Following in the footsteps of Nancy Hopkins, the MIT biology professor who had a nervous breakdown when Larry Summers touched on the subject of sex and biology recently, California’s junior senator has done gone hysterical her own self:
Sen. Barbara Boxer says she is the real victim of last week’s confirmation hearing for Secretary of State-designate Condoleezza Rice, yet continued yesterday to question the national security adviser’s honesty.
“She turned and attacked me,” the California Democrat told CNN’s “Late Edition” in describing the confrontation during the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing.
Poor little Miss Boxer, the cool girls are all so mean to her.
I read Jane’s blog.
The thing that strikes me in all the argument about Boxer vs. Rice is that the central issue is lost. Rice lied. Period. Big time. What next?
Yep. Rice lied.
But you know, loyalty’s more important than our national security…so let’s bash that evil Barbara Boxer! She criticized beloved Condi! Burn Boxer! Burn her!
Look, you guys have peaked. And it’s not even February yet.
No, Condi didn’t lie, but Boxer did cry.
Leftists don’t like what you say, how you say it, or that you say it at all to begin with. All of these constitute “abuse of the victim”, and translate into the infantile responses we see, such as “Bush lied” repeated like a mantra as would a young child. Predictably, “Rice lied” and soon perhaps her pants will be “on fire”.
I think part of the problem also is that Leftists literally cannot understand words, so they are threatened if any response is made which doesn’t sound phonologically exactly like theirs. This kind of analysis is beginning to make a lot of sense to me.
Joe, what kind of nonsense is this?
Did Bush lie? Yes or no? If no, talk about it. Don’t attack, don’t hide, don’t put up a smoke screen. Did Rice lie? Yes or no. If the answer is no, then explain the existing contradictions. Did Rice respond clearly to the specifics of Boxer’s questions? No, she did not.
To say Leftists literally cannot understand words is patent nonsense.
Tell me what you mean by “lie”, Kim. Some Bush-haters have told me recently that any actual assertion that turns out to be false is a lie, even if the speaker had good reason to believe it at the time he said it. According to that standard, Bush and Condi lied about the state of Saddam’s WMDs in March, 2003. But if you adopt the conventional definition of lie, which is an attempt to deceive, no, they didn’t, they simply made claims that conformed to the best information they had at the time. Looking at it this way requires us to determine why they didn’t have better information, and the answer to that question begins with Frank Church and Jimmy Carter.
There’s just too much unavoidable evidence that points to the administration’s plans to invade Iraq prior to any assertions of WMD, certainly before any talk of liberation. This opens up the question: Were the American people deceived?
You say no. Granted.
I believe, however, there is reasonable doubt about the honesty of this administration’s motives & explanations. (Please do not bring in questions of any past administration’s honesty. That is beside the point. Another argument.)
I do not accept the “best information” explanation. Let me say rather, I do not accept it outright. You clearly do.
Moreover, if, as you say, it’s a matter of “simply” making claims that turned out to be false…well, I’m astonished at your seeming casual acceptance of it. Billions of dollars, uncounted lives were/are involved in this “mistake”. And then there’s the ultimate “flip flop” or “spin” to use common parlance: Liberation. Freedom.
In any administration, Democrat or Republican, I would hope for a certain transparency.
The people who re-elected Bush apparently don’t believe they were deceived in any significant way, and I trust them to make this judgment.
Yes, this is true.
By re-electing Bush, voters have indicated 1) that they do not believe they have been decieved in any significant way 2) that they share in and/or accept the rationale behind any deception if indeed it did exist 3) a combination of two.
The people have made their judgement.
Kim, unless the definition of “lie” has changed, neither Bush nor Rice lied. There are no “contradictions” except in the minds of people who simply want to use the word “lie” as a crude, but typical, attempt to villify – that is, to propagandize, and perhaps gain some gratification of their own need to villify.
