To Shout 'Liar!' Is Not to Speak the Truth
Ubiquitous
French-looking Massachusetts Democrat, who by the way served in Vietnam.
Here's what he had to say in an email we received today:
The current state of the health care debate reminds us of
everything we need to know about stamping out the distortions
and fighting back with the truth before lies take root.
The rightwing [sic] and their allies have spent weeks and
months spreading the most egregious mistruths about the
health care reforms of Sen. Kennedy and President Obama,
and whipping up anger. Now, you can't turn on your t.v. or
radio without hearing repetition and repetition of misinformation,
trying to drown out real debate.
We can defeat the big lies and achieve health insurance reform,
but it won't be easy now that the mistruths and anger have
taken hold.
So I need you to help me start now to make sure we knock down
the next big lie--false statements about global climate
change--before they frame one of the most important debates
we'll ever have in our country. And we need to start NOW
fighting against the misinformation that the rightwing [sic] is
already spreading to try to derail the bill i'm [sic] working
on with Senator Barbara Boxer and our colleagues; we can't
wait until the lies take hold again.
Believe me, I've learned this through hard experience--if you
let the lies take hold, it gets harder and harder to root them
out. Lies are weeds, choking out our debate, and we need to
go after them hard and early to keep them from growing.
The best thing about this is, it seems as though even Kerry has given up on
ObamaCare, given how anxious he is to change the subject.
Another interesting point is that the email is completely devoid of substance.
Kerry keeps accusing his opponents of lying and promising to "fight" for "the
truth," but he never enumerates the putative lies, much less attempts to
refute them. It's possible that Kerry's opponents are lying--they're
politicians too, after all--but to shout "Liar!" is not to speak the truth.
--
"Nobody is interested in solutions if they don't think there's a problem.
Given that starting point, I believe it is appropriate to have an
overrepresentation of factual presentations on how dangerous it is, as a
predicate for opening up the audience to listen to what the solutions are, and
how hopeful it is that we are going to solve this crisis."
-- Al Gore acknowledges exaggerating the dangers of "global warming"