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February 22, 2005


This is more of a general question:
Why does it often seem that liberals are more willing to investigate the claims of both sides and argue for greater accuracy in politics?
That's not to say that there aren't wacko liberals out there. Of course there are.
And they drive me crazy.
But the people who worked on Spinsanity all had liberal leanings. And many of my friends who think both sides should be more honest tend to be more liberal.
I haven't found this to be the case as much for conservatives.
Am I mistaken? I honestly would like to be pointed to conservatives who push for greater accuracy on both sides of the aisle.

Sorry, Rick, but I can't go along with your assumption that it's only liberals who want to argue for more accuracy in politics. You certainly couldn't be meaning liberals like Al Gore, John Kerry, the Clintons,, Dan Rather, Eason Jordan, the NYTines crew, CNN, Newsweek, Michael Moore, Al Franken etc, etc, could you? I fear you are being led down the garden path.

Did you discuss the Duelfer report with Cox? Does he accept it, or does he think this FoxNews.com article is more accurate?

Cox didn't specifically dispute the Duelfer Report with me - his main argument was that he was just repeating what FoxNews.com reported. I tried to explain to him that he was misreading the Fox article and that Duelfer proved otherwise, but I'm not sure it registered.

When Cox points out the distinction between WMDs and ricin/sarin, he's a) going against the standard administration line, which always stretched the WMD definition to include chemical weapons like sarin, and b) proving that he was deceiving the crowd when he said that we're continuing to discover "biological AND chemical weapons," when he had no proof of the former. It's funny that he disputes the WMD characterization; biological weapons are only WMDs if he can actually back up that assertion?

it's like me saying that "I'm dating supermodels and copy editors, for example, Jane who does freelance work for the L.A. Free Press". it doesn't matter if you chop off the last half of that quote; the first half is still a lie.

But Spertzel believes Saddam was cooking up an even more sinister plan - putting the poisons on department store shelves across the United States and Europe.
Wasn't this the plot of the first Batman movie? The Joker puts Smilex(TM) into cosmetics so everybody has to stop wearing makeup? Oh the horror.


Saddam's supposed 'intentions' to get more chem-bio agents have been reshaped and morphed like play-doh ever since 15 minutes after the Duelfer report was released.

If it was discovered that Saddam 'intended' to fly by flapping his arms like a duck, by this precedent I'd fully expect the right to press for billions in new airborne weapons systems to track down paunchy, mustachioed dictators wafting on desert therms.

Case in point, kneejerk Bingo here.

Putting Sarin in a perfume atomizer?!?!?!!!! Hate to say it, but any such device would leak, and pose an incredible danger to whoever was trying to carry it. You won't mind a whole lot if a perfume atomizer smells a bit like perfume even when not used, but if you're picking up traces of Sarin, you're not going to be feeling so happy.

Sounds to me like more tall tales, and I just don't buy it. Sounds a bit like this kind of relentless stupidity. I'd be curious as to where this bit of "information" is coming from (or being generated). Someone ought to go chase it down.


That was dignified, professional work young feller.

Hey Brendan, is Rick's comment (#1) accurate? "But the people who worked on Spinsanity all had liberal leanings." Just wondering.

What the folks at Spinsanity had was Equivalency Disease, treating whopping big RNC lies as equivalent to minor inaccuracies from Democrats.

Well, you could say he was misrepresenting the Fox News article, which is bad enough, or you could say he was lying his ass off, which is a bit closer to reality.

cox's reply was muddled enough to give that 36% who believe that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction when the U.S. invaded the confirmation they want to hear (http://www.harrisinteractive.com/harris_poll/). and i suspect that was the intent all along.

Bingo: Okay, you listed liberals (and "liberals", like CNN?) that have a leftward slant. And I admitted in my question, if you noticed, that there are liberal wackos... I'd include Mr. Moore and the like among them... but I didn't see you list a single solitary conservative who thinks both sides should be more honest.

In his entire body of work, Michael Moore has not twisted the truth as baldly as Chris Cox did in thirty seconds of his CPAC into.

Rick: You are absolutely right. The Republican Party is now run by people who only want to win, regardless of the cost, and don't care about accuracy. Notice how no Republicans are concerned about the potential for fraud in paperless voting machines? But quit apologizing for Moore being called a liar for saying things the Republicans don't like. Compared to Fox, Rush, Powerline, etc., he is incredibly careful with his facts.

Little bingo:
You must have heard the tapes where Bush mocks Gore for not lying about smoking pot, but you think Gore is the liar.
You imply that Kerry is dishonest, but W's lies about WMDs are the only reason that Brendon still has to write about Cox's speech. Haven't seen Powerline's expose on Bush yet.
Good point about Clinton, though: the MSM, NYT, Washington Post, and all the networks didn't follow up on any of Clinton's "scandals", did they?
No one, not even Powerline, is arguing that Rather lied about the facts, just that he couldn't prove that the memos he had were not copies. Rather apologized for getting the facts right; Cox argues that he was "technically" factual. Point to Rick.

Thanks for the good work, Brendan.

RE: Philboid's question - our Spinsanity bios are here. You can make up your own mind about our backgrounds, though those aren't necessarily representative of our current views.

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