Posted on 09/10/2008 4:29:52 PM PDT by bugseye
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- In a season when words are weapons, it's the H-bomb of campaign trail rhetoric -- a word so potent that a single appearance usually sparks days of cable debate and a sea of news ink.
Lie.
Mistaken, evasive, misleading, wrong -- all language that leaves room for good intentions or honest differences of opinion.
Not the L-word. It's a rhetorical bludgeon: Not only is your opponent off base, he's deliberately deceiving the public. It's a bruising character judgment that leaves minimal room for error.
...the Obama campaign has begun using "lie" -- and its cousins, like "falsehood" -- against the pair with such regularity that the appearanceof these words has become almost routine.
On Monday, the campaign sent supporters an "Obama action wire" titled "Lying on the Record." In case readers missed the subject line, the first paragraph repeated the rhetorical depth charge: "The McCain campaign is lying about their candidates' records," it read.
The same day, the campaign took the word to the airwaves.
...Sometimes members of Obama's staff have distanced themselves from the word even as they use it, attributing the claim to third parties. ...Obama danced around the accusation for days, moving closer to a direct charge.
"I mean, you can't just make stuff up," he told the crowd at a campaign event earlier this week. "You can't just re-create yourself. You can't just reinvent yourself. The American people aren't stupid."
But he eventually embraced the word, using it Wednesday to blast the McCain campaign for its "lipstick on a pig" attacks.
"I don't care what they say about me," Obama said. "But I love this country too much to let them take over another election with lies and phony outrage and swift boat politics. Enough is enough"
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
Notes from Obama/Olbermann interview 09-08-08:
OLBERMENN: You said that they're not telling the truth here, but when the stuff is a gross distortion, whether it's about their own positions or yours, or facts in your history or whatever, what can you do about it? AND WHY DO PEOPLE HESITATE TO USE THE WORD "LIE" ABOUT THESE THINGS?<<<
OLBERMANN: To something from your own convention, maybe the most compelling moment of your acceptance speech in Denver was that one strongly voiced word, "ENOUGH."...Have you thought of using on the campaign trail and in your speaking engagements, more exclamation points? Have you thought of getting angrier? <<< Obermann transcript: http://therebeller.blogspot.com/2008/09/obama-olbermann-interview-on-countdown.html
Obama buzzflash: http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/alerts/479
A reminder to all about how using the word “lie” affected another politician, Bob Dole. During a crucial point in his 1988 primary fight with George Herbert Walker Bush, an exasperated Bob Dole on camera told the Bush campaign to
“stop lying about my record.” That was seen as an act of desperation and finished Dole in that campaign.
Obama’s desperate. He’s becoming shrill and a typical hack politician. He’s quickly morphing into a very unlikeable candidate. It is my hope that this is the beginning of the end for Obama. We better prepare the National Guard now for the riots that will happen when Obama flames out on November 4.
The word “lie” gets thrown around too often and too easily.
The Obama campaign response to Jerome Corsey’s book was filled with the work “lie”. In my opinion that made is sound like a script for Tokyo Rose.
What's a work lie? Try English.
Who came up with the “Not Exactly” post regarding Obama? I’d suggest “Not Exactly” is a great substitute for saying that someone is lying.
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