June 28, 2024

"It’s true that the format did Biden no favors. CNN moderators Jake Tapper and Dana Bash avoided fact-checking..."

"... like it was the plague, which allowed Trump to steamroll an unsteady Biden with his usual stream of lies. Trump served up whoppers about abortion, his bungled covid response, Charlottesville, January 6, and more.... CNN finally ran an on-air fact-check of Trump more than an hour after the debate ended. But considering the relatively minuscule size of the audience at that late hour and the fact Trump was allowed to lie with impunity on the same network at length earlier in the evening, CNN’s belated attempt at basic journalistic accountability was worth very little."

Writes Aaron Rupar, in "Not great, Joe/Biden's debate showing stunk up the joint. But don't give up hope" (PublicNotice).

The format did Biden no favors? The format was engineered to favor Biden! Trump stepped up and did it the way Biden's people wanted. If the format chosen imposed disadvantages on Biden, it's only because his people thought other formats were more disadvantageous... unless the fix was in and the idea was to expose Biden's weaknesses.

Rupar, of course, is ridiculous. The "whopper about... Charlottesville" came from Biden. Who is still bitterly clinging to the notion that Trump said Nazis were fine people? Maybe Biden is so far gone that he actually believes it, but I don't believe Rupar believes it. I'm crediting him with rank cynicism. If the CNN moderators had been fact-checking in real time, they would have had to correct Biden on the "fine people" hoax... and on numerous other things, such as the claim that Trump told people to inject bleach into their arm. But Rupar is free to imagine that the moderators would have fact-checked in a biased way, a la Candy Crowley, and to pine about the debate that might have been.

CORRECTION: When first published, this post had a few stray sentences of Rupar's — at the bottom, after a big space — and I hope no one mistook that as mine! 

91 comments:

RideSpaceMountain said...

Aaron "Gayface" Rupar's picture should be in the dictionary by the words "sycophant", "toady", and "bootlicker". If you ever wanted to know who those 5-10-20% of the polled that consistently say Biden is doing a great job and the economy has never been better, meet gayface Rupar.

Saint Croix said...

The race has been very close for months and I expect it to remain that way.

You're basing that on polls that measure the popular vote

Electoral votes, Biden's in big trouble.

Nate Silver rates the odds of Trump winning at 66%.

(This was before the debate disaster for Biden).

Witness said...

i only tuned in for a bit. Biden was still old, but not any older than i already knew he was, so color me also surprised at the sudden shift

Shouting Thomas said...

It’s a shame, however, that we’re coming out of last night talking about anything other than Trump’s criminality and unfitness to serve.

You are still wandering in the desert, prof.

The lawfare is another part of the scam you finally recognized last night. Trump did a good job the first 3 years of his term, until the Intel plot to sabotage his presidency really took hold and destroyed him.

narciso said...

Well hes a eunuch he dont know any better

TickTock said...

" Trump’s criminality and unfitness to serve". That's your two cents, Ann? I hope my iPad has a formatting problem, and I am mistakenly attributing these words to you.

exhelodrvr1 said...

"It’s a shame, however, that we’re coming out of last night talking about anything other than Trump’s criminality and unfitness to serve."

Not really, since neither of those are valid points.

D.D. Driver said...

The format did him no favors because the network didn't carry the water for him. Why can't he correct Trump's lies if they are lies? Did Trump expect CNN to correct Biden's lies or did he do it himself?

GingerBeer said...

So Biden ends up making Trump's day.
https://www.tiktok.com/@bidenhq/video/7369194947565620522?lang=en

Dave Begley said...

Rupar is one of the people who has been covering for Biden.

mindnumbrobot said...

It’s a shame, however, that we’re coming out of last night talking about anything other than Trump’s criminality and unfitness to serve.

Trump was a decent president, but some people simply can't get past his personality. Their eyes will forever remain wide shut.

Shouting Thomas said...

I’m going to conjecture a bit about Althouse’s feelings about Trump. I could be entirely wrong.

Trump is the 60s archetypical R. Crumb villain, the uptight White Man. He’s the type that all the hippies hated. Me too, when I was still a kid. Now, I’m also a big Crumb fan, but as I’ve aged I’ve mostly disavowed his hippie leftism.

