of “institutional sort of positioning,” meanwhile, is “lying.”]
…
RADDATZ: So, you’re saying this is an interagency problem?
REED: I think this is the classic issue of interagency battle about who will say what. And at the end I think what you had was a very sort of consensus document that avoided all of the difficult issues. [ “A very sort of consensus document that avoided all of the difficult issues” is double-talk for “the Administration redrafted the document to avoid admitting the truth.”]
RADDATZ: So, it’s acceptable for Jay Carney to originally say there was just one, small change in this? And then, we find these 12 different versions, including a very definitive statement, we do know that Islamic extremists with ties to al Qaeda participated in the attack. That did not appear in there. That’s acceptable?
REED: That did not appear in the talking points, but I recall when Ambassador Rice was being interviewed on one of the TV shows she essentially said there were extremist elements. She did not contradict that. [ This is all aimed at the viewers who didn’t hear Rice and hasn’t followed the story. Here is what she said on September 16:
“Our current best assessment, based on the information that we have at present, is that, in fact, what this began as, it was a spontaneous – not a premeditated – response to what had transpired in Cairo. In Cairo, as you know, a few hours earlier, there was a violent protest that was undertaken in reaction to this very offensive video that was disseminated. We believe that folks in Benghazi, a small number of people came to the embassy to – or to the consulate, rather, to replicate the sort of challenge that was posed in Cairo And then as that unfolded, it seems to have been hijacked, let us say, by some individual clusters of extremists who came with heavier weapons… And it then evolved from there.”
Reed is lying. Rice was lying, or was repeating a falsehood as fact without doing her duty and determining whether it was fact or not. Both were being deceitful—the Clinton specialty. Rice’s account was not the “current best assessment,” but a cover-story for the real best assessment, which was what the CIA had reported. Nobody in the other agencies or at the White House had better information; they just didn’t like the implications of the information they had. Neither State nor Rice nor anyone else at that point believed it was “a spontaneous – not a premeditated – response to what had transpired in Cairo.” “Extremist,” as Reed and Rice well know, is not a synonym for “terrorist.” “Extremists” is a very accurate and reasonable definition of people who stage riots over videos and who bring heavy weapons to join such riots. Rice contradicted the terrorist assessment by using an intentionally misleading word designed specifically not to suggest terrorism while leaving an excuse, which Reed is dutifully trying, once the deception was exposed.]
REED (cont.): The president’s, I think, statement immediately after the events, I think a day after the event, was this was an act of terror. [ Here President Obama actually said in that Rose Garden speech. The entire speech is here, but the relevant portions are these…
” Good morning. Every day, all across the world, American diplomats and civilians work tirelessly to advance the interests and values of our nation. Often, they are away from their families. Sometimes, they brave great danger. Yesterday, four of these extraordinary Americans were killed in an attack on our diplomatic post in Benghazi. …The United States condemns in the strongest terms this outrageous and shocking attack. We’re working with the government of Libya to secure our diplomats. I’ve also directed my administration to increase our security at diplomatic posts around the world. And make no mistake, we will work with the Libyan government to bring to justice the killers who attacked our people.
“Since our founding, the United States has been a nation that respects all faiths. We reject all efforts to denigrate the religious beliefs of others. But there is absolutely no justification to this type of senseless violence. None. The world must stand together to unequivocally reject these brutal acts.
“…Of course, yesterday was already a painful day for our nation as we marked the solemn memory of the 9/11 attacks. We mourned with the families who were lost on that day. I visited the graves of troops who made the ultimate sacrifice in Iraq and Afghanistan at the hallowed grounds of Arlington Cemetery, and had the opportunity to say thank you and visit some of our wounded warriors at Walter Reed. And then last night, we learned the news of this attack in Benghazi. As Americans, let us never, ever forget that our freedom is only sustained because there are people who are willing to fight for it, to stand up for it, and in some cases, lay down their lives for it. Our country is only as strong as the character of our people and the service of those both civilian and military who represent us around the globe.
“No acts of terror will ever shake the resolve of this great nation, alter that character, or eclipse the light of the values that we stand for. Today we mourn four more Americans who represent the very best of the United States of America. We will not waver in our commitment to see that justice is done for this terrible act. And make no mistake, justice will be done. But we also know that the lives these Americans led stand in stark contrast to those of their attackers. These four Americans stood up for freedom and human dignity. They should give every American great pride in the country that they served, and the hope that our flag represents to people around the globe who also yearn to live in freedom and with dignity. We grieve with their families, but let us carry on their memory, and let us continue their work of seeking a stronger America and a better world for all of our children…”
The reference to “acts of terror” follows a direct reference to “the 9/11 attacks,” and its intent to include the Benghazi incident in that the general description is ambiguous and tenuous at best. The argument that this was the intent is seriously undercut by the fact that an unambiguous reference to “denigrating the religious beliefs of others,” evoking the anti-Muslim video, is the clearest and the most prominent characterization of the motive for Benghazi attack.
