Reply #9: Dunno. [View All]

[Igel]

I have trouble with much of it.

I think my definition of 'lie' and his definition are incompatible. I would define it as "to say something you know is false, presenting it as true in order for others to believe it to be true" and he has to go with "to say something you should have known is false, presenting it as true," although I don't know if "should" necessarily results from "having seen evidence to show that the assertion involved is false" or if it only imply "something I suspected to be false". I find my definition useful in deciding when to assign guilt and blame, but it certainly doesn't feed my sense of outrage or partisan anger and sometimes means there's a bit of a hurdle I have to overcome before sitting in judgment. And sitting in judgment is such fun.

I apply my definition to the Congress, as well. I suspect at least some members saw evidence that called into question the claim "Saddam has WMD". But I think that they also, when confronted with contradictory evidence and called upon to decide which is correct, mis-evaluated the evidence. It might have been an honest misevaluation; it might have been an attempt at playing politics; it might have been because of laziness or having an idiot staffer summarize 500 pages into a 5 minute briefing. But even Blix, in saying he didn't believe Saddam had WMD in 2003, went on long and hard in his report about the WMDs that they had documented Saddam as having had but couldn't verify were destroyed as of late 2002 or early 2003; he knew the difference between "believe" and "know".

Blumenthal may be trying to protect HRC or any number of other dems. Or he might be trying to say that * is really, really, double super bad--not only did he lie to the public, but he lied to Congress as well. And that, my friend, is grounds for impeachment.