December 20, 2024

"What was the Lie of the Year?"

Meade asked me just now, referring to the annual designation that appears in PolitiFact.

I thought for a moment, then said: "Joe Biden is sharp as a tack."

Meade said he thought PolitiFact would pick "They're eating the pets."

Hearing that, I agreed. Because PolitiFact would want to go against Trump, not Biden. And because "They're eating the pets" was such an extravagant and wild statement. It was interesting to talk about the instant Trump said it. But "Joe Biden is sharp as a tack" was much more of a lie. Because it was believed. For a long time. And it was completely momentous. It prevented a normal primary process for the Democrats and left them, in the end, with a candidate who couldn't win. 

I looked it up. PolitiFact made its Lie of the Year announcement 3 days ago. We hadn't noticed. Here: "'They’re eating the pets'/Trump, Vance earn PolitiFact’s Lie of the Year for claims about Haitians."

PolitiFact, which for 16 years has issued a year-end lie of the year report, keenly understands that when emotions collide with facts, emotions often prevail. To wit: Trump increased his voter support in Clark County, Ohio, which includes Springfield, this year above what he garnered in his 2016 and 2020 campaigns....

Speaking of garnering... the brilliant song made from Trump's "pet" bit has garnered over 14 million views:


ADDED:

 

81 comments:

Tom T. said...

But "Joe Biden is sharp as a tack" was much more of a lie. Because it was believed.

Was it really? No one on the right believed that. Did people on the left actually believe Biden was competent and in charge, or did they understand how far gone he was but look away for political reasons?

rehajm said...

Did anyone bother to check if they were actually eating the dogs and cats before they declared it lie of the year?

Curious George said...

"But "Joe Biden is sharp as a tack" was much more of a lie. Because it was believed. For a long time. And it was completely momentous. It prevented a normal primary process for the Democrats and left them, in the end, with a candidate who couldn't win."

Nobody believed it...at least in the press or DNC. Only low info democrat voters believed it. Or didn't care. The latter part is true though.

Two-eyed Jack said...

Joe Biden WAS sharp as a tack, but the other end.

Patrick Henry was right! said...

How could they possibly know that not a single illegal had eaten a dog ot a cat??? The level of gaslighting attempts by the hard left is astounding.

rehajm said...

I suppose if you Altparse the lie the hook that gets them off the hook is the meaning of ‘pets’. I mean sure they ate the stray cats and that cat that had the collar and slept on the bed and got a Chewey box once a month but once it was a street walker like the rest of them and it just made good in the system…

Ballsy…

R C Belaire said...

Meade wouldn't cheat, would he?

RideSpaceMountain said...

Whether they checked or not, it wouldn't matter. They'd publish it anyway.

wendybar said...

And yet...some pets were eaten. Where's the lie?

Ann Althouse said...

"Meade wouldn't cheat, would he?"

I could imagine him pretending he didn't know as a joke, but he wouldn't let me write the post like this without revealing he knew. Anyway, I've double-checked and he didn't know the answer when he guessed.

D.D. Driver said...

"Joe absolutely will not under any circumstances pardon Hunter he has been emphatic about that so stop being an asshole and asking about it." Came in tied for a distant second.

gilbar said...

so, to recap..
a "Lie" is when a Republican says something that is true, but harmful to Dems..
a falsehood that HELPS Dems is NOT a lie, it is a useful tool.

to quote Harry Reid: "He Didn't Win, did he?"
https://spectator.org/harry-reid-i-lied-about-romney-but-he-didnt-win-did-he/

Aggie said...

Of the two, which was disproven, and which one wasn't? Where are the missing ducks?

Big Mike said...

@Tom T., + 1. No one fell for “sharp as a tack” who wasn’t a fool desperately determined to be fooled.

William said...

The Haitians claimed that they entered this country not to flee poverty but to flee political persecution. One of their oppressors was Captain Barbecue. It was claimed that Captain Barbecue would occasionally eat his opponents. I don't know if that's true and I don't know if Haitians ate any pets, but if Captain Barbecue can exist so can pet eaters......I would guess the majority of Haitians are decent enough people, but I would also guess that some of them are not.

Spiros said...

That was just a joke, a good one, and, in any event, there was some element of truth in it.

But what about the constant, pointless lies from the Democratic Party and their stooges in legacy media? Right now, the average person is forced to remain skeptical and to question the plausibility of every single news article or story. This deceitful behavior has impacted our politics. Time is now for the press to own up to its lies. Start with Russia collusion, Hunter Biden, Covid lab leak and so on. And then end with the transgender stuff -- no more denying obvious truths, only crazy liars do that.