REED (cont.) So, there’s no attempt as I think my colleagues on the other side are suggesting that there was a story being created that there was no terrorist involvement, that terrorism was not at all an issue. [ This is obviously wrong on the facts. Reed not only hasn’t shown that, he has relied on misrepresentations in the attempt.] I think what was being debated and seriously, again, just a month ago Jim Clapper, the head of the intelligence community in the United States said based on his view as a professional all these years, those comments were about as fair and accurate–[ I can hardly believe Reed was going to say what he appears to be ready to say, that those comments were “as fair and accurate” as they could be. “Elephant? What elephant?”]
RADDATZ: But let me go back to the act of terror that you say President Obama talked about the next day in the Rose Garden and that Senator McCain disputed. If the president said it was an act of terror, then why didn’t that appear on the talking points? [ Why not also ask him, “If the President said it was an act of terror, why does the video of the speech not show him saying it was an act of terror?”] Can the White House really have it both ways, that they say, oh wait a minute, he said act of terror, but a few days later, they take out those references. So they felt pretty confident about it if they sent the president out to say that. [Oh, it’s far more Byzantine than that! The President fudged the terror issue by using vague language that never explicitly said the Benghazi attack was a terrorist act, but kept the focus on the anti-Islamic video, then allowed the assertion of terrorism to be scrubbed away in favor of the “spontaneous demonstration” cover-story, then disavowed hiding the truth in the debate by having his minions falsely tell the public that a unequivocal terror description was in his remarks, which began with him implying that the attacks were sparked by the anti-Muslim video.]
REED: Well, I think — again I think they created, through an intra-agency process, a document that everyone could agree upon. [Everyone who has a stake in hiding the truth, that is…] And that’s almost by definition in Washington, something that is not as specific or as conclusive.
RADDATZ: So, what they did is acceptable to you?
REED: Well, what they did, I think, was try in a very chaotic situation, to come up with points that they felt confident of. They didn’t want to go too far in two concepts. One, our intelligence resources or assets that you might not want to disclose. Second, there’s an ongoing investigation was just beginning. Those two factors also framed the response. But I think again, when you talk about this sort of political dynamic, when the president comes out and says quite quickly, with the authority of his office, this was an act of terror, the notion that we’re somehow trying to disguise this and make it something else, I think falls away very quickly. [And when he doesn’t, since he didn’t, then what, Senator? What does it mean that he continued to blame the video on Sept. 18 (“Letterman”), Sept. 20 (Univision) and Sept. 25 (“The View” and the United Nations)?]
This is all so sordid, so embarrassing, so obvious, so unseemly, so pathetic, so insulting, and so, so unnecessary. The American public is almost absurdly forgiving, even when they shouldn’t be; why subject it to the rhetorical toture of Reed’s desperate rationalizing and deceiving? The harm in admitting a campaign of deception, even from “the most transparent administration in history,” is not merely healthier for the nation, less damaging to the public trust, and, incidentally, the ethical thing to do, it is also the smart thing to do, just as it would have been the smart thing to do with Watergate, Iran-Contra, Whitewater, Monica, the Valerie Plame mess, Fast and Furious, and others.
Yet neither Republicans nor Democrats, caught in obvious scandals, are ever willing to just come clean before they have tried every trick, distraction, counter-accusation and lie in the book.
Why?
__________________________________
Sources: New York Times, ABC1 , Fox, ABC2
Graphic: polyvore
Ethics Alarms 
Jack, I think you missed out a “not” in this sentence:
“Republicans, Democrats—why? Why do they think, when they are caught in an obvious example of misconduct, it is smarter and more useful—it certainly isn’t honest, courageous or ethical—to simply confess and apologize, even if it’s with hardly an ennobling statement no better than, “You got us. Yeah, we were lying. That was wrong. Sorry,’” rather than continue to lie? “
Yup—missung “not,” Thanks. Got messed up in my own sentence structure.
The American public isn’t forgiving. They have to be aware that there’s anything to forgive in order for that to happen. Someday, perhaps they will wake up and then be aggrieved – then they can choose to be forgiving. For now, they slumber on.
I am tired of this story. Regarding Rice, I didn’t see her on any of the talk shows — but I do remember Obama’s speech. And Obama referred to this as an act of “terror” — I remember that clearly and I think he said it the next day. As for Hillary, I’m not going to defend her, but I do want to put forth my female perspective. For me — and for a lot of women — terrorism is terrorism. It doesn’t matter if four people died because of a video, a cartoon, a spontaneous demonstration, or an organized terror plot. It’s still terrorism. I remember hearing Hillary’s quote at the time and thinking to myself that this might illustrate the difference between a male and female Secretary of State. Women tend to be more focused on realities and praticalities. This was an act of terror pure and simple — regardless of the reason — and nothing that was said or wasn’t said could have changed that. If Obama wanted to cover-up the cause, he didn’t do a very good job of it because he called this an act of terror the next day. (I disagree with your analysis of this above Jack — I don’t remember thinking it was tenuous at the time. I thought it was pretty clear — and this was before there was any scandal.) The only potential scandal I am interested in (and I have heard some people reference) is: 1) whether or not appropriate security measures were undertaken in the first place based on what we knew and didn’t know; and 2) once the attack was underway, were we in a position to save these people but instead did nothing. If people want to talk about that, great.