I’m not going to explain the reason why people fail to understand the meaning of words any further. If you want to keep using the word, it’s fine my me. But I consider the use nonsensical, possibly even “contradictory” itself.
Boxer’s performance was pathetic, as usual.
Joe,
So Bush & Rice did not lie.
Nor have they contradicted themselves.
What words would you suggest be used to decribe the changing positions of Bush & Rice?
Some have used the word “misleading”.
Why do you describe Boxer’s performance as “pathetic”?
Did it arouse sympathetc sadness & compassion?
Or did it arouse scornful pity?
If the latter, which I assume is the case, why do you pity her?
And, finally: No, the definition of lie has not, to my knowledge, changed. It remains: a false statement deliberately presented as true. To convey a false image or impression.
(American Heritage Dictionary)
Depends on how you see “contradictions,” I suppose. In the early days of Iraqi Freedom, the Administration stressed the universally-held belief that Saddam had WMDs and it was necessary to disarm him by force because of the universally-held belief that he was out of compliance with terms of surrender from the Gulf War. More recently, the Administration has stressed the “freedom and democracy makes a more stable world” angle.
Is this a contradiction, a correction, a shift in policy, or a simply a clarification?
There’s no clear answer to that question, as it all depends on how charitable we’re willing to be with our government. I certainly don’t believe Bush and Rice “lied about the WMDs” any more than all the other politicians around the world who had good reasons to believe there were WMDs in Iraq lied to us. That was just the best information anybody had at the time.
I think the Bush Administration over-played the WMD angle because they were looking for UN approval and they felt this was the best way to get it. It turns out you could have had videotape of Saddam targeting missiles for Tel Aviv and the UN still wouldn’t have got on board because too many Security Council members were on the take, so that was obviously a mistake.
I believe the reason we invaded Iraq was to remove Saddam from power because he represented an unacceptable threat to world peace and stability for many, many reasons. If this had been the explanation from the beginning, these statements about lies and contradictions would have very little traction today. This Administration communicates with the people extremely poorly, but they’re neither crooked nor venal, in my estimation.
Thanks for your good comment.
Of course literally thousands of words now have been written to support both sides of the question, all claiming to have the utmost veracity. A great deal of it, left & right, very persuasive.
Your words “it all depends on how charitable we’re willing to be with our government” very well taken. In some way that’s at the crux of how you & I, or anyone, as ordinary citizens, approach these matters.
I agree, this administration communicates poorly. But, going further, accusations of secrecy seem well founded.
Questions of the Iraq invasion aside, I also believe this administration is corrupt & venal. What has surprised me is that I’ve spoken to a number of lifelong conservatives who believe this as well.
Joe,
Read Eliot Weinberger’s “What I Heard About Iraq”–it’s on the web.
It’s a big jump from “secretive” to “corrupt”, isn’t it? There are lots of reasons for the former that don’t imply the latter.
Sorry, Richard. I’ll clarify.
Many persons feel this administration is secretive. But not all of them have accused it of being corrupt.
I believe this admininstration is secretive as well as corrupt.
By this I don’t mean to draw any connection between “secretive” & “corrupt” or suggest any cause & effect relation. I meant them as two statements.
Of course secrecy (for those on the inside) always has its reasons.
The question then becomes, especially in a democratic society, whether or not there is justification. And, as you have suggested, the issue of trust is important. Much has been said over time that has seriously erroded my trust in this administration. (see Weinberger’s new “What I Heard About Iraq”)
There is evidence that the Administration is secretive, for sure. There is a wall of theater around so much of politics that this doesn’t concern me all that much, but it’s certainly a fact. But where’s the evidence of corruption? Both Bush and Cheney have enough money so as not to need to steal, and the charges that have been leveled about Halliburton are so much crap. Just show me some credible evidence and I’ll cuss them out.
Good phrase “wall of theater around politics”
Not sure about the charges leveled against Halliburton being so much crap.