Once again, I’m only mind reading, but it appears that Althouse has maintained this visceral dislike of the big White Man with his chest puffed out and can do attitude. She appears, in fact, to find Trump sexually repulsive.

I shared her opinion when I was 20. In my old age, I kinda like those White Man guys.

rehajm said...

What if Trump had said No to the debate? What happens to their plan then?

wendybar said...

The whole Progressive cabal is crying that Trump lied and nobody factchecked him even though Biden lies every time his mouth ever moves, and they NEVER say BOO. This is why we point and laugh at them. They have no clue how hated they are.

Kate said...

After being denied the debate stage Bobby came up with a plan to live debate the broadcast of Trump and Biden. Any sign of it is absent today, so I can only assume that Bobby did what he said, taking the topics and answering in a straightforward manner. If, however, he had tossed the format aside and reacted honestly to Biden's condition, he would be everywhere in the news right now.

Ann Althouse said...

"The race has been very close for months and I expect it to remain that way."

That was Rupar, not me.

Sorry I left some text from his column at the bottom of my post (after a blank space). Fixed now.

Chuck said...

Good; yeah, let's "talk through" the "'Charlottesville Hoax' Hoax."

The starting point is, as ever, the essay by Robert Tracinski that I just linked. (And which I have linked many times previously, sometimes seeing my links selectively deleted by blog "moderation.") Tracinski shows that there wasn't simply one Trump statement on "Charlottesville," but rather four or five, each one digging Trump a new or deeper hole with his malevolent mischaracterizations and his terrible inarticulation.

There the story rested for the most part until Snopes came up with what may be the weirdest, most pointless and least effective fact-check in the organization's history.

The Snopes post had barely gone up when it got fact-checked itself by readers, leading to Snopes own editorial self-correct:
"Editors' Note: Some readers have raised the objection that this fact check appears to assume Trump was correct in stating that there were "very fine people on both sides" of the Charlottesville incident. That is not the case. This fact check aimed to confirm what Trump actually said, not whether what he said was true or false. For the record, virtually every source that covered the Unite the Right debacle concluded that it was conceived of, led by and attended by white supremacists, and that therefore Trump's characterization was wrong."


And now after the recent Snopes silliness, along comes The New Republic to remind Snopes readers (and particularly Trump supporters claiming vindication from Snopes) just what a colossally stupid episode this has been for Trump.

Big Mike said...

The race has been very close for months and I expect it to remain that way.

I don’t.

It’s a shame, however, that we’re coming out of last night talking about anything other than Trump’s criminality and unfitness to serve.

What “criminality” would that be, Professor? He has been found guilty in a couple show trials presided over by judges manifestly lacking in proper judicial temperament. That does not make him a criminal. And the peace and prosperity of 2017-2019 relative to the past 3 1/2 years absolutely demonstrate his fitness for office. Try spitting out the Kool-Aid.

The bottom line is that Republicans set the bar ridiculously low for Biden, but instead of making them regret it, he reinforced the perception he’s lost his fastball.

It must really suck to spend 40 years living in the political insanity that is Madison, Wisconsin, and suddenly realize that maybe Republicans are smarter than you are. I suggest you rethink your biases. As to Joe Biden, he hasn’t lost his “fastball,” because he never had one. He’s lost his marbles.

Ann Althouse said...

@Shouting Thomas

Your comment says more about you than about me. You haven't been reading this blog too accurately.

I am one of the few people who disagree with much of Trump's substantive policies but like him as a person. Many years ago I reported having a dream about him in which I hugged him and thanked him. Remember that?

Yancey Ward said...

Oh boy......Chuck is not going to like you dissing his top, Aaron Rupar. He isn't going to like it one bit.

Ann Althouse said...

Ask Meade.

Limited blogger said...

Trump handled the format flawlessly, Biden not so much.

As with everything, Trump adapts and takes over.

Yancey Ward said...

You will have to pry the Charlottesville Hoax out of Chuck's cold dead hands.

rhhardin said...

Does disagreeing with policies mean (as for women) out of balance with all the feelings in the air at the time, or (as for men) leading to perverse consequences?

Christopher B said...