Well gosh, if Beth’s tired of the story I guess that means it’s not worth discussing anymore. This is classic Clintonian dissembling and it’s not about whether the President made a mockery of his marriage vows, though that’s bad enough. How about the revelations that the IRS was tageting groups based on their views, is that worth discussing or are you just like the commenters over at Huffington Post who openly say “good for the IRS, the Tea Party is evil and they need to be targeted and taxed right out of existence?”
That’s ridiculous. The IRS story has just started and I think it’s egregious. I’m not even a Clinton/Obama fan — especially when it comes to current foreign policy.
Beth, Beth.
1. I included the speech in the post. Obama does not say, at any point, “this was an act of terror.” I explained that. Don’t say he did what he did not do, when there is proof that he did not do it. You must really want him to have done that if you see it in a clear 9-11 reference.
2. Don’t say you are tired of teh story. You are tired of the story because of the stonewalling and because the press refused to take it seriously for so long. Politicians depend on the public’s short attention span.
3. Your comment makes no sense. Do you know what terrorism is? A spontaneous demonstration that erupts into violence is NOT terrorism. Nobody called the civil rights riots, or the riots after the Rodney King verdict terrorism, because they weren’t. If the administration was attempting to hide the fact of al Qaida terrorism, which could have and should have been anticipated and prepared for on the anniversary 9/11 in Libya, by claimingwhat was terrorism was in fact a spontaneous demonstration over a cause the US could not have anticipated or prepared for, that is deception.
4. Don’t say “it’s all terrorism to me.” Learn something. Those who lie to us depend on ignorance, and you’re celebrating it. the distinctions matter. If they didn’t matter, why change the talking points?
5. Women don’t appreciate the legal and factusla dofferences between spontaneous violence and planned violence? Good to know. Also ridiculous.
6. I will not accept “I disagree with your analysis” when all you are doing is saying “I choose to believe that what didn’t happen, happened.” That’s disgraceful, not to mention irresponsible and foolish. Obama continued to blame the video, not terrorism a week after the attack on Sept. 18 on “Letterman”), then on Sept. 20 on Univision, and worst of all, on Sept. 25 with the fools of “The View” and the United Nations! By then there was, by any account, no belief anywhere that the video was the cause of the violence. This is called LYING, Beth, and presumably women can tell the difference between LYING and non-lying. Lying to the American people and the world makes a difference, and matters, and if women don’t think so (and of course, your amazing statements to the contrary, they DO) they shouldn’t have the vote, much less be Secretary of State.
7. If you didn’t hear Susan Rice, who was told what to say, then rouse yourself and use the internet, and check. I already gave you the transcript—did you even read the post? You comment is so devoid of reason and context that I suspect you did not, for this was in the post:
Here is what Suan Rice said on September 16:
“Our current best assessment, based on the information that we have at present, is that, in fact, what this began as, it was a spontaneous – not a premeditated – response to what had transpired in Cairo. In Cairo, as you know, a few hours earlier, there was a violent protest that was undertaken in reaction to this very offensive video that was disseminated. We believe that folks in Benghazi, a small number of people came to the embassy to – or to the consulate, rather, to replicate the sort of challenge that was posed in Cairo And then as that unfolded, it seems to have been hijacked, let us say, by some individual clusters of extremists who came with heavier weapons… And it then evolved from there.”
There is no mention of terrorism in that statement, and that was intentional. It blames the video, and by that point, the Administration knew that the video was not the cause. So this WAS a lie. Don’t say it doesn’t matter, because it is material, and does. Don’t say you “disagree”, because there is no analysis to be made…those are facts. Don’t say you’re tired of the story, because the only reason it is still an issue now, or occurred in the first place, is that a lazy and dishonest group of leaders knew that people like you would let them get away with lying about what happened to avoid having to be accountable during an election campaign.
This is a profoundly depressing comment. I don’t know how someone’s mind, short of authentic brainwashing, can work like this.
when U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice disgraced herself by going on five Sunday talk-shows and stating unequivocally that the deadly attack on the U.S. outpost in Libya was solely the result of spontaneous outrage on the part of extremists over a video, and not an organized terrorist attack
Unequivocally you say?
“Our current best assessment…”
“We believe that…”
“…it seems to have…”
I stopped reading after the cited bit and jumped to the comments to see if anyone had corrected you. I wasn’t expecting to find that you had quoted Rice’s comments showing that your accusation is false.
——
There may be a story around Benghazi, but when the people pushing it are lying about easily verifiable events, I’m loathe to go down the rabbit hole.
And yet, we know that it wasn’t their “current best assessment”, because they knew THAT SAME NIGHT that it was from a group with ties to terrorists…
I didn’t say here that Rice was misinforming. That’s irrelevant to my complaint that Jack blatantly misrepresented what Rice said.
Err…I didn’t say that Rice wasn’t misinforming.
You’re right, unequivocal was sloppy wording. It was deceptive and sneakily equivocal, instead. You would have been more reasonable to simply point out that the word choice was poor, which I immediately realized. then to suggest, absurdly, that it was a “lie.” It was a stupid word choice, which happens here sometimes, just not always when you say it does. I’ll fix it, now that you’re drawn it to my attention. I can hardly be accused of lying when I make no effort to obscure the quote I’m describing. “Easily verifiable’ is your misleading term…I quoted what she said. I verified it myself.
