Only a Liberal…

I recently read an article that typifies the Liberal vs Conservative media fight. While Liberals would have you believe that Fox News succeeds because there are a lot of Americans who yearn for wall-to-wall lying, the fact of the matter is in most debates, Conservatives have the facts on their side, and Liberals are simply scratching for approval (I said most debates, not all).

The article is “Dick Cheney’s lies about President Obama” by Eugene Robinson. After starting the article by comparing Cheney’s wisdom to that you would hear from homeless people sitting in bus shelters, Cheney’s big lie is “exposed” by Eugene. After the Christmas day underwear terrorist failed in his attempt, Obama’s behavior in the wake prompted Cheney to say the following:

As I’ve watched the events of the last few days it is clear once again that President Obama is trying to pretend we are not at war.

And Eugene’s immediate response in his article:

Flat-out untrue.

Ok, Eugene, I’m listening.

The fact is that Obama has said many times that we are at war against terrorists.

Obama has said many things, Eugene. That doesn’t mean he believes them. Eugene’s analysis is laughable if put in perspective. Picture his article being about the following fictitious quote from Cheney:

As I’ve watched the events of the last few days it is clear once again that President Obama is trying to pretend we are broadcasting all legislation on CSPAN.

And Eugene responds with:

Flat-out untrue. The fact is that Obama has said many times that we are going to broadcast all legislation on CSPAN. See the video.

Now for those that don’t know, healthcare deliberations are NOT being broadcast on CSPAN, despite Obama promising it on at least 8 different occasions during the campaign. So we have established that Obama’s word is worthless.

The big picture

Before I continue analyzing, I want to highlight the overall issue. This is the best Liberals can do when accusing their opponents of lying. They always cite some lame, hard to pinpoint, crime that under scrutiny pales in comparison to Liberal lies. I’m not saying that Conservatives tell the truth… that’s preposterous. I’m saying Liberals are TERRIBLE at exposing it.

So is there a CSPAN-promise-like lie on the Conservative side? The CSPAN lie by Obama is a slam-dunk, so surely there is a slam dunk on the other side of the aisle. I decided to check by looking up the top-rated “lies” that Dick Cheney and Glenn Beck have reportedly told.

Dick Cheney

The Huffington post has an article about Cheney’s top 10 lies. You would figure #1 would be devastating.

Cheney’s Comments on unauthorized wire-tapping: “This was always a policy… to capture those international communications… It is legal. It was legal from the very beginning. It is constitutional, and to claim that it isn’t I think is just wrong.

Huffington Post rebuttal: “the approval for the warrantless surveillance of communications to and from the United States that followed on September 25 was neither “legal” nor “constitutional.”

There are numerous opinions on this, but in January 2009, a special-intelligence court ruled that the “government does not need a search warrant when it taps the phones or checks the e-mails of suspected terrorists who are outside the U.S., even if Americans may be overheard on the calls.” The LA Times wrote,

Although the Constitution protects the privacy rights of Americans against “unreasonable searches and seizures,” this principle does not bar U.S. spy agencies from conducting surveillance aimed at foreign targets abroad.

So the #1 lie by Dick Cheney according to the Huffington Post isn’t a lie at all. Dick Cheney has been working in the public eye for decades, and this is the number 1 lie according to his biggest critics. While I am sure Dick Cheney has lied at some point in his life, I am simply highlighting the pathetic lack of ability of Liberals to identify them.

Glenn Beck

I also searched for lies by Glenn Beck, and this page came up. The analysis is long, so I will summarize:

1. Glenn Beck claims science czar John Holdren proposed forced abortions and putting sterilants in the drinking water to control population.
2. PolitiFact talks about how the book was written by Holdren “more than three decades ago” when he was “then a young man.”
3. PolitiFact: “Holdren and the other authors discuss various “coercive” means of population control — including putting sterilants in the drinking water. But they stop well short of advocating such measures.”
4. Excerpt from Holdren’s book: “Adding a sterilant to drinking water or staple foods is a suggestion that seems to horrify people more than most proposals for involuntary fertility control. Indeed, this would pose some very difficult political, legal, and social questions, to say nothing of the technical problems.”
5. Another excerpt: “Most of the population control measures beyond family planning discussed above have never been tried. Some are as yet technically impossible and others are and probably will remain unacceptable to most societies.”
6. PolitiFact: “The authors argue that compulsory abortions could potentially be allowed under U.S. law “if the population crisis became sufficiently severe to endanger the society.” Again, that’s a far cry from advocating or proposing such a position.”

A FAR CRY?! Holdren and his coauthors say that sterilizing water “seems to horrify” people. Well, of course it does. Then they say population control measures are “unacceptable to most societies.” PolitiFact actually ends their analysis with the following:

The authors make clear that they did not support coercive means of population control. Certainly, nowhere in the book do the authors advocate for forced abortions.

You have got to be kidding me. Yes, Holdren’s book says you can’t sterilize the water, not for moral reasons, but because there is no current sterilant that is “uniformly effective, despite widely varying doses received by individuals.” Holdren is disappointed that sterilization cannot currently be achieved.

This is the “big lie” by Glenn Beck. PolitiFact has applied what I call courtroom logic. Since Beck cannot prove in a court of law that Holdren advocated sterilization, then Holdren does not advocate sterilization. While this certainly means Holdren shouldn’t be prosecuted for his beliefs in a court of law, it doesn’t mean he doesn’t believe them. The excerpts from his book clearly show he wishes these tactics were acceptable and safe.

Conservative ascendancy

So all these sources, including Eugene Robinson, act as though they have really nailed their targets without a shadow of a doubt. In less than 1000 words, I have shown their attempts to be lame at best and inaccurate at worst. In comparison, Fox News and Rush Limbaugh point out the lies of their political opponents with video and audio of outright, easily provable lies, and juxtapose direct contradictions by individuals themselves. THAT is why they are winning their media battles.

Liberals need to get better at identifying big, and important, lies by Conservatives. I have no desire for one side to win or lose. I want the right ideas to win, regardless of which party is pushing them. Conservatives are dead wrong on the government’s role in drugs and prostitution, and Liberals are dead wrong on the government’s role in redistributing wealth and “promoting the general welfare.”

So Mr. Eugene Robinson, an op-ed columnist at the Washington Post, gets paid to write articles easily refuted by little-old-me. His partisanship is an embarrassment.