Presidential Race Lies
 

In recent threads there has been a fair amount of outrage over claims being made by both sides. In typical partisan fashion many members of this board have responded by only attacking the "other" side without giving any real thought to what "their" side is doing or has done.
Feel free to add to this list on both sides as I'm sure I've missed some (I'll try to keep it somewhat general since there are several lies and distortions that can be associated with each of these).


I'm sure some will want to debate the veracity of this list. Please do not do it here. If you want to debate the truthfullness of the "lies" I listed above feel free to PM me and if you make a compelling case I will modify or remove the ones that are inappropriate.

Please prove that we can have a rational discussion here in this thread. The only contributions I would like to see in response to this post is either an addition to the above list for either candidate or a discussion about the responsibility of both parties for choosing to head down the path of partisan lie creation.

As I live in a battleground state, we get lots of commercials... too dang many. Can't wait for this to be over for that reason alone. Here are some tag lines of some of them:

Lies about Kerry
Kerry is against education reform
Kerry voted against body armor for the troops
Kerry voted 350 times to raise taxes
Kerry will raise taxes by 900 billion in his first 100 days in office
Kerry supported a 50 cent gas tax
Kerry opposed tax relief for married couples 22 times
Kerry would repeal the Patriot Act's use of (wiretaps and supoena powers) against terrorists.

Now plz note: these are things from ads I've seen on TV, and from Bushcheney websites. These are not things 'I've heard'. Because they are commercials, and subject to some type of fact checking, there is lots of spin in these. Lots and lots. The overwhelming impression they give, however, is that of a big stinking lie.

Lies about Bush
Bush is sending jobs oversees
Bush has spent 200 billion dollars on the war in Iraq.

Proportionally, about the same as your list Onetime. More Kerry items than Bush items, of course.

thx

Done. Feel free to list the lies perpetrated against Kerry.

For Kerry:
Kerry owns a Chinese/Russian automatic rifle but supports gun control.
The Kerry campaign is responsible for spreading military draft emails.
The Kerry campaign provided CBS/Burkett with the fake memos.

i think it's reasonable to take "Kerry admitted to committing war crimes" off his side of the lies list.

http://www.wintersoldier.com/audio/kerry2.mp3

that's a clip of him on Meet the Press in 1971.

That clip doesn't say war crimes. He says he commited attrocities "in that" .... where the in that is followed by him stating the orders he followed.

That clip clearly states that the very policies of the US military in Vietnam constituted war crimes, such as free-fire zones, search and destroy missions, etc. He is only culpable as a soldier who followed these policies and he has said in other interviews from the era that he never raped or tortured although he was aware of many soldiers that did admit to such acts. I could argue that systemic policies of criminality do not indict the soldiers that are forced to comply with them although it is easy to conjure up scenarios where that isn't true. All in all, accurate judgements in cases such as this probably require scrutiny of each individual incident.

As for the veracity of the "war crime" statement, there is a thin line here between truth and lie and it all comes down to the meaning that the speaker gives to this particular statement. This points to a larger problem with many of the "lies" that are listed here...in some contexts they may be correct or at least not quite an outright deception. For example, the "personal vendetta" reason for the Iraq war....although it probably did not play a role in Bush's decision making, he did list that as one of his complaint's against Saddam. In the same way, Kerry did vote against an Iraq funding bill in an attempt to get another version of the bill passed, so acknowledging that is not really a lie. The deception comes in when someone tries to claim that Kerry "voted against body armor" without explaining that Bush had threatened to veto an earlier version of the bill that he didn't like and that the funding to the troops had never been put in jeopardy by either political move. For another example, take the "Bush is a religious fanatic who ism directed by God" line. Bush is a born again christian who does talk about his praying for and receiving inspiration from God. Does this equate with the "directed by god" statement? Well, it all depends on just what the speaker or writer of that statement meant by it. To some, describing someone as being "directed by god" would be meant as a compliment and would not equate with nuttiness in any way.

sometimes the only difference between a lie and the truth is the intent, inflection and unspoken sentiment of the speaker.

Please people, have the decency to follow Onetime2's instructions. Irate, plz don't start anything else. I'm not sure this can go anywhere, but I'm certainly in favor of seeing something, anything, new on this board.

Once we start debating pros and cons, it's never gonna stop. I certainly have issues with the original list, but I'm trying.

I'm no mod, just a boy trying to do what's right... :D

Okay, add this one to the list for Kerry:

Kerry has held contradictory views on Iraq

i suppose i hadn't fully digested onetime's... request, but that seems like a pretty stiff limitation on the thread's direction. right now i think a PM would be redundant.

Bush is just a former town drunk who doesn't use the English language properly who rode daddy's name all the way to Washington.