Meanwhile…
“Our current best assessment…” (NO, It wasn’t.)
“We believe that…” ( NO, they didn’t…)
“…it seems to have…” (NO, it really didn’t.)
Not unequivocal, just equivocal in a deceitful way.
“There may be a story around Benghazi”…who are you, Jay Carney? An Ambassador dies and the White House intentionally lied about the cause, probably to gain an unfair edge in an election. There’s no “maybe ” about it, there’s just laziness and dishonesty by those prone to let it go.
I would not have expected you to be in this group.
Jack,
You didn’t get the benefit of the doubt because I’ve seen multiple commentators claim that Rice’s statements were definite in what occurred. That’s a rewriting of history that’s common to people pushing the Benghazi story.
I stand by my idea behind “There may be a story around Benghazi, but when the people pushing it are lying about easily verifiable events, I’m loathe to go down the rabbit hole”, but the first clause’s word choice was a bit ambiguous. It could have been something like “Independent of the truth of what occurred around Benghazi”. The point is that when the proponents of a theory are lying about some of the facts, they’ve lost their credibility. Every thing they say would have to be verified, and not everything can be.
—
Also, you made silent edits to your post again. I thought I had convinced you that is, at the very least, an appearance of impropriety.
That was not an edit, that was a correction. I correct typos and unintentional misstatements, because I don’t want wrong info out there. I also thought I wrote “I’ll fix it, now that you’re drawn it to my attention,” in the reply to you—looks like I didn’t. I’m adding it now.
As to the rest, I don’t know what you’re talking about. This post has never dealt with the impossibly murky issue of who warned who and jet scrambling and who had whose fingerprints on what bad decisions. The lying about the film was flagged from the start, and there’s not a lot of disagreement about the facts on that score, just spin coming from the Obama clean-up squad. And nobody’s “pushing it” beyond the fact that the press has been trying to suppress it. I don’t see where the importance of the President. Sec. of Sate and a high ambassador intentionally misleading the public about the death of an ambassador is even in question. This isn’t criminal law, where we suppress good evidence if we don’t like the way the police extracted it. Your argument seems like a simple rationalization to avoid dealing with a clear, uncomfortable reality.
And I should add, having seen Rice, her “equivocation” appeared to be nothing but classic Washington boiler-plate, not genuine doubt. This is now being used differently, and idiotically, when Carney tells the press that he will not comment on the IRS situation because it has not been confirmed that there was wrongdoing, even after the woman at the center of the matter said that there had been wrongdoing. It turns out that Obama’s “red line” was equivocal..during the Nixon years, any assertion was subject to being later retracted as “non-operational.” Saying that Rice was 100% certain is misrepresentation, but so is pretending that she left much doubt.
Your examples are the opposite of what Rice did. Obama created an unequivocal red line, that he knew wasn’t a red line.. The Nixon administration said things were definite, when they knew they weren’t. Rice didn’t say there was a definite and then change. She explicitly said the information WASN’T definite.
Carney is off from Rice in the opposite direction. He could say what things appear to be (and he absolutely shoud here), but he’s not.
Rice’s language explicitly left doubt in a world where people normally falsely claim their statements are without doubt.
It did not EXPLICITLY leave doubt. The words were crafted to suggest doubt without admitting to doubt, and the issue wasn’t doubt anyway–while she was talking, there was no doubt that this wasn’t caused by the video. It’s not suggesting that you’re merely “not sure” when you intentionally give misinformation—you in fact ARE sure what you’re saying is a lie, even though you’re not sure what the truth is.
If I say the my best information is that the universe was created by a giant, all-knowing vole, and that my current belief is that, I am still lying, because I don’t for a second believe that, and am intentionally saying, UNEQUIVOCALLY, by the way, that this IS what I believe now…and in truth, it isn’t.
It did not EXPLICITLY leave doubt. The words were crafted to suggest doubt without admitting to doubt,The words themselves explicitly left doubt. Denying that is denying reality.
I agree that the lie is horrible, and explicitly leaving doubt when you know it’s a lie is even more deceitful than just lying.
I agree that she was unequivocally saying that this is what was currently believed. She was lying in that statement. That is not the same (in the slightest) as saying that she was unequivocal (or even not explicitly equivocal) that the information she was saying might be wrong.
Rice’s behavior was bad, but you’re misrepresentation of her words obscures what exactly was bad about it.
A comment that you’ve made edits to the post isn’t proper disclosure. Adding into your previous comment that you’re going to make edits is similarly problematic. It undercuts the point of my comment, and it’s impossible to tell what exactly was added. I have a damn good memory, but I can’t definitively say what you added to your above comment: I’ll fix it, now that you’re drawn it to my attention. I can hardly be accused of lying when I make no effort to obscure the quote I’m describing. “Easily verifiable’ is your misleading term…I quoted what she said. I verified it myself. Clearly the first line there was added. Was anything else?
There was definitely no need to update your previous comment. Updating the post was good, but it should have a footnote where you made changes, and a note at the bottom of the post with what you originally had written. (At the very least, a note about what was changed sans footnote.)