Big Mike said...

@RideSpaceMountain, I fully agree

RideSpaceMountain said...

Haitian cannibalism is real. There's video. I don't recommend looking for it.

William said...

The Biden lie was momentous and patently false. The Trump observation wasn't so momentous and it might not even be untrue, but it was more malicious. It's one thing to say Grandpa is sharp as a tack, but it's another thing to complain about the odor of his colostomy bag.

Michael said...

Sharp as a tack was not only a bigger lie, it was a dangerous lie. At a time of Ukraine, Gaza, China, Russia, hurricanes, etc, a nonfunctional executive resulted in a lot of damage.

narciso said...

Reports from residents who were given the runaround by springfield managements

MadisonMan said...

I think the lie of the year should be "President Biden is in charge"

Leland said...

I thought it might be the lie that Politifact told about the Charlottesville rally for over 7 years despite video evidence being available all that time.

Narayanan said...

where do the Trump inspired kiffness lyrics rank against BobDylan poetry/song?

Narayanan said...

not a lie >> what if FJB handlers felt safer to blunt tacks he could come across?

n.n said...

There were reports. The press does it all the time, backed with political fact checks. The same with the Diversity (e.g. racism, sexism, xenophobia, homophobia) industrial complex. Recall the black hole... whore h/t NAACP report. The George "Fentanyl" Floyd respiratory failure that began before he was restrained, etc. They are replacing men, raping... rape-raping women, and murdering children, aborting "burdens" of evidence in sanctuary states reports were true. American Civil Liberties Unburdened

Ann Althouse said...

I Shall Be Free No. 10
WRITTEN BY: BOB DYLAN
I’m just average, common too
I’m just like him, the same as you
I’m everybody’s brother and son
I ain’t different from anyone
It ain’t no use a-talking to me
It’s just the same as talking to you

I was shadow-boxing earlier in the day
I figured I was ready for Cassius Clay
I said “Fee, fie, fo, fum, Cassius Clay, here I come
26, 27, 28, 29, I’m gonna make your face look just like mine
Five, four, three, two, one, Cassius Clay you’d better run
99, 100, 101, 102, your ma won’t even recognize you
14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, gonna knock him clean right out of his spleen”

Well, I don’t know, but I’ve been told
The streets in heaven are lined with gold
I ask you how things could get much worse
If the Russians happen to get up there first
Wowee! pretty scary!

Now, I’m liberal, but to a degree
I want ev’rybody to be free
But if you think that I’ll let Barry Goldwater
Move in next door and marry my daughter
You must think I’m crazy!
I wouldn’t let him do it for all the farms in Cuba

"where do the Trump inspired kiffness lyrics rank against BobDylan poetry/song?"

Well, I set my monkey on the log
And ordered him to do the Dog
He wagged his tail and shook his head
And he went and did the Cat instead
He’s a weird monkey, very funky

doctrev said...

"Eating the pets" isn't even the Trump quote people will remember. The remix I listen to has "Eating the dogs/ They're eating the cats/ Eat the cat/ Eat eat the cat." So of course WaPo gets the iconic "lie" wrong, which reminds us what shamelessly stupid and deceitful grifters they are.

I'm surprised that Rich and Readering haven't taken She Wolf Inga's example and run off. The Democrats are no longer functional as a political party, and they'll never win another honest election if they have to defend every stupid lie their party organs have ever told. The people who backed Biden / Harris look like the idiot cultists that they are. There's no more use for such people.

Peachy said...

According to eye witnesses - not a lie.

But hey - that dumb topic shrouds nicely the entire shit show that is the lying liar who lie democrat party and their vile media apparatchiks.

David53 said...

Kiffness is very creative. Grok tells me he made between $33k to $131k from his Trump inspired song. He donated all the proceeds to the Springfield SPCA.

MadTownGuy said...

"Sharp as a marble" would have been truthful.

Sebastian said...

"Because it was believed." Seconding Tom T. It would seem to violate the Althouse Theorem that people don't believe what they profess to believe.

OK, maybe Joe "best Biden ever" Scarborough believed. But mostly, it was believed they could get away with the lie. They believed wrong.

Readering said...

Who is the author of the sharp as a tack statement in connection with Biden? Common enough phrase. Two thirds of Democrats polled did not want him running for reelection at outset of primaries, as I recall. I agreed with them and voted Dean Philips.

Tofu King said...

Alejandro Mayorkas: "The border is secure."

Lazarus said...

