I just do not understand why the lying isn't abundantly obvious to everyone.
It's super-abundant. But what is anybody supposed to do about it? What is the media supposed to do about it?
I mean, you should understand this problem intimately. Remember those years ago when you decided that the new moderation policy was that you couldn't call someone a liar because that was a personal attack; and therefore you couldn't refer to a statement as a "lie" because the implication would be that the author of that statement was a liar, and that would be a personal attack?
Don't you think the media has kind of the same problem, here? They're previously decided that you can't say that someone is a "liar", so you can't call a statement a lie; you can report that
others have called the statement a lie, but then you have to give balance to the opposing view. So you wind up with "shape of the Earth; opinions differ" view from nowhere journalism that is singularly unequipped to deal with a post-truth campaign. You get something like
quote:
Romney's opponents have seized on his statements that Chrysler, under Obama, plans to move Jeep production to China. Chrysler execs and Obama officials have countered that the statement is false. Romney's camp, for their part, say that it is not.
They just can't help it. What's the alternative? Fact-checking turned out to be a bust when the fact-checkers felt like they had to make the lie totals for both Romney and Obama come out the same, to the extent that they rated Obama statements "lies" and the proof was that if you too Romney's word that he wasn't lying, he wasn't. You can't cite "everybody knows" or the conventional wisdom, but any time you
do cite a source you just set up a "he said she said" situation where you have to report both sides.
I haven't yet heard that Obama has said anything like what I think he should say, for example: "I'm not going to lie to you to win an election. Digging out from under the worst financial collapse since the Depression has been difficult to everyone personally and to us collectively as a nation, and I wouldn't be doing my job as president to deny this reality. But to deny how far we've come in the past four years whose challenges have forged our dedication and strength would also be a lie. If reelected as president I will continue the policies that have already brought us so far and that will carry us forward to a brighter future that is our destiny.
Well, he's said this repeatedly. Most notably in his convention keynote address. It's largely the basis of the criticism that Obama doesn't offer "anything new" for his second-term agenda, which seems to forget that he's the President
now and his constituents would largely prefer that, if he does have a new policy direction or a new secret plan to solve our problems, that he put it out there
now and not basically hold it as a hostage to get votes.
But why would you have heard about his speeches, since you're not watching the speeches? If you're very studiously ignoring everything Obama has to say, when would he have had the chance to say this to you? And why would it be the media's job to act as stenographers for political bloviating?
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