WeAllLoseVille
If you've been paying attention to CorpMedia coverage of the rapidly evolving US'ian presidential election campaign you may have noticed a sudden orgy of fact checking of the trivial.
One of the best examples is the powers that be taking the bait of the Nouveau Richie Rich Ratsf*ckers to wurlitzer and amplify the slightest of quibbles regarding Tim Walz' past statements.
Kevin Drum, by way of Digby, had that story on the weekend:
Let us investigate the vast history of 'lying' by Gov. Tim Walz as alleged by the Trump campaign:
Retired from the National Guard as a command sergeant major...He did rise to the rank of command sergeant major, but upon retirement his rank reverted to master sergeant.
Had children via IVF...Walz almost always refers only to “fertility treatments,” but a couple of times has used the term IVF. In fact he and his wife underwent IUI, commonly referred to as IVF but actually a different, more affordable fertility treatment.
Won an award from the Nebraska Chamber of Commerce (2006)...It was the Junior Chamber of Commerce.
Taught in China for a year through a program at Harvard University (2006)...It was a program affiliated with Harvard.
Earned the title of Nebraska Citizen-Soldier of the Year (1989)...He did indeed earn this award, but so did 51 other people. I’m not sure how this counts even under the strictest definition, but I’m including it for completeness.
Referred one time to “weapons of war, that I carried in war” (2018)...Has admitted this was a misstatement.
Denied he had been drinking when he was pulled over in 1995 for speeding (2006)...Possibly the only serious falsehood, from 18 years ago. However, he corrected the record himself six years ago when he ran for governor.
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But now, it turns out that there is something even more insidious going down, which is the use of the CorpMedia fact check machine to bury significant historical events.
Mike, our friendly and knowledgeable, fellow biologist is tracking this phenomenon:
Here’s what Trump uttered April 23, 2020:
Mike, our friendly and knowledgeable, fellow biologist is tracking this phenomenon:
Here’s what Trump uttered April 23, 2020:
"And then I see the disinfectant, where it knocks it out in a minute, one minute. And is there a way we can do something like that by injection inside or almost a cleaning, because you see it gets in the lungs and it does a tremendous number on the lungs. So it’d be interesting to check that."
Mike calls this 'fact checking as gaslighting', which is a good name for a very bad thing.
Personally, I'm of the opinion that this type of thing is likely a water-headed response, at least in part, to the hard slogging of Daniel Dale and its potential to adversely affect the bottom line of places like the venerable New York Times.
Gosh.
What's next, a daily eyeball/click grabbing version of the 'Fact Check Game, Wordleized Edition'?
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What's next, a daily eyeball/click grabbing version of the 'Fact Check Game, Wordleized Edition'?
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10 comments:
Digby had a nice concluding bit too with a few things about the former lier in chief…
“ To my knowledge he hasn’t done this:
PolitiFact published its 1,000th fact check of a claim made by Donald Trump. The publication, which usually refrains from wading into political discussions or weighing in on a politician’s overall character, took the opportunity to release an analysis of those years of work. Its finding? Trump lies a lot.
“American fact-checkers have never encountered a politician who shares Trump’s disregard for factual accuracy,” the authors wrote. “Ever since he descended the escalator at Trump Tower in 2015, we have encountered a firehose of claims.”
The analysis found in particular that Trump’s immigration-related claims tended toward inflammatory falsehoods and that more than 70 percent of PolitiFact’s checks on immigration, foreign policy, crime, COVID, and health care were largely false. It concluded, also, that “Trump’s falsehoods have fueled threats to democracy.”
Virtually everything that comes out of Donald Trump’s mouth is a lie., but the biggest of all was that he actually won the 2020 election, which he began saying before the ballots were even counted.
It is utterly ridiculous that we’re even discussing Tim Walz at all in this context. Insane.”
Hi Ross, I’m not quite getting the hang of the new comments thingy yet. That was me, Graham, that posted the conclusion stuff from the Digby you linked.
You can put my name on it and remove this post.
If you're gonna grasp at straws, make sure they're not the plastic ones. We run an eco-friendly establishment here!
Graham--
It's so weird...Google has ignored Blogger for so long that its core code is falling apart at the seams. Case in point, when I want to add someone to the BlogCrawl I have to actually go into the code and monkey around with it every single time...Anyway, now that they've decided to do something it's to mess around with/mess-up the perfectly serviceable old comment system (i.e. where'd the preview button go when I write a post with embedded links and want to make sure I haven't missed something?...I'm baffled, and stillhaven't found out how to add your name to your post.
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GF--
Ha!
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What Trump has perfected is "Gish Gallop". Gish Gallop is a rhetorical technique in which a person in a debate attempts to overwhelm an opponent by abandoning formal debating principles, providing an excessive number of arguments with no regard for the accuracy or strength of those arguments and that are impossible to address adequately in the time allotted to the opponent. Gish galloping prioritizes the quantity of the galloper's arguments at the expense of their quality.
Trump lies so much that it is impossible to counter the lies and as we all know, a lie repeated often enough, tends to get the public believing it.
Anon-Above--
Agreed.
And that is why the NY Times knowingly working to bury one of Mr. Trump's worst, and most dangerous lies is just that.
Just that dangerous I mean.
I was thinking of moving back to blogger to avoid spending money at Wordpress. Now I hesitate.
7:59 Anonymous was Norm Farrell
I wouldn't recommend the move back Norm.
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