I would bring back the word "whopper" or the idea of the "tall tale." Do that and you'd have to give the prize to Trump and the Haitians eating the dogs and cats. It wasn't the literal truth (so far as we know). It wasn't a deliberate lie either. It was one of those "connect the dots" rumors that the internet has made so familiar in recent years. Did people believe that it was literally true? Was it just a joke? Or was it more a way of referring to a situation that had gotten seriously out of control?

"Biden is sharp as a tack" wasn't true. Was it a deliberate lie? Or did the people who repeated it really believe it? Did the people who heard it believe it? Hard as it may be to understand now, a lot of people did have the idea that Biden was very different behind closed doors than he was in public. They had to stick by that regardless of what they saw. It became a conviction that they held to even if in some part of their psyche they had their doubts.

Nixon's press secretary was attacked for saying of something that turned out not to be true or no longer to be true, "That statement is no longer operative," but maybe that's the way to think of political utterances. True or false, believed or not, such statements are operative and functional, or they aren't, or they are until they aren't.

Mr. T. said...

Except they were eating pets...

Fake but accurate?
Does Dan Rather work for Politifarce now?

GRW3 said...

And yet there was a Haitian women convicted and jailed for eating a pet cat

Rusty said...

Eaten already. The evidence is gone.
Asian types. Usually males. Will decend into our park along the Fox River.
Three or four will act as lookouts while the rest hunt ducks and geese wih BB guns.

mindnumbrobot said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
mindnumbrobot said...

There is not one member of the military who is in active duty in a combat zone in any war zone around the world for the first time this century. --Kamala Harris

This lie should have been in the running, IMO.

Kakistocracy said...

Trump’s effective abdication of the presidency renews concerns about Joe Biden’s age and mental fitness.

Real American said...

But that lie wasn't believed. Pretty much everyone knew they were lying to us about Biden's cognitive condition. That's a big part of why they lost. They were lying. We knew they were lying and even they knew we knew. They're still lying about it. They didn't care since their willing accomplices in the media were helping push Biden over the finish line to stop Trump. Well, Trump won because they did that instead of being forthright.

Howard said...

Biden was sharp as a tack until he wasn't.

Mr. T. said...

"Mostly peaceful" is the Lie of the Year for the next 100 years.

Ice Nine said...

PolitiFact's Lie of the Year is the Lie of the Year.

Goldenpause said...

PolitiFact has removed all doubt as to whether it is just another left wing tool. Even Bagdad Bob wouldn't tell such a whopper.

Readering said...

I googled the phrase and got 79 year old Michael Douglas, the first voice on that great second video. Didn't recognise the second voice. A number of the other sharp voices I could identify as geriatrics. Sometime in 2025 we may be compiling a similar video, but they'll stay away from sharp at least.

Temujin said...

Could be the first time in history that the lie of the year was also the song of the year.

NeggNogg said...

I'm finding all the fuss about the CR this week really interesting because nobody- on either side- seems to remember when Obama promised to post all non-emergency bills online for 5 days of public comment and then never did. Ironically (given this specific blog post), it was Politifact that called Obama on it at the time. https://tinyurl.com/ykb39xj4

Estoy_Listo said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...

Piling on. In these pages there was much discussion in 2020 about Biden's obvious cognitive decline. Any belief was willful.

Estoy_Listo said...

There's a difference between lies and bullshit.

Lazarus said...

That was a US-born crazy woman in Canton, another Ohio city. Haitians were seen carrying dead geese from the parks in Springfield. There were also stories of Haitians killing cats and dogs as voodoo sacrifices, as well as the stories of cannibal gangs in Haiti. So much going on and so little coverage by the establishment media.

gilbar said...

they taught us about this, in film studies class.
not Willing Suspension of Disbelief

but Actually: Reading the Lines, that The Director GAVE you to read

Jupiter said...

To ask the question is to answer it. How could one possibly know, for a certainty, that none of the Haitians illegally imported into Ohio had eaten any pets? One could not. It is clearly not a knowable thing. Yet Politifact (What the cat-eating fuck is a "Politifact"?) claims to know it. Ergo, they lie.

Kakistocracy said...

Whether it's Mike Donilon showing Biden overly optimistic polls or Elon Musk shutting down the federal government, both Biden and Trump have given their handlers remarkable leeway.

Freder Frederson said...

A duck is different from a dog or cat

Freder Frederson said...

Well, no there isn't. Bullshit is a kind of lie.

Enlighten-NewJersey said...

"Ohio woman guilty of killing, eating cat sentenced" -https://www.wkyc.com/article/news/local/canton/ohio-woman-allexxis-ferrell-eating-cat-killing-canton-stark-county-sentenced-springfield/95-a8a276b8-f4b0-49e2-a82b-cca64f727517

jim said...

wait til next year!

baghdadbob said...