—-
I don’t see your complaints at all. My statement was a general comment about credibility and how it applied to the people attacking the administration here. That you have not engaged in generally horrible behavior is irrelevant to the point that most of the attacks on what occurred include false statements. Even yours did.
I didn’t suggest that I didn’t want to know the truth. I said that many of the people demanding the truth simply aren’t credible on this topic. Following those people is going down the rabbit hole.
Honestly, I think the administration lied to us here. I suspect that they started out thinking the attack was connected to other protests, but then stuck to that line even when they had learned it was false. I think that’s pretty clear. I’d like to know what they knew when, but I cannot prop up the people who are supplementing valid attacks on the administration with lies.
1. I regard the change as non substantive, since in context there was nothing misleading about the original. This isn’t a newspaper, its a blog. It’s a record of what I think, not a record of the periodic mistakes I make. A poor word choice does not rise to the level that I believe requires a forma update, correction or retraction.
2. This, as you would say, is “horrible”: “but I cannot prop up the people who are supplementing valid attacks on the administration with lies.” So in order not to “prop up” (how???) people you don’t like, you choose to give a pass on more serious and substantive lies to those you do? That’s unbelievable.
1. Hiding your mistakes is per se an appearance of bad intent. This wasn’t a typo, and since it’s a mistake that’s being widely made, I don’t think you can simply say that it’s a poor word choice.
2. I was unclear. I’m not giving a pass to the bad behavior. I’m just not believing anything that comes from the people that are clear misinformers on this topic. That was my rabbit hole comment.
1. That mistake was not hidden, and it was just a careless word choice.
2. That is clearer.
Jack,
It was poor, begging the question, word choice on my part. Making your mistakes disappear is per se an appearance of bad intent.
That’s what I don’t see. Ignoring an error, letting it stand, letting it confuse the issue—that’s bad intent. I’m just trying to get it right, and accurately reflect what I intended to say. I wouldn’t go back and change wording that I thought made me sound better long after the fact, or change an opinion piece after the fact to reflect a new point of view. Why do I have to memorialize every minor correction…and I do consider that one minor? I just don’t see it.
For example, I have on occasion posted a piece late at night, suddenly realized that there was an error, or an inadvertent omission, and rushed back to change it 20, 30 minutes later. Are you really saying that’s wrong if I don’t footnote it?
Ignoring an error per se “bad intent.” Changing an error is good, but changing an error silently is per se “Appearance of bad intent”.
You have internal rules about what you’ll do, but without transparency, we don’t know that you’re actually following them. If I come back to a post and it doesn’t say what I remember it saying, instead of doubting my memory, I now am likely to doubt the written words, and I’d have to dig through every comment to see if any suggest you made a change.
If a post with errors is up briefly and there aren’t comments on it yet, a simple note is enough. Something like: “An incomplete version of this post was errantly posted. It has been corrected.” Once someone comments on the errors, noting the fixed errors is a must to avoid a bad appearance.
I’ll take it, as they say, under advisement. I’m not trying to win arguments, and I’m not creating a historical record.
I have, for example, taken out harsh descriptors, sometimes when chided, often upon thinking better of it. If I call someone a “drooling cretin” in a moment of weakness, am criticized for doing so, think better of it, and eliminate the wording to change it to “reckless individual,” a statement that “I originally used the term “drooling cretin” to describe X, and now feel that was too harsh. etc.” would undermine the correction, since the words “drooling cretin’ would still be out there, and the insult would stand.
“An earlier version of this post used improper language to describe X, it has been corrected to be neutral.”
Could be useful. We shall see.
I find this post insulting to women, whom I believe are perfectly capable of thinking about details, being honest, having long attention spans, and understanding things, you and Hillary notwithstanding.
I find it insulting to everyone.
Why? Because once inawhile they get away with it, like Bill Clinton did with Monica and the blue dress. They’re willing to take the chance. Axelrod and his gang are masters at this.
Yes Beth dear. The POTUS did utter the word “terror” the day after the event. But one thing I can’t get out of my mind is that farce of a appearance he made on Letterman afterwards where he twisted himself into a pretzel trying to make us think the video was the culprit. Fortunately most of us were not so stupid as to believe a word he said, because, after all, he knew it wasn’t true either, while he was saying it. It was an out and out lie.
Yes, consider The View and Letterman performances in light of Obama’s “who, me?” lament in the press conference yesterday. It’s almost as if he believes that the pop culture appearances don’t count, even though he exploits them rather than appear on (theoretically) less friendly news shows.