Trump turning the obviously biased format to his advantage is part of the reason the reaction has been so visceral and immediate. Tapper and Bash were supposed to spend their unlimited time to ask "questions" to engage in a 2 on 1 debate with Trump, leaving Biden to recite pre-scripted talking points in above-the-fray mode, but Trump was able to sidestep that fairly effectively.

@rehajm .. good point about why this was likely not planned as a hit on Biden. Trump refusing to debate would only have helped Team Biden continue their hide-the-decline campaign. That said, there was almost no way for Trump to take a pass since he is the putative challenger.

Grant said...

Thanks for noting a correction. I was trying to square it with cruel neutrality but gave up for a while, then came back to find neutrality cruelly restored.

Howard (not that Howard) said...

All this "fact-checking" moaning is completely misplaced. Trump's "lies" are, in general, hyperbole, while Biden's are substantive (Charlottesville, injecting bleach).

rhhardin said...

Charlottesville always struck me as both sides wrong. Both sides are saying that nazis are not fine people, which precludes the possibility of just talking with them. You can talk with anybody.

The only hangup in reality was that they probably were FBI agents doing a psy-op.

narciso said...

When there have been a million charlottesviles the first one is passe

Kevin said...

Writes Aaron Rupar, in "Not great, Joe/Biden's debate showing stunk up the joint.

Biden's not dropping out.

The media can refocus on "a bad debate showing" and endless fact-checking of Trump.

That's your job, sheeple! Get baaaaaaaack to it.

Limited blogger said...

I think after a half hour Trump realized it was a walk over.

He wants to run against Biden in November, so he didn't want to crush him.

He started 'pulling his punches'.

Maynard said...

Althouse said: "Rupar, of course, is ridiculous. "

I often wondered why Althouse spent so much time reading the leftwing press. It has finally dawned on me that it is for amusement rather than edification.

narciso said...

Well tractor rupar is good for a laugh, until you consider what he has enabled

narciso said...

Well tractor rupar is good for a laugh, until you consider what he has enabled

narciso said...

Well tractor rupar is good for a laugh, until you consider what he has enabled

narciso said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
robother said...

Most ominously, Rupar concludes that he can't wait for the July 11 sentencing hearing. Any hope that Trump won't be immediately imprisoned probably died with Biden's disaster. Judge Merchan is getting his marching orders as we speak.

Iman said...

Rupar Rupars Rupar: Patterico hardest hit!

narciso said...

https://patterico.com/2024/06/27/the-debate-open-thread/#comments

The rule of Lemnity said...

The debate was over by the time the second question was asked to Joe Biden - Joe's response about the national debt.

Iman said...

Leave it to Chuckles to Turtle Wax a turd.

Amadeus 48 said...

Charlottesville! So huge! Trump's meandering musings on the R E Lee statue removal turned into endless games of twist the message by you know who. It was Joe's reason for running! Another lie/fantasy from the fantasist-in-chief, Joseph Biden.

Aaron Rupar probably wants us to believe Uncle Bosie was on the menu in some WWII era luau in the south Pacific.

The Drill SGT said...

was it just me or did others notice that whenever POTUS's answer started turning incoherent o halting, the moderators would ring the bell with, "thank you very much mister president... and cut the mike?"

The Drill SGT said...

Althouse, I want to thank you for going back to the unmoderated format of instant postings. may your commentoriate stay worthy :)

Christopher B said...

@robther .. as I noted to a similar comment on the other thread, after Biden's performance last night that would just make the obvious direction of the banana republic persecutions of Trump by the top levels of the Democrat Party so glaring that nobody could not notice. Trump would be running the White House from his prison cell in January. Can't believe the Democrats would do it but .. they're Democrats.

Leland said...

We have a name for the list.

Oso Negro said...

I want to know more about all those women raped by their sisters! I didn’t even know that was a thing.

ron winkleheimer said...

"Most ominously, Rupar concludes that he can't wait for the July 11 sentencing hearing. Any hope that Trump won't be immediately imprisoned probably died with Biden's disaster. "

I'm wondering about what is going to happen when Trump wins in a landslide while in prison? Assuming they don't Epstein him.

The Drill SGT said...

Oso, one of those new beauty queen women with equipment

doctrev said...

Biden has no intention of going anywhere and Kamala is happy as the President in waiting. To put Trump in prison while screeching that Biden has to be removed is working at cross purposes.