Goldenpause said: "PolitiFact has removed all doubt as to whether it is just another left wing tool. Even Bagdad Bob wouldn't tell such a whopper."

Your stomach will roast in hell for that remark!

BUMBLE BEE said...

Elon Musk shuts the government down?
Hey Freder! Right here's what's known as a lie, from a true bullshit artist!

Original Mike said...

All Musk did is to publicize the 1500+ page crap bill, concocted in secret and dropped on everybody's desk with less than 24 hours to study. In no way, shape, manner, or form is this "Elon Musk shutting down the federal government". This is how representative government is supposed to work.

Readering said...

Musk scared the Speaker into doing crazy things like withdrawing a bipartisan bill and replacing it with a bill that required two thirds to pass, so GOP rebels felt emboldened to cast hamless no votes.

RCOCEAN II said...

Meade's a lot smarter then me. I never would've guessed a silly offhand comment from Trump about Haitans eating cats would be "the lie of the year". LOL.

Rick said...

"But "Joe Biden is sharp as a tack" was much more of a lie. Because it was believed. "

Was it? Or did 1/2 the country pretend to believe it and the other half laugh and shake their head disgustedly?

Peachy said...

huh? Using a big word that makes no sense. No wonder you're of the left.

Peachy said...

Leftists are good liars and bad liars. But ALL liars.

Peachy said...

The lie of the year - was just admitted by the hack-D loyalist media- the lie of the past 4 years.

Biden is senile and not really in charge.

Original Mike said...

A "bipartisan" secret bill that nobody had time to read or debate.
That's a great way to run a government. /s

Char Char Binks, Esq. said...

“I’m tarp as a shack, Jack!” — “President” Joe Biden

BUMBLE BEE said...

Spot on Freder! A duck is a migratory bird which is protected under Federal as well as state laws and international treaties.
"Violation of State migratory bird regulations is also a violation of Federal regulations." They're poachers as well as illegal aliens.

Big Mike said...

Once upon a time people disproved something by demonstrating that it is false. Maybe the "something" was a mathematical model that predicted the earth would burn up in a runaway greenhouse effect, but the conditions were met and yet the earth didn't burn up. (Does that strike a bell to anyone but me?) Or maybe it was a prediction that if something, call it X, happens then Y is guaranteed to happen. But X happened and no sign whatsoever of Y.

But today the mainstream newsmedia ignores the counterexamples for things that they want to be true but the counterexamples disprove their existence, and meanwhile they "disprove" things (like ballot box stuffing, like Haitians eating pets) by proclaiming "this has been disproved" without any disproving whatsoever.

I am a mathematician who is a retired computer system designer. I have built many stochastic models over the course of my career, and I have validated them against real world data. If something happens in the real world that is contrary to what the model predicted, then I looked at the model to see what I have to do to it to make it work right in the face of the real world. I do not flex my credentials (not that mine are anything special) and ignore the contrary data.

How do you say that ballot box stuffing is "disproven," meaning that it did not occur, in the face of evidence, some of it videotaped and some statistical, that ballot box stuffing did occur? If someone identifies a Haitian immigrant caught eating someone's dog, does that mean that Trump is not disproven after all? Or will it be ignored. Do I have to ask?

Mr. T. said...

For those of us not fluent in Kamala word salads, what in the hell are you talking about Rich?

Former Illinois resident said...

There is a huge disconnect between the news videos of Haitian gang violence, the tire-ring burning of bodies, the ritual cannibalism, the extreme violence perpetrated, and mostly male Haitian migrants loaded into planes in Port-au-Prince by Biden Administration and furtively delivered to Midwest Rust Belt cities and low-profile rural towns to be underpaid undocumented laborers in meat-packing plants, to butcher animals meant for human consumption.

Former Illinois resident said...

Now finding us the 10 million missing Biden voters, who failed to show up for Kamala.

pious agnostic said...

There are none so blind as those who will not see

Butkus51 said...

they werent lying to me

pious agnostic said...

Then he is very perspicacious. Or understands better how vile Politifact is. Because I wouldn't have guessed that in a dozen guesses.

john mosby said...

“I’ll shart if I’m tapped, Jack!” - Joey B

JSM

john mosby said...

Former IL: sorry, this is only tangential to your point about the Haitian meatpackers, but you made me think of something: If we pay American citizen wages to American citizen meatpackers, the price of meat will go up. Lots of people will go vegan in response. And fewer cows will be emitting methane. I can’t see why the left would oppose this!

JSM