Let me try again on one minor point using a recent event. Let’s say it was my child who died in the Boston bombing. For days (and even now), authorities are investigating why this happened, who was involved, the amount of organization, did they have funding, etc. Or, was it just two pissed off guys who took their ideology too far and decided to build bombs in their basement? I guarantee you that I know what I would be thinking — my baby is dead, my baby is dead, my baby is dead. Let me grieve. I would care about the facts to the extent that it might prevent future bombings, but at the end of the day, my baby was killed by terrorists (whether they were inspired by a cartoon or if they had actual funding from an organized source, they are terrorists) — so I don’t think I’d really care how it was originally reported on by the media or our crappy politicians. And that is a very female (or perhaps I should say human) response — and it doesn’t have to be my baby for me to think that way. And as for the war on terror, I think that’s ridiculous too — given the nature of this problem, can we really have a hard and fast definition of this term and stick by it? Isn’t this whole war on terror a bit fluid? And, since both Republicans and Democrats seem to love the war on terror, don’t accuse me of being partisan or ill-informed. I’m very well informed — we have spent far too much money and resources attempting to fight an ideology. We have made other countries worse off than they were before by bombing them, destroying their infrastructure, polluting their soil and groundwater, and creating more enemies than ever existed before. (Oh, and we did it on concrete evidence that there were weapons of mass destruction, but whatever, this scandal is MUCH bigger.) We’ve compromised our own values by detaining and torturing people that may or may not have met your own specific definition of “terrorist.” Our leaders didn’t seem to care about semantics then. Oh, and the cherry on the sundae — we bankrupted our own country in the process and lost thousands of American soldiers, bringing back thousands other with mental and physical problems that we can’t handle. But that’s right, let’s waste all of our time investigating whether or not talking points were edited to make Obama temporarily look good during an election cycle about an event that he might have had no control over. Again, if we want to investigate our security overseas, let’s do it. But edits to a memo about an event that occurred in the past? That’s why I am tired of this story — because we have better things to do.
I. “I guarantee you that I know what I would be thinking — my baby is dead, my baby is dead, my baby is dead. Let me grieve. I would care about the facts to the extent that it might prevent future bombings, but at the end of the day, my baby was killed by terrorists (whether they were inspired by a cartoon or if they had actual funding from an organized source, they are terrorists) — so I don’t think I’d really care how it was originally reported on by the media or our crappy politicians. And that is a very female (or perhaps I should say human) response — and it doesn’t have to be my baby for me to think that way.”
You really think a father in this situation thinks differently? I don’t. And neither a mother nor a father in this situation, with that mindset, is competent to consider objectively and rationally what the policy response should be.
II. and it doesn’t have to be my baby for me to think that way. If you really believe that, and that Hillary thinks like this, then she and any similarly wired female would be 100% unqualified for national office or any high appointed position.
III. The scandal and ethical violations discussed in the post have nothing to do with terrorism at all. It has to do with manipulating information, lying to the public, bad journalism and not allowing the public to know what happened when it is relevant to a presidential election. The context in which this occurred really doesn’t matter. The question is can we trust our leaders to lie to us, or not. Did you really think Watergate was about a failed burglary, or that Monica/Bill was about sex?
IV. (Oh, and we did it on concrete evidence that there were weapons of mass destruction, but whatever, this scandal is MUCH bigger.) This gives you an ethics F, Beth. What does systematic lying by this administration have to do with Iraq? How does Iraq change the wrongness of what is being done now? This is an illogical, hopelessly desperate ethics dodge—“yeah, but its’ not as bad as THAT!” So what? If it’s bad, it’s bad, and it IS bad.
V. “We’ve compromised our own values by detaining and torturing people that may or may not have met your own specific definition of “terrorist.” Our leaders didn’t seem to care about semantics then. Oh, and the cherry on the sundae — we bankrupted our own country in the process and lost thousands of American soldiers, bringing back thousands other with mental and physical problems that we can’t handle.” You really can’t see that this is irrelevant to anything? You might as well be talking about the Peloponnesian Wars! You couldn’t have read the post, because these are all the invalid, cynical excuses corrupt leaders always make—“Look over there! This is nothing compared to what THEY did!” If children use this non-logic, we laugh at them. But politicians count on people like you falling into line.
VI “But that’s right, let’s waste all of our time investigating whether or not talking points were edited to make Obama temporarily look good during an election cycle about an event that he might have had no control over.” No, by all means, Beth, let’s let our leaders and government know that we really don’t care if they lie to us and tell us things that aren’t true so we can’t vote based on facts. That’s a great policy. You know, I think I can tell what things to hold Presidents responsible for, and even if I can’t, it’s not the right of our leaders to withhold information that I might blame him for when he thinks he’s blameless. You can’t possibly believe this nonsense that you’re writing.
VII But thank you, you’ve performed a genuine service. I asked why our politicians lie and spin to avoid accountability for their wrongful acts once they have been discovered, and you have eloquently answered the question. Because it works with forgiving partisans like you. I have my answer.
“Well gosh, if Beth’s tired of the story I guess that means it’s not worth discussing anymore. This is classic Clintonian dissembling and it’s not about whether the President made a mockery of his marriage vows, though that’s bad enough.”
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That’s exactly what I was thinking.
Exactly.
If you’ve read one, you’ve read them all.
They are all brainwashed with precisely the same, tedious and tired rhetoric.
I’m starting to wonder if someone is having us on, you know, pretending to be a clueless Progressive of the worst kind, just to see what we might do about it.
Why else would she be here, posting lengthy diatribes of blathering liberalism?
It isn’t like we’re going to be converted or anything.
o I don’t think I’d really care how it was originally reported on by the media or our crappy politicians.
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So it doesn’t matter one iota to you if your country deliberately lied to you?
You don’t care if they think so little of you that they assume you are stupid enough to believe a lame BS story?
You don’t care that they made your country look like a circus of baffoons to the rest of the world; paying $75k to make a video that perpetuates their lie, or speaking in front of the UN and stating six individual times what was then known to be a lie as the truth?
