Lying liar Molly Ivins tells a doozy of a lie in her latest column
... there was something so sad about the episode last week in which it was discovered that 500 letters had been sent to American newspapers in the names of serving soldiers without their knowledge or permission. That's not so much horrific as it is low.Reports about these letters may be found here and here. The letters were not "faked", they were written by a single army officer and signed by soldiers who insist that they agree with the content of the letters. Gannett, which broke the story writes:The faked letters said in identical language that everything was hunky-dory over there in Iraq – we are doing much good and are greatly appreciated ... If administration officials want to lie, they should at least lie under their own names.
At least one soldier contacted by Gannett News Service said he never signed the letter that appeared in his hometown newspaper in Charleston, W.Va.This soldier is not named, so we can assume that "at least one solider", in this case, is equivalent to "at most one soldier".
Most importantly, the letter was circulated by a single battalion commander acting on his own and since rebuked by his superiors. This was not organized by the "administration" as Molly Ivins alleges.
This column appeared in today's Seattle Times print edition. One would think that their op-ed page would be subject to rudimentary fact-checking. But sadly, that is not the case.
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at October 27, 2003 03:56 PM"Linguists and special operatives" should be assigned to Ms. Ivins' prose. Any piece of writing that is not about terror or brutality but twice contains the word "horrific" should, quite simply, not appear on an Opinions Page. Maybe a "Feelings Page"? How about a "Persuasion Page"? Ms. Ivins seems quite swept up in her exaggeration --no word is big enough to show how she suffers! Editors should at least check the facts...
Posted by: Robin Reese on October 27, 2003 09:04 PMI'm confused by the first sentence of this post. Up until now, it's been my understanding that the noun phrase (technically, not a full noun phrase, but simply an "N-bar") "lying liar" was reserved for people who say things (true, false or otherwise) that offend the left. Are you telling me that nowadays, anyone can become a lying liar just by, um, lying?
Posted by: Xrlq on October 28, 2003 10:47 AM
I think there is a difference between a lie and a factual error. I doubt that Molly Ivans, when she wrote her column, knew the full story (which continues to emerge) about the letters. Write to her and she might even print a correction. A lie is when someone says something is true when they know it to be false. The genius of people like Clinton, Bush, and Bill O'Reilly is that they are able to say things that are technically true, but which they know more than 95% of the people hearing it will interpret in a way that is false, so they get to lie without lying.
I wish we could move the debate past legalistic arguments about lies and on to what speakers want you to believe and what facts support those beliefs. Clinton wanted us to believe there was no hanky-panky going on in
the Oval office. Bush wanted us to believe that if we didn't invade Iraq when we did, the US would suffer a terrorist attack worse than 9/11 with weapons provided by Hussein. O'Reilly just wants us to believe he's smart and always right.
When your commanding officer hands you a letter and asks you to sign it and send it home as your work this is not considered your own opinion, at least not in any free country I know about.
Enthusiastic endorsements after the fact fail to change this.
Ivins was right. This was indeed a sad thing.
Posted by: Brian Gulino on November 4, 2003 06:14 PM58ae0f1b25b762ae5214fb724084aeec .
Posted by: fe58bbf0dd40ee00d93a5 on March 15, 2005 09:18 AM