Are they that stupid? Well, just look at the chuckservatives. YES, they are that stupid, and hopefully it ends with bullets in brainpans.

Big Mike said...

When first published, this post had a few stray sentences of Rupar's — at the bottom, after a big space — and I hope no one mistook that as mine!

Well I did. And I see you’ve already deleted my angry fisking of that paragraph, which is good. However the paragraph ends with an observation that Biden has “lost his fastball.” My riposte was that one cannot lose what one never had, but that Biden has lost something — his marbles.

AMDG said...

After lying for years about Biden’s condition the media is going to hang their hats on Trump’s lies.

Either lying is acceptable or it isn’t.

We have come to a point where far too many people will actively lie of accept the lies of others when the truth contradicts their preferred narrative. I am not sure the last few years as narratives regarding Trump & Russia, Hunter’s laptop, and the handling of COVID have crumbled there as not been one media organization that has reflected on what went wrong and what they could have done better.

The media and far too much of the public is divided by narrative slaves and truth seekers. Unfortunately, as we see on cable TV, newspapers, and formerly great institutions the narrative slaves are winning.

“Jerry, just remember, it’s not a lie if you believe it”. George Costanza

We are all Costanza now.

Sebastian said...

"Who is still bitterly clinging to the notion that Trump said Nazis were fine people?"

Most Dems. They like their lies. Cherish them. Not just the lie that Joe is "sharp."

Worse for Dems, some of Joe's statements weren't even lies: "We beat Medicare."

Rusty said...

D.D. Driver said...
"The format did him no favors because the network didn't carry the water for him. Why can't he correct Trump's lies if they are lies? Did Trump expect CNN to correct Biden's lies or did he do it himself?"

Nah. Too easy.
Instead I'll do Rusty doing his best Nelson Muntz while pointing at D.D. and friends. HA HA!

GRW3 said...

Remember, "lies" means any thoughts and opinions that do not comport with progressive thought.

D.D. Driver said...

Nah. Too easy.
Instead I'll do Rusty doing his best Nelson Muntz while pointing at D.D. and friends. HA HA!


Buddy, I've been predicting this for two years. This is all planned goofball. Nobody (NOBODY) actually believed Joe Biden would be capable of the presidency through the year 2028. They just wanted to get you all hard about Trump before they they make Joe take a seat and bring in the actual candidate. It will be some milquetoast middle of the road team player like Cory Booker. The progressive left will squawk but they will fall in line to prevent Trump's election. Trump will get smoked and the Trumpies will revert to their crybaby antics about how unfair it was even though anyone with a brain could see it coming.

"Benford's Law" predicted all of this. Lol.

Drago said...

Yancey Ward: "You will have to pry the Charlottesville Hoax out of Chuck's cold dead hands."

Shouldn't be too difficult since he's also holding on to pictures of pecan pies and lists of Moscow hotels along with signed photos of Michael Avenatti.

D.D. Driver said...

At the end of the day, the Dems just want to win. Period. They don't give a fuck if its Joe or someone else. The republicans NEED Trump to win. Anyone else is a "loss." Seems a lot easier for the Dems to win an election of two unelectable.

You had a stage of two one-termers. Trump is a one-term president you numbskulls. Who in their right mind gives a one-termer a second chance? Losers.

Think with your brain and not with your heart.

Drago said...

D.D. Driver: "You had a stage of two one-termers. Trump is a one-term president you numbskulls. Who in their right mind gives a one-termer a second chance?"

American citizens in 1892.

D.D. Driver said...

If you guys can't detect the most obvious rope-a-dope in history, you deserve everything that's coming to you. (It's the rest of us that didn't fall for it that don't deserve it.)

MadTownGuy said...

Ann Althouse said...
"I am one of the few people who disagree with much of Trump's substantive policies but like him as a person. Many years ago I reported having a dream about him in which I hugged him and thanked him. Remember that?"

and,

Ann Althouse said...
Ask Meade."

No need. Some of us have been paying attention to what you've been saying all along, so it's clear you've been an honest reporter even before Trump or Biden came on the scene.

bob said...

"The format did Biden no favors." How true. It forced him to speak.

Freder Frederson said...

