manchambo
09-06-2012, 11:32 AM
So I was just reading the AP fact check of Clinton's speech and came across this:
CLINTON: "Their campaign pollster said, 'We're not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact checkers.' Now that is true. I couldn't have said it better myself—I just hope you remember that every time you see the ad."
THE FACTS: Clinton, who famously finger-wagged a denial on national television about his sexual relationship with intern Monica Lewinsky and was subsequently impeached in the House on a perjury charge, has had his own uncomfortable moments over telling the truth. "I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky," Clinton told television viewers. Later, after he was forced to testify to a grand jury, Clinton said his statements were "legally accurate" but also allowed that he "misled people, including even my wife."
We've actually come to a point where fact checkers are unaware of the definition of "fact." A fact, like the one Clinton was addressing in the comment above, is something capable of independent verification. Thus, fact checkers have confirmed that the claim that Obama has gutted welfare to work requirements is untrue because the document that allegedly did the "gutting" explicitly required increased return to work performance. Anyone can read the document and confirm this. That's why it's a "fact."
These purported fact checkers eschew such silly factual verification, and instead use exactly the type of ad hominem reasoning that has allowed politicians to impose a complete state of factual relativism on politics in the first place. The truth doesn't matter if it is spoken by a liberal. The response to Clinton pointing out that the "gutting" claim is a lie: Clinton lied once before so, apparently, the actual truth of the matter he's addressing doesn't matter.
CLINTON: "Their campaign pollster said, 'We're not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact checkers.' Now that is true. I couldn't have said it better myself—I just hope you remember that every time you see the ad."
THE FACTS: Clinton, who famously finger-wagged a denial on national television about his sexual relationship with intern Monica Lewinsky and was subsequently impeached in the House on a perjury charge, has had his own uncomfortable moments over telling the truth. "I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky," Clinton told television viewers. Later, after he was forced to testify to a grand jury, Clinton said his statements were "legally accurate" but also allowed that he "misled people, including even my wife."
We've actually come to a point where fact checkers are unaware of the definition of "fact." A fact, like the one Clinton was addressing in the comment above, is something capable of independent verification. Thus, fact checkers have confirmed that the claim that Obama has gutted welfare to work requirements is untrue because the document that allegedly did the "gutting" explicitly required increased return to work performance. Anyone can read the document and confirm this. That's why it's a "fact."
These purported fact checkers eschew such silly factual verification, and instead use exactly the type of ad hominem reasoning that has allowed politicians to impose a complete state of factual relativism on politics in the first place. The truth doesn't matter if it is spoken by a liberal. The response to Clinton pointing out that the "gutting" claim is a lie: Clinton lied once before so, apparently, the actual truth of the matter he's addressing doesn't matter.