Your president lied to the entire world – knowingly so.
That doesn’t bother you in any way?
Do you condone dishonesty?
Do you lie to others and think it is OK?
That the end justifies the means?
Would you allow an employee to continue to work for you if you caught them red-handed in a lie and an attempt to cover that lie with more lies, that they might keep their job?
If your baby is dead, do you not care about the facts surrounding his murder and the rightful prosecution of the murderer?
If the police lie to you about the evidence or their lack of proper procedure conducting an investigation and the killer goes free it doesn’t matter, because, after all, your child is still dead?
You don’t care if the right person is punished for killing your child because at the end of the day, your child is still dead?
The truth about what really happened to your child, and whether or not there was any police / school / etc. misconduct leading to the death of your child matters not?
What if your child died unnecessarily because proper safety guidelines were not in place and the school / /daycare then try to cover that up?
All that matters is that he is gone?
Your analogy makes zero sense.
It is, however, quite indicative of your mindset.
You really need to wake up, think for yourself and stop making excuses for this ridiculous excuse of a president.
The Benghazi story bores you?
You bore me, Beth.
You and your like-minded brethren bore the hell out of me.
Do you ever stop to think who is going to pay for your blind, continued and undying support of a corrupt administration?
I’ll tell you who, your children and grandchildren.
Think about that every time you and your “well-informed” friends decide you are bored with a story that doesn’t suit your agenda.
I don’t support either Hillary or Barack — I even condemn them for many of their actions, yet I am somehow partisan. That makes sense in what world? Should politicians lie to us? Of course not. Do they do it every damn day? Yes. Every president in my lifetime (Nixon through Obama) has lied to us — well, actually, I’m not sure if Carter lied to us, but based on the conduct of just about everyone else, I’m willing to bet that he did at some point. Oh, and as for my female comment, of course that doesn’t mean that men don’t feel — but sometimes our reactions and analysis of situations can be impacted by gender. I’m going to assume that all of you learned that at some point since it isn’t even controversial. And I don’t think that makes women bad leaders, good leaders, or something in between. As for getting an F in ethics, what? The reason I have never considered running for any office is that I think it is impossible under our political system to get elected without compromising one’s moral code. I would never lie to gain or keep a political office. That makes me an honest and ethical person but a crappy politician. And Obama lied to us way before Benghazi — so yes, I am tired of this story. This doesn’t give me an “agenda” people — it makes me jaded.
Oh, and as for my female comment, of course that doesn’t mean that men don’t feel — but sometimes our reactions and analysis of situations can be impacted by gender. I’m going to assume that all of you learned that at some point since it isn’t even controversial. And I don’t think that makes women bad leaders, good leaders, or something in between
There are some differences in averages over the populations of women and men. That cannot be used to say any specific women reacted a specific way because she’s a woman. That’s what you did. You stereotyped Clinton as a woman and you stereotyped all men and women that have been, or could be, secretary of state.
Your comment on the matter was also insane. It started with women can’t process and differentiate amongst various types of terrorism, and ended with women are focused on realities and practicalities. Which is it?
Sooo, lying is so pervasive at high levels, we should just brush past this particular lie and move on to the next one, is that what you are saying? Why brush past this one when you are clearly still harping on what went on under GWB? For that matter, why add the comment that Obama lied to us way before Benghazi, so you are tired of this particular lie? Are you saying that a culture of lying somehow justifies, nay mandates, a collective yawn when additional lies come from the highest levels of government about an act of profound cowardice that left our diplomats to die in the lurch? What you are saying does NOT make you an honest and ethical person, no matter how much you preen, and it doesn’t even make you jaded, it makes you morally, spiritually, and intellectually lazy. Jack was too kind to give you an F in ethics, you deserve a zero.
Well, I am definitely spiritually lazy. You’re right there. My moral/intellectual record is pretty stellar, so wrong there. And I’m not really a preener — that has never been my style — but I’m wondering if you are since you bring up issues of spirituality and feel free to pass judgment on others. And yes, I think ALL lies are bad when examined in a vacuum. Jack is right (I hate saying that after all his criticism of me, but he is right on this) — you don’t excuse one lie by pointing to another lie. But that doesn’t mean all lies are the same — because some have more harmful effects than others. But let’s take the easiest and classic example. If a friend asks the president, “Do these jeans make me look fat?” And the president answers “no,” even if though the friend looks objectively fat (hideous really) in those jeans, then the president “lied” but really, what is the harm done? It probably would be a waste of time and resources to launch an inquiry. Other actual lies that presidents have told the American people have had serious and harmful effects. It would be morally and intellectually lazy to rest solely on “but all lies are wrong, so we should treat them the same.” Anyway, I am not harping on Bush, but if pressed to rank the harmful “effects” of lies told by our leaders, then I would have to put the weapons of mass destruction lie in a higher slot than Benghazi — even though each deception was independently wrong on its face.