I am one of the few people who disagree with much of Trump's substantive policies but like him as a person.

Yet you disdain Bill Clinton because of his treatment of women. Considering Trump's treatment of women, which has cost him dearly in court, how do you reconcile "lik[ing] him as a person"?

Old and slow said...

"That was Rupar, not me."

Glad to see that! I thought it seemed out of character.

Amadeus 48 said...

D. D. Driver--
Of course, as you note, Biden is also a one-term president. He may turn out to be our next one-term president as Trump becomes our next two-term president.

What the heck are you thinking? Lay off the sauce this early in the day.

Big Mike said...

From Matt Taibbi’s Substack:

The debate was not just a catastrophe for President Biden. And boy—oy—was it ever.

But it was more than that. It was a catastrophe for an entire class of experts, journalists, and pundits, who have, since 2020, insisted that Biden was sharp as a tack, on top of his game, basically doing handstands while peppering his staff with tough questions about care for migrant children and aid to Ukraine.
. [My emphasis]

Anyone who committed the sin of using their own eyes on the 46th president were accused, variously, of being Trumpers; MAGA cult members who don’t want American democracy to survive; ageists; or just dummies easily duped by “disinformation,” “misinformation,” “fake news,” and, most recently, “cheap fakes.”

Big Mike said...

Oops! My bad. That was Bari Weiss at the Free Press.

James K said...

They keep repeating "Trump lied!" but I haven't seen a single lie actually documented. The big lie of the night was Joe repeating the Charlottesville hoax even after Snopes (and many others) had debunked it.

Rich said...

The fact that lying repeatedly is an effective debate strategy seems to be a fundamental flaw with the debate concept.

Skeptical Voter said...

My favorite line from Joe was night came when he responding to a statement by The Bad Orange Man that illegal immigrants were raping and murdering young women.

Joe said "Here's the deal. Many young women are raped by their fathers, in-laws, spouses, cousins, brothers and sisters". Now much of that might be possible, but Joe's claim that many young women were raped by their sister strains credulity. Joe was out in la la land on that one.

Wince said...

The salient point people, even Trump, seem to miss about "Charlottesville" is that whatever incipient "movement" it represented pretty much fizzled-out after Charlottesville.

Sometimes the best way to cure extremism is to address the legitimate core issues that give rise to, and push people toward, extremist beliefs.

JK Brown said...

So it was not a debate? Because a debate is a public argument where the debaters make assertions and refutations of their opponent's assertions. Having "journalists" interjecting "fact-checking" is not a debate. I suppose it could be a recitation or oral exam? Perhaps the college edumedicated are confused having never been allowed to experience open debate on campus. Where the "revealed truth" is enforced and heresy is crushed by the professors and fellow students.

Truth is, CNN was also on the chopping block last night. Tapper and Bash did interrupt to save Biden a few times, but if they'd gone Candy Crowley, they and CNN would be looking as dim futures this morning.

Marcus Bressler said...

I watched the debate in a household that was pro-Biden. I don't discuss politics with most people. I thought the debate rules worked fine and the moderators, until the final one-third, did pretty good for biased asshats. Biden's facial expressions told the story and the one black adult in our crowd, was laughing at Biden's reactions to Trump's statements.
I was truly shocked when the ABC commentary came down hard on Biden's performance, especially mentioning the 5-6 second pause TWICE as a well as the senile fucque drifting into mentioning Medicare to end his statement -- which had nothing to do with the previous words before the pause. But the analyst, whose name escapes me, twice referred to that mental lapse as a "non sequitur".THAT was a very, generous description of the dementia slip of FJB. Right away, the discussion went to Biden stepping down from the nomination (but not the presidency) -- words I have not heard prior -- with a few minor mentions here and there in the past two weeks, but never as definite as last night.
And DJT referred to Biden as "Brandon" once. I about fell off my chair.
My main criticism of the the after-debate analysis (that "explains" to use peasants what happened through the lenses of the the biased LegacyMedia™ because we didn't see it with our lying eyes or hear it with our "deefness".
Hip Hip hooray. My brother, who is a major liberal with TDS, put up two posts on his FB Timeline before the debate. One that announced how to watch it; the other inviting his "conservative, Republican "friends" (as well as his sane, logical, high IQ liberal friends) to comment after the debate. When I went to his page after the debate, not a single comment, from anyone, including himself. I suspect he deleted them. And, in the morning, the two posts had been deleted, GONE like a hooker after you pop and she's has the money, next to her crack, in her low-cut ankle socks. Rich, Inga, Vicki, ChuckTheBanned, and the others -- I know how to prepare crow under glass.

