I've been following the controversy regarding Hillary Clinton's imaginary exposure to sniper fire in Bosnia with a fair degree of bemusement. It's the latest tempest in a teapot in an election year driven by such ephemeral distractions. While I have no affection for Clinton as a politician, it seems that there are plenty of other substantive reasons to be troubled about her candidacy instead of harping over a standard bit of campaign trail Munchausenismo.
It's odd how the greater "we" have resigned ourselves to the fact that politicians are inveterate liars -- to the extent where this aspect of the vocation is accepted as a brute fact -- yet we still manage to conjure up some half-sincere shock and outrage whenever a petty falsehood is exposed. Big lies, on the other hand, dealing with issues of real importance and perpetrated by those who wield real power, tend to be swallowed with gusto and are seemingly unkillable, despite mountains of contrary evidence presented to dispel it.
Sexing up a story about a state visit in a campaign speech? The audacity of it! Using discredited evidence about WMD programs and links to terrorist organizations to stir up support for a disastrous war? Eh, it happens.
On a related note, I was impressed, even as I winced, with Obama's brief moment of candor that withdrawing troops from Iraq might be a more complicated process than anticipated, as he does not have access to the people and information needed to make a clear assessment of the situation at the present time. His campaign spokespeople have since downplayed that statement, so as not to alienate the bloc of anti-war voters (of which I am a unswerving member). When speaking of realities is unwelcome, it seems disingenuous to harp over distortions of the "truth," the quotation marks signifying the confirmation bias inherent in the term as presently understood.
So Hillary has her tale of high adventure in the Balkans, Obama his "I knew but I didn't hear" excuse about his pastor, and John McCain his story about Cuban torturers in the Hanoi Hilton (which could very well be on the level, but it seems like something lifted from a Chuck Norris film and rather conveniently appeals to an important voting bloc in a large swing state). These calculated pieces of window dressing provide ample opportunities to engage in petty sniping and childish taunts -- amplified and abetted by the mainstream media -- which have rendered the public political discourse at a level on par with a schoolyard dust-up. Substantial debate and well-considered policy positions are fine and all, but it's more entertaining (and sadly, more effective) to make fun of how much a rival candidate spent on a haircut.
One thing that I find interesting is that whenever a politician "misspeaks" about his or her personal accomplishments, the statments trend universally toward the positive, which is statistically unusual given the implied excuse of spontaneous, unconscious error. A candidate might "accidentally" tell a bogus story about the time they saved a litter of puppies and the Baby Jesus from a barn fire, but never one about the time they shanked a hobo for half a bottle of Thunderbird.
Funny, that.
The Castaways - Liar, Liar (from The Best of the Castaways, 1999) - Outstanding garage rock from the Twin Cities, this 1965 classic is a fine example of the stuff I used to look forward to hearing on the local oldies station...before its corporate programmers decided to quit trying and just pander to the blandest common denominator. Goodbye, wild organ riffs and falsetto vocals; hello, "Muskrat Love."
Sex Pistols - Liar (from Never Mind the Bollocks..., 1977) - I don't have to explain why I picked this track, do I? (If you answered "yes," there's a high probability you're reading the wrong music blog.)
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
pants on fire
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10 comments:
great tunes, you could have also had liar by the damned and call me a liar by gaye bykers on acid, got to get this off my chest, just been to see the duke spirit, great band, great singer, great venue, lacklustre lethargic unenthusiastic audience, at the end i felt like putting them individually in bins and kicking them down the stairs, some people can't have fun even when they pay for it
A.J
My opponent, by his own admission, is soft on hoboes! Shank 'em all, and let Baby Jesus sort 'em out! That's MY position. As far as you know.
It's all good fun to assume and mock, but even better to learn.
(It just tickles me to see so many people declare that someone in the middle of a presidential campaign would deliberately lie about something that was thoroughly videotaped by international news media and could be so easily challenged. Does that make ANY sense? What were you doing seventeen years ago?)