Yes, I feel free to pass judgment, too often those who keep saying not to judge are just saying “let me do wrong in peace.” Your analysis of lies vis-a-vis whether jeans make you look fat, which question clearly begs one answer, is embarrassingly silly in this discussion. We aren’t discussing “little white lies” told to bolster the egos of women who had one treat too many and know it but won’t admit it, we’re discussing a real substantive failure, with real substantial, in four cases fatal, consequences, and the deliberate attempts to cover up, obfuscate, and deceive to protect the political futures of those responsible for that failure in the first place. Your statement that you have not harped on Bush is a brazen falsehood, this thread speaks for itself, and yet you keep turning back to the same old canard of “but there were no WMDs so…” So nothing Beth. Your credibility in this discussion is shot.
1. I didn’t stereotype Clinton as a woman — she is a woman. I am making no judgment as to whether gender makes someone a good or bad leader. Her quote did resonate with me at the time though, just like it does now.
2. It seems that there are lots of definitions, changing characters, political, regional, religious and cultural differences regarding who should be classified as a “terrorist.” It makes me a realist to point that out — not insane.
1. I don’t think you understood my phrasing. When someone says “You stereotyped X as a Y”, it means “you suggest X is the stereotypical Y.”
You did that. Your complaint that you didn’t judge her as a good or bad leader is a strawman. I didn’t accuse you of doing that.
2. This is a another strawman. I didn’t call you insane because you pointed out that it’s difficult to determine what is and isn’t terrorism. I called you insane for saying that women don’t understand the reality of terrorism, but that women are also working on the reality of the terrorism. Not only was it horrible stereotyping, but it was internally contradictory. You might as well have Asians can’t drive, but they’re great at going from place A to place B by car.
Oh good Lord — whatever. For the record, the “reality” here is that 4 people are dead because of the attack. At the time, if the administration said it was because of a video, planned and organized terrorism, or the Easter Bunny — that’s the reality. Just because people (men and women, but especially women) often first focus on the loss of human life — doesn’t mean that they aren’t working on understanding the issues. And it also doesn’t make them wrong or bad leaders.
Was this supposed to be in reply to me? It has essentially nothing to do with my complaints, and your lack of replying to a specific post makes it hard to track you.
That said, there’s more insanity:
At the time, if the administration said it was because of a video, planned and organized terrorism, or the Easter Bunny — that’s the reality.
Whatever the reason for your stupidity, I’m going to say it’s because of syphilis. It is now the reality. You need penicillin, STAT.
Just because people (men and women, but especially women) often first focus on the loss of human life — doesn’t mean that they aren’t working on understanding the issues. And it also doesn’t make them wrong or bad leaders.
First, there’s another stereotype. Second, when your job is secretary of state, focusing on the death over what happened DOES mean you’re a bad leader and bad at your job.
Wow, you caught me. Women often do care about issues or approach them differently than men. You know, like women generally have led the charge against drinking and driving and equality for women. Did men participate too? Yes, but women led the charge. (Look at MADD for e.g.) And, you can certainly say that women are stupid for pursuing this, but lots of women are focused on gun violence as well. Notice that I never said that any of this was wrong. But you all seem to suggest that maybe there is, so examine your own beliefs for a moment. And maybe it’s just the syhphilis talking, but I don’t think I’ve made a personal attack (if I have, I apologize) anywhere on this blog — but it’s depressing to see others so free to do so just because someone disagrees with them.
This post is one big non sequitur. This is the fourth time you’ve failed to engage with my actual complaints and instead created random strawmen (“You can certainly say that women are stupid for pursuing this, but lots of women are focused on gun violence as well.” When did I suggest that women were worse than men? Or I didn’t like causes led by women? Never.) and obviously misinterpreting things I said (the syphilis comment wasn’t a personal attack, it was a parallel to your logic of claims creating reality.).
The reasons for my attacks on your statements were explained. Saying that it was based on disagreement is like saying that Jack attacks Bill Clinton because he doesn’t agree with his policies.
Much ado about nothing. Anyone who thinks any of this will have the *slightest* impact on policy, morals, foreign affairs, or the 2016 presidential elections is living in a fantasy world.
If your standard for whether conduct is deplorable or not depends upon what impact the discovery of it has, 1) you essentially accept anything, no matter how wrong, people can get away with and 2) you are a patsy for power abusing individuals and organizations. What a sad and ethically inert comment this is.
My credibility is shot? I don’t care if people agree with me… but I guess I care if people think l’m being dishonest. I deliberately gave a ridiculous example in my last comment. The absurdity was apparently lost on this crowd. Lesson learned.
Beth, which was the example you thought was ridiculous? The MADD example? It really isn’t helpful to throw in intentionally ridiculous examples when you have been guilty of so many unintentional ones. Now we can’t tell what you even think it is you are saying.
I shouldn’t write on my kindle – it messed up where my comment should have been placed. I was referring to my white lie example – which was meant to be absurd. I’ll ignore your other jab.
If that was intentionally silly, then that comment is incoherent instead of stupid. I think it’s an improvement.
Yes – completely shot, Beth. Like a punch-drunk boxer you keep wading back in no matter how many hits you’ve taken nor how wide of the mark your punches land. You are a classic example of someone who can’t accept they are wrong.
Does anyone remember Nakoula Basseley Nakoula?
Did you miss Jack’s update? https://ethicsalarms.com/2013/05/09/nakoula-basseley-nakoula-is-not-a-political-prisoner/