JAORE said...

The immediate remarks, post debate, on CNN was TRUMP LIES!

First, or second example was Charlottesville.

They are irredeemable.

JK Brown said...

It is understandable why you would want to ensure Rupar's words are not associated with you

"On Saturday, Urban Dictionary unveiled the verb "rupar."

"To purposely mislead. To completely mischaracterize a statement or video by omitting context," the definition read.


minnesota farm guy said...

Did not watch, but given the comments and news I am going to give myself a little pat on the back for saying a couple of weeks ago that all Trump needed to do was remain calm and focused and Biden would destroy himself. Pat! Pat!

Wa St Blogger said...

Althouse said: I am one of the few people who disagree with much of Trump's substantive policies

I've been a reader for 11 years and while I know you lean left, I really can't say which issues you actually support or don't support. You have done well to highlight the landscape without pontificating on where you stand. Your "cruel neutrality" gig mostly works. Other than abortion, I really don't know where you stand politically other than being generally left. And with Abortion, I would think, on that one decision, Trump and you are probably more in line than most any other major politician. So with the one position that I think I do know, I am then left wondering where you stand on other issues and why.

In light of how the media and the left have demonstrated regularly that what they stand for is either bankrupt, disastrous or outright false (as evidenced by their proven gaslighting of Biden) and that the more erudite commenters of your blog have been more correct than not on most issues, I wonder if you are really as opposed to those substantive policies as you claim.

Disclaimer: I do not read Althouse in effort to learn Althouse political positions, and I am not very astute at reading people, in person, and less so without the non-verbal clues.

Iman said...

Will someone please scrape this Rich off my shoe!?

Christopher B said...

Thinking a Democrat player-to-be-named-later will be able to turn an election around in at best 12 weeks or quite possibly less has a lot less support than thinking Trump might be able to pull a Grover Cleveland. There's Cleveland himself and similarly Nixon coming back to win twice (once in a landslide) after losing to JFK. Even after a landslide win in 1968 LBJ couldn't get Humphrey over the line, W didn't do much for McCain, Obama's popularity didn't help Hillary, and other than GHWB most VPs who were not elevated by a vacancy in the Oval Office don't win either. If, as the contention goes, *nobody* expected Biden to run again in 2024 and serve to 2029, how come no logical successor has emerged over the last three and half years? We're to the point where Democrat-leaning prognosticators are throwing out names of second-tier governors and second-rate Senators as replacements.

who-knew said...

As I predicted, and still against my better judgement, I did watch the whole thing. What a wholly predictable disaster for Joe Biden. The moderators did a fairly good job hiding their bias, except for the global warming question and ignoring the Biden crime family questions. And the format was better than most. Not that any of that matters. Trump 'won' the moment he said "I have no idea what he said at the end there, and I don't think he does either". Since most of the first take reactions by the liberal press were of the 'OMG, we have to find a way to replace this senile old coot' it will be very interesting to see how that plays out. If they don't get him off the ticket, the election is over. Now that it's obvious that some one other than Slow Joe is running the country, it would be nice if the Dems would let us in on the regent's identity.

Aggie said...

@Skeptical Voter said @10:10: "Joe said "Here's the deal. Many young women are raped by their fathers, in-laws, spouses, cousins, brothers and sisters". Now much of that might be possible, but Joe's claim that many young women were raped by their sister strains credulity. Joe was out in la la land on that one. "

I'll just point out that in Biden world, there are quite a few 'sisters' with penises that are invited to be 'out and proud' in today's Democrat-infested policy world, not to mention its locker rooms and spas. And some of them are on record - criminal record, that is - as being sexual offenders.

Maynard said...

DNC Rich said: "The fact that lying repeatedly is an effective debate strategy seems to be a fundamental flaw with the debate concept"

Please give us a few examples of Trump's supposed lies to buttress this point.

Otherwise YOU are the liar.

