Obama Lied, Fair Discussion About Our Debt Died
I can often be found on twitter praising political compromise. Generally speaking, I think it's a good thing when politicians with very different constituencies can come together and settle their differences on mutually agreeable terms.
Having said that, every so often a political leader does or says something so egregious that it makes me think compromise isn't a laudable goal. Today, President Obama flat-out lied about the 2007 bridge collapse in Minnesota that killed 13 people.
"According to the Republican budget that was passed, for example, we would have to eliminate transportation funding by a third," Obama told a townhall meeting in Annandale, Va., today.
"We’d have to cut transporting funding by a third," said Obama. "You remember when that bridge in Minnesota collapsed with all those people on it? And there was a big hue and cry: How can this happen in America? Well, the National Society of Engineers, they’ve looked around and they give us a 'D' when it comes to infrastructure. Our roads, our bridges, our sewer systems are all deteriorating.
It's a pretty easy storyline to sell, right? After all, Republican budget cuts will undoubtedly affect how much money our country spends on infrastructure. So what's the problem? It's completely false.
In a 2008 report on the incident, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) states:
“The National Transportation Safety Board determines that the probable cause of the collapse of the I-35W bridge in Minneapolis, Minnesota, was the inadequate load capacity, due to a design error.”
The NTSB concluded that the collapse was not the result of a lack of maintenance, as the President asserted, but rather a design flaw.
That leaves us pondering two explanations: 1. Obama doesn't know the truth about the bridge collapse or 2. He lied.
I honestly don’t know which explanation I find more distressing. Is it worse if our President doesn’t understand what our budget is and is not responsible for? Or, that he is so determined to protect his bloated bureaucracy that he can’t tell the truth about our budget problems?
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Sep '10
Re: Obama Lied, Fair Discussion About Our Debt Died
Does he know enough about anything to really lie, or is he just willfully ignorant? I guess either way he is being deceitful.
You're right, he lied.
Jul '10
Re: Obama Lied, Fair Discussion About Our Debt Died
I believe it's "hew and cry", not "hue and cry".
Re: Obama Lied, Fair Discussion About Our Debt Died
I'll go with 1: he didn't know the truth. Lines were typed on a teleprompter, and he read them. For him to know the truth would mean he would have followed the story after its brief initial appearance on the national radar, its subsequent elevation by local writers intent on proving how Pawlenty's refusal to raise taxes led directly to dead Minnesotans in the water, and the eventual inconvenient disproval of that assertion.
Anyway, it's true on a meta level, isn't it? If we cut "transportation," then we can't fund high-speed and light rail, which means people will continue to use cars on bridges, and they will be stressed, and fall down. Of course the Republicans don't care, because they have been conducting a War on Science, and do not believe in gravity.
Feb '11
Re: Obama Lied, Fair Discussion About Our Debt Died
One of the possible side effects of a legal education is developing the habit of fitting facts to your beliefs. It takes a certain type of schooling to discipline yourself against developing this sort of psychological blindspot.
And one step further...I don't consider Obama more than possessing above average intelligence. For sure he is a man possessed of talent and tremendous ambition. But he's always lacked logical cohesion in those few speeches which attempt to craft an encompassing vision of politics, economics, culture...his penchant is for descending to pettiness and banalities and torching his own imaginary fields of straw men.
May '10
Re: Obama Lied, Fair Discussion About Our Debt Died
It's sort of like Dan Rather's Bush memo: Fake but true.
To the Left, the idea of a thing is more important than the reality of the thing. If the Left really cared about the truth, they would be first in line to cancel social programs that have proven worthless, so they could spend the money on something that might truly help people. Or they might notice that open borders hurt the working poor. Or that entitlement programs are on the path to guaranteed bankruptcy. Or that public employee pension plans are not only underfunded but unfundable. Or that the country and many of the states are out of money.
The Left lives in a shared, consensual fantasy in which things are they way they say they are, just because. The I-35W bridge didn't collapse because of faulty design work that was part of a government project. It collapsed because Republicans are mean. If we all shout really loud and stop up our ears, it will be so!