And that's the truth.

The emotions from both sides are running so high in this election it is impossible to debate what is a lie and what is truth. Truth is merely one's perception of reality, and this post from Flyguy is a prime example. There is enough truth mingled in with his viewpoint of that truth to make it very inflammatory statement to the other side, but it is the absolute truth to him. One could point to other posts from the "right" or "left" to prove this point. In other words, while a great idea, it's impossible to debate the "lies" without it degrading into something terrible.

Some others against Bush:

Bush betrayed our country.
Bush lost 4 million (3 million, 2 million, etc) jobs
Bush's drug plan is worse than what we had before
Bush was confused when first told about 9/11 and all he could do was keep reading a story to the kids
Bush ran and hid after the planes hit the towers
Bush has already captured OBL and is keeping it a secret until just before the election
Bush was a failure as a businessman
Bush snorted cocaine at Camp David


In compiling this list what is absolutely amazing to me is the staggering number of lies on both sides. There were at least 10 others I had in my head last night that I planned on posting today but I can't recall them. It's truly sad that there have been so many lies that I can not, even with great effort, remember them all (or even the majority of them).

That is why I outlined the fact that the "lies" and distortions should not be debated in this thread. Simply post them.

I don't think there can be any question about the ones listed so far from anyone in this thread. Whether they are outright lies or purposeful distortions is irrelevant. Virtually all criticisms of the candidates in this election have some level of inappropriate level of exaggeration involved in their use.

What's the point of this thread? Lets pretend that all those things said about Bush were lies without actually backing any of that up? (I know this thread is supposed to be about Bush and Kerry, but when we have 5 "lies" told about Kerry and 20 "lies" told about Bush you don't have to be a brain surgeon to see the desired heading for this thread).

There's not even any room for discussion as the originator will only discuss issues via PMs. This thread belongs on the National Enquirer forum, not here.

The purpose of this thread is to highlight the FACT that this race has consisted of an inordinate number of lies. Some blatantly personal and derogatory. This has occurred on BOTH sides.

Since I started this thread I learned that there were more lies told about Kerry than I initially thought. Perhaps if others were open minded enough to look at this rationally they'd become a little more enlightened as well.

Feel free to add to the list on Kerry's side. If you can't or won't do that then stay out of the thread.

And FWIW I count 15 lies or distortions in the Kerry column. :rolleyes:

So much of what is written here are either not lies or have not been said. Where's the discussion? Where's the debate? Where's the proof?

The purpose of this forum is to encourage debate. So far the only debate I've seen on this thread is as to the validity of the thread itself.

What baffles me is you can look at their documented statements or voting records, then when it comes to election, its as if they are a completely different person. Example: Kerry has repeatedly come out against gun control. No big deal but now at election time, he's all pro gun... Bush is the same way. Just a matter of picking the better of the two evils.

Threads are not just to encourage debate but to widen perspective and increase understanding. I've already told you that I have learned something from this thread so to me it's been worthwhile. Your challenge of the purpose of it is wholly inappropriate since no one is forcing you to be involved. If you'd like to create a new thread to say how wrong I am for this one feel free. Several people have contributed within the guidelines I've layed out so it is far from impossible to achieve. You are free to ignore this thread and stop posting at any time.

I know that we aren't supposed to argue or debate in this thread, so I won't, but it is worth pointing out that some of the "lies" listed could amount to sincere differences of opinion on certain issues.

Hence the term "distortions" used throughout the thread. Certainly each one of the listed items has been played up by the opposing side and have been embellished or the most extreme point of view has been taken.

Feel free to PM me (or whoever posted the ones you're speaking of) about which you think don't belong.

A few more:

Bush:

George Bush is a terrorist
Bush destroyed his military records so no one could find out the "truth"
Bush pulled strings for or was in bed with Ken Lay and that's why he hasn't gone to jail

Kerry:

Kerry is unpatriotic
Kerry is anti-military
Kerry will give the UN the power over US military deployment

Bush:
The Bush Campaign planted the CBS memos.
The Bush administration is going to start up a draft.

Kerry:
Believes that the coalition of the willing is negligible and unworthy of commendation.

To distinguish truth from lies look to what they say, to what they do. The biggest lie that we have been told by Bush were the reasons why we went to war in Iraq. No WMD have been found in the year we have been in Iraq. All those involved with Iraq and our intelligence now and in the past have stated that there is no connection between Irag and the terrorists. Even now as Bush stated in the debates that the terrorist do not want us to succede in Iraq and are working to prevent this, when the milatary leaders now in Iraq are stating that those fighting americans are Iraqies inside the country not outsiders. When people die for a lie that is unacceptable, period!!!