Ralph L said...

"We beat Medicare."

Notice how clear that phrase was compared to what went before. "Medicare" was from the earpiece, correcting the "covid" he said earlier, while his own brain tried to say "we beat covid." Trump should have carried a frequency jammer.

Freder Frederson said...

Please give us a few examples of Trump's supposed lies to buttress this point.

Otherwise YOU are the liar.


Here you go. You really didn't bother to find out if Trump lied, you probably don't care, do you?

imTay said...

"Please give us a few examples of Trump's supposed lies to buttress this point."

Obviously you don't know how the game is played. The job is done when the accusation is made. He will never get into the weeds by pointing to an actual lie, because then you will just debunk his claim, and as Michael Mann said about sharing his data on which trillions of dollars in spending depended, "Why should I give it to them when they are just going to look for problems with it?"

pacwest said...

Assuming they don't Epstein him.

Totally off topic, but I've wondered for 8 years now how Trump has avoided assassination. The MSM and Democrats have been more than willing to supply the motive, and the Dem supporters have a whole lot of crazies who I think would be willing (talk about lifelong hero status!!). Trump seems to be willing to give them plenty of opportunities, open air rallies, walking the streets of NY, etc. Not to mention globalist leaders, and terrorists who would just as soon he wasn't in the picture.

How is this man still alive?

pacwest said...

@Freder
I read the CNN list you provided. I know I'm just flapping my gums here considering your past comments, but here goes anyway. First we need to cover semantics, which is nearly always the case with any argument. What is the difference between a lie, an exaggeration, and hyperbole? If you hold to the view that there is no difference than we are immediately at an impasse.

If you recognize a difference between them you need to reread the article. Of the 26? "lies" the CNN fact checkers bring up 20 of them easily fit into the exaggeration or hyperbole category and the "fact check" at each header makes that pretty clear. Four of them are clearly false. I could only find 2 lies, but even those needed to exclude a larger context imo.

Hyperbole is an extreme exaggeration that's meant to emphasize something specific.

If your aversion to Trump is his penchant for exaggeration and hyperbole I can tell you it's not what I consider one of his endearing traits either.

Wa St Blogger said...

@Freder
You really didn't bother to find out if Biden lied, you probably don't care, do you?

Greg the Class Traitor said...

Trump’s repeat falsehoods included his assertions that
1: some Democratic-led states allow babies to be executed after birth
Well, aside from the guy from VA explicitly saying that, every single Democrat in the Senate voted against the Born Alive Infants Protection Act, whose sole purpose was to stop abortionists from murdering a baby who made it out of the womb alive.
Fact Check: True

2: that every legal scholar and everybody in general wanted Roe v. Wade overturned
There is not a single legal scholar who claimed that Roe was actually a correct constitutional ruling. IN the fight over Dobbs, "stare decisis" was the only defense given
Fact Check: Mostly true

3: that Biden for years referred to Black people as “super predators,”
Oh, sorry, he only referred to them as "predators". It was Hillary who called them "super predators"
Fact Check: Mostly true

4: that then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi turned down 10,000 National Guard troops for the US Capitol on January 6, 2021,
Well known to be true.

5: that fraud marred the results of the 2020 election.
Also well known to be true. See Fulton County Dems kicking out all press and poll watchers before resuming their "vote counting". That's inherently fraudulent

Greg the Class Traitor said...

Here's 9 actual big, not slightly opinion based, and consequential lies from Biden last night

https://sharylattkisson.substack.com/p/top-9-cornpop-sized-whoppers-biden?triedRedirect=true

1. “Losers and Suckers”
2. “Inject Bleach”
3. “Fentanyl is Down”
4. “No Loss of US Troops”
5. Illegal Immigration is “40% Lower” Than Under Trump
6. Trump Called Nazis “Fine People”
7. There are “No Late Term Abortions”
8. Biden is “Endorsed by Border Patrol”
9. Biden “Lowered Cost of Insulin to $15”

Yancey Ward said...

"The fact that lying repeatedly is an effective debate strategy seems to be a fundamental flaw with the debate concept."

LOL, Rich- if lying were an effective debating strategy you would be the second most feared commenter on this blog next to Chuck. However, like always, you are just wrong and are treated like the lying clown you are.