Tiresome
It's tiring, hearing statements from Bush, et al. that just seem wrong on their face. I mean, couldn't they bother coming up with claims that wouldn't take more than a few minutes, a web connection, and Google to disprove? (Not that they seem to need to, since I don't see the newspapers and news shows running the daily "Bush Lies of the Day" column.)
If only Kerry had a youthful, charming and telegenic campaign spokesperson (perhaps a blonde from a southern sorority?) with the job of going out to the press pool each morning, and, over donuts and coffee, updating them on the current "Bush Lie Number", and the "Bush Lie of the Day", complete with debunking, all nicely presented in a handy format so they could run it without having to do any work whatsoever.
If the Kerry team had been really clever, they would have covertly encouraged the press pool to start betting on which lie would turn out to be the Lie of the Day, and make them start paying more attention. Sigh. I guess running an imaginative campaign is easier from the outside.
Anyway, here we go. This is actually from the 15th:
I heard someone else in the Bush camp troop out that 1 million number the other day on the radio, and I said, "What?!" It was only three years ago, I think I would remember the loss of 1 MILLION jobs in just 3 months. And I don't. (Do you?) What I do remember is that the economy wasn't in such great shape before the attacks. "In fact," I thought, "it probably doesn't even make sense to try and sort out the 9/11 effects from the overall economic downturn - how could you sort out which was which?"
And in fact, the BLS also says: "The labor market had been weakening before those attacks, and those events undoubtedly exacerbated this weakness. It is not possible, however, to separate the job-market effects of the terrorist attacks from the underlying economic weakness." So, it isn't even really possible to determine the number that McClellan so confidantly asserts as "a million jobs right there."
But McClellan is also using "MIRV" technology on his falsehoods. The incredibly silly jobs number is a decoy to draw rhetorical analysis away from the repeated, and repeatedly disproven, claim that the "President inherited a recession when he came into office."
Since it would be too boring to just go again drag out the statistics and reports that show this to be false, let's use a different way to refute this. How about a quote from Alan Greenspan, from April 27, 2001, three months after Bush took office. "While the magnitudes of future federal unified budget surpluses are uncertain, they are highly likely to remain sizable for some time." Does that sound like someone who knows he's in a recession? Sure, Greenspan isn't the clearest speaker, but when you read this speech, it sure doesn't sound like there's a recession happening, does it?
All of which demonstrates the power of the Bush campaign technique. Once you let go of that foolish, old-fashioned thing about telling the truth, you can overwhelm any opponent. This is just one statement, from two days ago. Since this was uttered, many more lies have been told, and no one is able to keep up. Big lies, like "Freedom is on the march" in Iraq. Medium lies, like "a million jobs." Smaller lies, like "He completed his required service." It's so bad that even people like Richard Lugar are having to react to it. But still the lies keep coming, faster than people can keep up. I do wish Kerry had a couple bright interns trying to, though. Sigh.
If only Kerry had a youthful, charming and telegenic campaign spokesperson (perhaps a blonde from a southern sorority?) with the job of going out to the press pool each morning, and, over donuts and coffee, updating them on the current "Bush Lie Number", and the "Bush Lie of the Day", complete with debunking, all nicely presented in a handy format so they could run it without having to do any work whatsoever.
If the Kerry team had been really clever, they would have covertly encouraged the press pool to start betting on which lie would turn out to be the Lie of the Day, and make them start paying more attention. Sigh. I guess running an imaginative campaign is easier from the outside.
Anyway, here we go. This is actually from the 15th:
MR. McCLELLAN: Well, let me address a couple of things. We've overcome many challenges in this country over the last three years. A number of them go back to what occurred on September 11th. When it comes to the economy, let's look at the strains that were placed on our economy. We were in an economic downturn and the President inherited a recession when he came into office. Then you had the September 11th attacks. In the aftermath of September 11th, in the three months after September 11th, we lost a million jobs right there.Only the US Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics says:
In the 18 weeks following the September 11 attacks (the weeks ending September 15 through January 12), employers reported 430 events involving 125,637 workers separated as a direct or indirect effect of the attacks. A majority of the layoff events took place in the weeks immediately following the attacks, and the number of new events has tapered off since then. Thirty-three states reported extended mass layoff activity related to the September 11 incidents.For those innumerates out there, 125,637 in 18 weeks does NOT equal 1 million in 3 months. It is far less. (Granted, this is only the announced layoff events, but still...)
I heard someone else in the Bush camp troop out that 1 million number the other day on the radio, and I said, "What?!" It was only three years ago, I think I would remember the loss of 1 MILLION jobs in just 3 months. And I don't. (Do you?) What I do remember is that the economy wasn't in such great shape before the attacks. "In fact," I thought, "it probably doesn't even make sense to try and sort out the 9/11 effects from the overall economic downturn - how could you sort out which was which?"
And in fact, the BLS also says: "The labor market had been weakening before those attacks, and those events undoubtedly exacerbated this weakness. It is not possible, however, to separate the job-market effects of the terrorist attacks from the underlying economic weakness." So, it isn't even really possible to determine the number that McClellan so confidantly asserts as "a million jobs right there."
But McClellan is also using "MIRV" technology on his falsehoods. The incredibly silly jobs number is a decoy to draw rhetorical analysis away from the repeated, and repeatedly disproven, claim that the "President inherited a recession when he came into office."
Since it would be too boring to just go again drag out the statistics and reports that show this to be false, let's use a different way to refute this. How about a quote from Alan Greenspan, from April 27, 2001, three months after Bush took office. "While the magnitudes of future federal unified budget surpluses are uncertain, they are highly likely to remain sizable for some time." Does that sound like someone who knows he's in a recession? Sure, Greenspan isn't the clearest speaker, but when you read this speech, it sure doesn't sound like there's a recession happening, does it?
All of which demonstrates the power of the Bush campaign technique. Once you let go of that foolish, old-fashioned thing about telling the truth, you can overwhelm any opponent. This is just one statement, from two days ago. Since this was uttered, many more lies have been told, and no one is able to keep up. Big lies, like "Freedom is on the march" in Iraq. Medium lies, like "a million jobs." Smaller lies, like "He completed his required service." It's so bad that even people like Richard Lugar are having to react to it. But still the lies keep coming, faster than people can keep up. I do wish Kerry had a couple bright interns trying to, though. Sigh.
posted by Paul at 2:04 PM |
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