Newsview: Kerry Avoids Calling Bush 'Liar'

[RedEarth]

PHILADELPHIA - John Kerry (news - web sites) says President Bush (news - web sites) "failed to tell the truth" about Iraq (news - web sites) and "misled the American people," but that's as far as he seems willing to take it. He stops just short of the "l-word" — liar.



Democrat Harry Truman may have been the last presidential candidate to call his opponent a liar, says Wayne Fields, an expert on political rhetoric. It just isn't something serious presidential contenders do these days.


Instead, this year's Democratic presidential nominee dips into a stack of euphemisms to suggest the president isn't telling voters the whole truth. In a more aggressive verbal assault on Bush in the last few days, Kerry has said:


_"The first and most fundamental mistake was the president's failure to tell the truth to the American people."


_"The president also failed to level with the American people about what it would take to prevail in Iraq."

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=694&ncid=703&e=4&u=/ap/20040924/ap_on_el_pr/avoiding_the_l_word

[LibDemAlways]

1. As I recall, Harry Truman

won a close election, and his no-nonsense plain spoken approach was a plus. Kerry ought to drop the euphemisms and go for it.

[napi21]

15. Unfortunately, Truman probably couldn't get elected today.

I like the plain spoken candidates like Dean & Perot, but the nation seems to have changed, and there aren't many like me left today. EVERYTHING has changed to politically correct. I even heard a new work a few weeks ago. Un-tutored, in reference to shrub not being educated in foreign policy!

[truthisfreedom]

26. nonsense. bush thinks he's plain-spoken. he'll say anything. watch him!

as the weeks progress, he's going to turn into a total freak.

[Beetwasher]

2. He Could Be Saving The "L" Word For The Right Moment

It will be big news when/if he drops it...

[SKKY]

4. Like in a debate?

I think the debates, especially the town hall debate, have the potential to be high drama between Kerry and Bush. Listening to what Bush said about "Tribal Sovereignty" in Seattle, I don't see how he thinks he could possibly stand a chance. Kerry gets him cornered, then drops the L word, and it's lights out.

[Beetwasher]

9. Yup. You KNOW Bush Is Going To Lie In The Debates

Kerry will wait for the right moment and the right lie, call him a liar and prove it right there...Instant huge headline.

[LastLiberal in PalmSprings]

29. Debate rules: Candidates can pose "rhetorical questions"

But they can't ask each other questions directly.

So here's a possible Kerry rhetorical question: "If we were citizens of another country whose president lied, would we re-elect him?"

He didn't call * a liar. It was purely a rhetorical question.

[shockingelk]

3. Peter Jennings avoided the "L" word too

What would the benefit of Kerry calling Bush a liar?

[w4rma]

5. Stupid people don't understand euphemisms. Most people are stupid. (nt)

[Bandit]

10. Since when is saying someone doesn't tell the truth a euphemism?

I think that is pretty damn blunt and I would venture a guess that Americans know what that means.

[w4rma]

12. Ask the author of the article. That's the term the author used. (nt)

[mhollis]

13. True

The Republicans have been using euphemisms for a while.

"Family values" means we hate gays.

"Conservative" means we hate persons who don't hail from northern Europe -- preferably England,

"Compassionate" means we're going to make sure you pay for your mistakes, like when you lost your job or became diaabled through no fault of your own -- we're going to cut off your financial support and fund religious extremists to provide it for you with their message.

"No child left behind" means no white wealthy child left behind.

"Clear Skies" means we allow more pollution and prevent the EPA from enforcing its own standards.

There are lots of others.

[BootinUp]

6. If you're going to use the word liar

Be prepared to prove he is a liar in a 10 second soundbite. And I mean unrefutable proof that will be played by all the political news shows.

[w4rma]

11. I think Kerry has already done that but, as usual, big media hasn't. (nt)

[many a good man]

17. bush* LIED about WMD, etc.

He stated WITH CERTAINTY that Saddam had WMD, when we later learned that the intelligence was full of caveats and qualifiers...

He promised to go to the UN and build international support to disarm Saddam but instead rushed to war without it.

He claims Iraq is moving toward democracy when the reality is its sinking into civil war.

He stated that the tax cut would put $1000 in everybody's pocket. Instead the millionaires got a refund of $93,000 while poor people got nothing.

He promised his economic policies would create six million new jobs when they've lost one million instead.

...

[BootinUp]

23. old news...I am talking about the current situation in Iraq

The news media wouldn't focus on that old stuff, other than Kerry making the charge, then they would make excuses for the chimp citing intelligence problems.

No, the lies about the current situation is what are in question, and if you call him a liar flat out, you risk having the media spin it as an unprovable charge.