Re: Obama Lied, Fair Discussion About Our Debt Died
Sep '10
Re: Obama Lied, Fair Discussion About Our Debt Died
Since the President can't produce a transcript or a paper that he wrote then I think the polite response to anything like this he says is:
"Since you were a humanities student and a lawyer, I think its safe to assume you've never studied any of the hard physical sciences, so I'll just assume you studied "rocks for jocks" in college as your token science requirement and pass over your poorly thought through response in respectful silence while it dies a horrible death, cold, lonely and alone in front of the glare and ridicule of your betters."
Feb '11
Re: Obama Lied, Fair Discussion About Our Debt Died
Pseudodionysius: Since the President can't produce a transcript or a paper that he wrote then I think the polite response to anything like this he says is:
"Since you were a humanities student and a lawyer, I think its safe to assume you've never studied any of the hard physical sciences, so I'll just assume you studied "rocks for jocks" in college as your token science requirement and pass over your poorly thought through response in respectful silence while it dies a horrible death, cold, lonely and alone in front of the glare and ridicule of your betters." · Apr 19 at 8:31pm
Pseudodionysius, sweet as!
Sep '10
Re: Obama Lied, Fair Discussion About Our Debt Died
To be a leftist liberal is to live in an a priori universe, freed from both physical and moral laws.
Re: Obama Lied, Fair Discussion About Our Debt Died
I knew some Dem had made this point before so I googled it, and lo and behold, it was that statesman Ed Schultz -- he blamed it on Bush -- in this report from August 2, 2007. Not only that, but John McCain, according to this report, blamed it on Congress wasting too much money on pork-barrel spending.
I do not mean to detract from Kevin's point; just providing these links as background.
Re: Obama Lied, Fair Discussion About Our Debt Died
How did you detract from my point? You added to it - more examples of liberals playing politics with people's lives.
Re: Obama Lied, Fair Discussion About Our Debt Died
Kevin Eder, Guest Contributor
How did you detract from my point? You added to it - more examples of liberals playing politics with people's lives. · Apr 19 at 9:01pm
As I said, I didn't. But some might think the invocation of McCain -- GOP -- was a detraction. Not me.
Apr '11
Re: Obama Lied, Fair Discussion About Our Debt Died
If I responded with my true feelings on this issue, I'm pretty sure I would violate Ricochet's code of conduct. Not only is he using the dead to make a political point, he's lying about what caused their deaths to do it. Disgusting and disgraceful. I'm sure their families understand though; I'm mean, hey, he's got an election to win!
Jun '10
Re: Obama Lied, Fair Discussion About Our Debt Died
The bridge was designed in the early 1960s, without any computer-aided design or a detailed computer simulation of overload conditions. Errors were caught by human oversight, and sometimes, as in this case, they all missed seeing the problem. It's a design mistake that would never happen today.
May '10
Re: Obama Lied, Fair Discussion About Our Debt Died
"...it’s our government's job to figure out a way to make everyone happy." Really?
Re: Obama Lied, Fair Discussion About Our Debt Died
Wonderful post, Kevin. And I love a man who every so often feels the impulse to fight.
Jan '11
Re: Obama Lied, Fair Discussion About Our Debt Died
"After all, there are a lot of people in this country and it’s our government's job to figure out a way to make everyone happy."
I like governments and leaders who do the right thing, not who submit to simple overall utility.
Dec '10
Re: Obama Lied, Fair Discussion About Our Debt Died
I've seen some pretty bad finite element analysis done by Phd's
Edited on April 20, 2011 at 1:38pmMay '10
Re: Obama Lied, Fair Discussion About Our Debt Died
Alas, it looks like "hue and cry" is correct. According to various sources (here and here, for example), hue is a short form of huer, an Old French word for "to shout."
Jan '11
Re: Obama Lied, Fair Discussion About Our Debt Died
I agree with the wag who said, "what was that stimulus for?" We took $787 billion (or over a trillion, depending on the estimates) out of the private sector, on the premise that it was going to shovel-ready projects, for which we have signs scattered all over the country. I realize that was a sham; I'm just surprised that they would come back with the infrastructure excuse so soon after using it just a couple years ago.