Except that the videotaped record and other eyewitness accounts don't jibe with what Clinton said. Making a state visit to a war-torn area is an impressive enough accomplishment, so why the need to sex it up?
Besides, the point of the post was that the "did she/didn't she" nonsense is indicative of a greater problem with how elections are run and reported on in this country.
Candidates frequently lie about easily verifiable matters on the campaign trail. It doesn't tickle me as much as make me roll my eyes.
Except that the videotaped record and other eyewitness accounts don't jibe with what Clinton said.
*facepalm*
The existence of the videotaped record and other eyewitness accounts--detailed on the evening news at the time--is what makes this much more likely an error of seventeen-year-old memories than a deliberate "lie."
Major presidential candidates are under a microscope--especially ones that the media would love to demolish (which, as it stands now, is all three). Deliberately lying about something so easily debunked is the equivalent of suicide. (You say they do it anyway, but I'd love some concrete examples.)
The *facepalm* is an indicator of condescending trollery, but I'm going to let it slide this once.
If it's just a question of muddled memory, then why is the misstatment so detailed --and most damningly, more sellable -- than what actually happened? Not remembering if you ate at a Dunkin Donuts or an Arby's on a given day last summer is understandable. Conjuring up a elaborate story that bears little resemblance to the truth is not.
My father is a decorated veteran, and my wife's brothers are police officers. When it comes to life-and-death or traumatic situations, it's astonishing how much detail one can retain. (I can tell you exactly what happened on the day my mother died in 1988, for instance, even though last Thursday is a blur.)
Mnemonic entropy and inventing details are two different things.
Other lies?
Obama claiming he was a constitutional law professor and that his parents fell in love because of a civil rights march that occurred after they had gotten together.
Clinton's claims about her role in the Northern Irish peace process and in aiding Kosovar refugees, neither of which is borne up by the weight of evidence, and again, trend upward in terms of her resume.
As for why they'd do it? To quote Harlan Ellison, "because it seemed like a good idea at the time." The desperation of a contentious election cycle and the natural stupidity of the species make such gambles seem worthwhile.
"Deliberately lying about something so easily debunked is the equivalent of suicide."
I agree. It's what finally got folks to run the Bush administration out of office.
That the Great Democracy (Two parties instead of a Totalitarian one - woo-hoo!) gets its knickers in a twist about Clinton's lies is thoroughly amusing.
Politicians are all about lying - they will say whatever is required to appeal to the majority of people most of the time - it will win them votes apparently. In the UK we have politicians all desperately vying for the mythical 'middle-ground' because they believe that is where they will achieve most success and upset the least people. The resulting blandness however is having a disastrous effect on voter turnout and faith in their abilities (and that goes for your country as well). I would also venture that, whether people realise it on a conscious level or not, it is common knowledge that politicians are only ever going to look after themselves and their big business cronies. Your vote really doesn't count for squat in the longer term.
bitterandrews summation of memory and the tricks it can play is much closer to the truth than the '17 year' hypothesis proposed by billywitchdoctor.
Please don't take offense, but it's quite possible that at least some of the things that you think happened on the day your mum died happened at other times. For instance, I had an absolutely horrible time as a kid and there were many dramatic events in the years spanning about 1983-88 (in a Stand By Me kind of way, although I never found a dead body), many of which I've run into a single narrative that happened in a single year, even though I can confirm through diaries, photos and other people that certain events were much farther apart than I remember. The evidence is right in front of me, and I don't have an election to win - in other words, there's no incentive for me to make anything up - yet the events feel like they should be closely linked, because of their emotional content and impact.
I don't know enough about the Clinton thing to comment, but it seems like it might fall into the category of "it wasn't lies, it was... bullshit". That doesn't help you much, does it?
Oh, I understand exactly what you're talking about, Ms. 45, but this particular even happened so abruptly that the specific details were etched into my brain. There's no flexibility in the timeframe for them to be otherwise.
And like I tried to get at in the first part of the post, whether it's a question of faulty memory, exxageration, of outright deception, the spectacle is incidental to the bigger issues at stake.
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