I like Kerry's current theme W for wrong, listening to his speech now it is pretty effective without inviting negative media spin against him.

[interupt]

7. Take a tip from Australian politics

"misled the American people," but that's as far as he seems willing to take it. He stops just short of the "l-word" — liar.



Mark Latham (Labor opposition) never used the "L" word until the campaign opened up. Was always using a quote "Loose with the truth"

Then hit him with Liar and Howard went nuts....man it was beautiful!

[DavidDvorkin]

8. But Australia still has a free press

If Kerry uses the word "liar", the entire mainstream American press would attack him mercilessly.

[interupt]

14. you got me there....

sigh

[doctorus]

16. hidden hostility

public politeness of the politic means hidden hostility

[snippy]

18. Democrats should have firmly established months ago that Bush is a liar.

It would have been easy to mock Bush for his lying over the last two years. Now it may seem like political posturing to call Bush a liar. On the other hand, better late than never.

Except for the American media the entire world knows that Bush is one of the most compulsive and incessant liar in the history of American politics.

There is no subject so somber, serious, or shallow that Bush will not lie about it. The only other option is not to lie. And that apparently is something Bush can not do.

For example:

Bush says he fell off his bicycle because of the heavy rains and he watched on television on the morning of 9/11 as the first plane hit the first WTC tower and John McCain has an illegitimate Negro daughter and Bush would veto McCain-Feingold and the yawning boy was not there and was not yawning and besides he was standing some place else and Richard Clarke had complete access to Bush and Rice which proves that Clarke was out of the loop which is Clinton's fault but the White House revealed that Clarke briefed the press on background about Bush fighting terrorism which means that unnamed White House sources may not be identified even when Bush wants to and everyone except Bush himself knows where he was during his National Guard service but it was Clinton's fault that Bush did not show up for duty which was after Bush volunteered to go to Viet Nam but before he was no longer required to take a flight physical and about the same time that God ordered him to smite Saddam because the 70 lines of embryonic stem cells and more arsenic in the water and more mercury in the air and the completely safe air in New York City folowing 9/11 prove that republican science is better than sound science and the Bush administration did not illegally conspire to illegally reveal the identity of a covert CIA operative which resulted in 2 million new jobs being created because democrats support terrorism and are not good Americans just as the Jews were not good Germans which is why Bush said he would veto the creation of both the Department of Homeland Security and the 9/11 Commission but now claims credit for their creation and the White House cooperated with the 9/11 Commission which is why the White House withheld documents and called the republicans on the Commission before Clarke testified and why the White House did not coordinate the attacks on the integrity and bipartisanship of the Commission and why Bush and Cheney negotiated with the Commission that the two of them would testfy one time only but never again since the dental xrays prove that Bush spoke with the CIA director everyday and did not ignore either the repeated warnings of the dangers of al Qaeda and Osama or the August 2001 intelligence briefing specifically warning of the upcoming 9/11 attacks because the United States is a nation with a mission and that mission is to bring freedom to every single person in the world which will cut the deficit in half if you do not count those parts of the deficit which will increase under Bush which is Clinton's fault but the boxes from China were labeled "Made in USA" which resulted in 2.6 million new jobs being created even though the $400 billion Medicare prescription drug decorative turkey was not labeled $550 billion and was passed without bribery or criminal deception and was not criminally promoted by the Bush administration using taxpayers' money for propaganda purposes which proves that government spending under Bush has gone down if you do not count the increased government spending under Bush which is Clinton's fault just as acts of terrorism have decreased since 9/11 if you do not count the increase in the number of acts of terrorism and Bush's plane to Baghdad was spotted because before Saddam bought the uranium and became an "urgent" but not an imminent threat which is Clinton's fault Bush had no plans on his desk to invade Iraq since the invasion was not planned before Bush took office even though it was the subject of his first national security council meeting in February 2001 and in December 2001 when plans for the invasion were being finalized Bush said he was focused on the military operations in Afghanistan and then the Carrier Costume Party was too far offshore for the Navy to make a large enough "Mission Accomplished" banner to describe the WMD we have found in Iraq some of which Saddam was giving to Osama for following Saddam's plans and using Iraqi hijackers on 9/11 which is Clinton's fault but everyone who pays income taxes got a tax cut which created 3 million new jobs and allowed Iraqi oil revenue to pay for the cost of the reconstruction of Iraq after the invasion by a small number of troops who would be greeted with floral program related activities except for the dead and wounded troops who are being brought home secretly which is Clinton's fault since Bush is the one who hugs the mothers and the widows and the wives and the kids and since Bush does not watch television news he did not know about the republican torture pranks occurring in Iraq until he saw the pictures while watching television news and that is why Bush who will use the jawbone of an ass to force OPEC to open the spigots and who is responsible for good economic numbers but not bad economic numbers which are Clinton's fault wrote the poem that he did not write blaming Laura for dropping the dog.

Ridiculing Bush for his compulsive and incessant lying should have become common by now.

FIRE THE LIAR

[0007]

24. Snippy that is a classic of all classics's, did you compose it?

[0007]

19. This is almost hilarious!

Kerry's trying to get a head in the polls by being honest?

"Either he is so rigidly certain that his vision is correct that he can set aside contradictory information and not absorb it, which is a damning comment," McCurry said, "or that he in fact gets this information and chooses not to share it with the American people, in which case he is deliberately misleading them."

In response, Bush campaign spokesman Steve Schmidt called Kerry's rhetoric a "preposterous" attempt to get ahead in the polls, some of which show a close race or with Bush slightly ahead."

[leQ]

20. has bush ever defined kerry as a liar?

or even tried to?

this could be just the edge kerry needs. if he were to use it during the debates, it would be over for bush. how could the shrub defend it.

er rather, it would be highly entertaining watching him try.

[goforit]

21. It's unfortunate he never called him a liar let alone an outright criminal

Courage is hard to find.

[hansolsen]

22. It is a fundamental mistake not to make Bush's character an issue.

Kerry needs to make a fundamental decision on how to deal with Bush on Iraq for the rest of this campaign.

He must choose whether or not to make character an explicit issue.

Option A: Take character off the table and treat this election as if Bush were Ike, but dumb.

Focus on George Bush being a bungling incompetent idiot who has made the wrong choices at every turn, but acknowledge the conventional wisdom that Bush is still a good hearted, God fearing, patriotic, all American good guy everyone wants to have a beer with. Keep everything civil at all costs. Don't get angry.

This option always begins with this clause, "I like George Bush, but --"

Option B: Make character issue number one, name names, and get angry because rightous anger is warranted. Start by saying, "I don't like George Bush, let me tell you why."

Call Shrub out for what he is: George Bush, the boy Emperor, is Caligula in training pants. He is evil incarnate. He is the Prince of Abu Ghraib. He deliberately lied about WMD and approved torture of detainees he denied protection under the Geneva Convention. The war in Iraq is a personal vendetta, planned years in advance. Bush misused both the flag and religion for partisan political purposes. And about ten more things that 80% of the Dem base can quote chapter and verse.

This option starts with speaking for the Dem base and calling a spade a spade. These sentences could all begin with this clause, "George Bush is the least Christian man who ever served in the Oval Office; for example -- ".

I recommend option B.
I am begging for option B.
Actually, I demand option B.

Option B has the great redeeming value that it is true.

[leesa]

25. The question is, why isn't our media calling Bush a liar. Or would that

involve investigation?

[nolabels]

28. That is much too blatant of a word.................

You just cannot come out and slap that invective on professional frauds, the phrasing needs to be nauanced.........

Liar, liar
Posted by Chris

Everyone - well, ok, a few people in my neck of the blogosphere - no wait, I prefer something sweeping. Ahem. Everyone seems to have their knickers in a knot about Nicholas Kristoff's column yesterday. It seems poor Kristoff is distressed by the charge that Bush is a liar. And so he wrings his hands for a while and calls it a fair and balanced day. Kristoff's point is silly: Bush is a liar, if he isn't hopelessly deluded.

But what in the world is to be gained from calling the man "human scum"? Good golly, is that not a bit harsh? The man isn't my idea of the world's best columnist. He has silly ideas about what balance requires of him, and it leads him to slag the left unfairly from time to time. But he is also pretty obviously a decent guy. More than that, he has often used his column for good. More than that, even, he has over the last month or so, done a fantastic amount of awareness raising about the ethnic cleansing in Darfur. For that, I feel grateful. There are worse ways to use your tenure on the Op-Ed page of the New York Times.

Kristoff says silly stuff sometimes, but dammit, he's on my side. Or I'm on his. Or whatever. He's not human scum, ok?
Posted by Chris at June 30, 2004 08:53 PM
Comments

I was contemplating writing exactly this post -- well, making exactly this point -- this evening. But I wondered about the wisdom of stooping. No, you're right: stooping is sometimes required. Thanks.
Posted by: Ted H. at June 30, 2004 10:26 PM

Anyone who defends a war criminal like Bush can, within the bounds of creative expression, be referred to as scum. I wouldn't have thought this was even debateable. What next? We can't call Hitler's apologists idiots and knaves?
Posted by: Peter at July 1, 2004 10:02 AM
(snip)
http://www.explananda.com/archives/000396.html

[MrBenchley]

27. So the AP hasn't got the guts to call Chimpy a liar

and they want to bitch about Kerry not doing so...