Politicans, just stop lying to us already
This is not a post about global warming, nor is it about energy conservation. Although what follows is a quote from Energy Secretary Steven Chu and is about environmental policy, I am not posting it here to start a debate over whether or not he is right or justified in his comments.
Speaking on the sidelines of a smart grid conference in Washington, Dr. Chu said he didn’t think average folks had the know-how or will to to change their behavior enough to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions.
“The American public… just like your teenage kids, aren’t acting in a way that they should act,” Dr. Chu said. “The American public has to really understand in their core how important this issue is.”
Chu’s meaning is plain: Americans are like teenagers who aren’t acting like they should. But I didn’t post his quote to start a discussion about whether or not government officials should think of citizens as misbehaving children, fun as that might be.
No, I posted it to highlight the blatant lying by public officials, right to our faces. Some of the lies are so bold, so obvious, I would be embarrassed to tell them.
Perhaps realizing that it is not wise for public officials to compare voters to misbehaving teenagers and trying to do damage control, Chu’s office gives us this incredible lie:
Energy Department spokesman Dan Leistikow added: “Secretary Chu was not comparing the public to teenagers. He was saying that we need to educate teenagers about ways to save energy.”
Are you kidding me? Just how stupid does Dan Leistikow think people are? Chu’s intended meaning can’t be disputed. Chu’s entitled to his opinion, and some might agree with him that Americans are like misbehaving teenagers. But no one can read his statement and think “he was saying that we need to educate teenagers about ways to save energy.” Don’t try to convince us that this is what he meant. It’s insulting. We know what he meant. We can read.
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Maybe Dan Leistikow is an idiot, and that’s how he honestly interpreted Chu’s statement?
Sometimes I think our public officials are complete postmodernists, thinking that if they want something to be true, that’s all it takes to make it true. And sometimes I think they can’t understand that we are watching them and almost everything they say is recorded. But sometimes I think it’s just as you say. They think we’re stupid or maybe just as partisan as they are.
You know, the truth is probably that they know they are lying, they feel they must lie, and they’re just hoping to avoid the consequences. They’re acting immorally, but they can’t stop themselves and hope no one important catches on.
Well, not to pick nits but . . . (Andy proceeds to nit pick. He is a blatant and shameless liar.)
Chu didn’t lie. Chu told an uncomfortable truth. This illustrates that he is a very bad politician. He is, in fact, not a politician at all, but a secretary, a post appropriate to someone who tells plain, unvarnished truth, because he got appointed to his job. People who tell the voting public that they are stupid and irresponsible (note: an absolutely true statement.) don’t get elected.
Smart people who know how to do things other than get elected are appointed by people who know how to get elected (usually: skilled liars, or at least people who know how to tell uncomortable truths diplomatically). Then professional “Spokesman” like Leistikow are forced to make awkward lies for damage control when these non-politicians tell the plain truth to irresponsible, stupid people and they don’t like it. (The truth, you may have heard, hurts. And it’s terrible P.R.)
I can”t help but note that while Leistikow did lie about Chu’s unpolitic but true statement, the Bush administration routinely lied about everything to do with environmental protection, blatantly denying the vast body of scientific opinion on climate change, etc.
http://oversight.house.gov/story.asp?ID=1653
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/jul/26/climate-change-obama-administration
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/apr2008/2008-04-24-10.asp
Which, to me, is just a wee bit more important than lying about whether the secretary was dissing J. Q. Public. Aww. Did we hurt your feelings? That’s not what we meant at all. (See? A little white lie.)
And for the record, since I am not a politician and would make a very very bad one: the American people are stupid, uneducated, and totally irresponsible. They are exactly like unruly teenagers. They are also probably drunk, on drugs, and they are trying to fuck your daughter. And they should get a goddamn haircut and a job!
Ok, I’ll cut them some slack for the last item, but do they have to listen to their music so loud?
Useless whippersnappers, the lot of them . . .
I think it’s a double whammy of contempt for the electorate- first they are so stupid they won’t do what he wants and thus will have to be compelled. Then he compounds his contempt by brazenly lying, while knowing that everybody knows he is lying, and yet he lies nonetheless, because he doesn’t give a shit and has contempt for the electorate. Anthony ‘Van’ Jones tried this approach when he claimed he hadn’t read the 9/11 petition he had signed, but it didn’t work as that was just too nutty to let fly. But this style of open contempt for the voter is everywhere.
Andrew, you’re funny.
But since it’s a post about honesty, let’s jettison climate change. It’s a bullshit term, vague and squishy. Call it global warming or something that at least goes in the direction of making a claim. Because climate changes. It always has, over time, and always will. No one disputes that climate changes.
As for Bush’s lies being used to excuse or minimize the lies of Democrats or Obama’s administration, I addressed that here: Not as bad as Bush, so it must be okay.
I think Daniel K says it well. This is about contempt for the electorate (Andrew shares that contempt, in good enough humor). Andrew might say that the contempt and lying is about something insignificant in this case. It’s clear to many of us that the contempt is there beyond this one example. A government that has contempt for its people is, just maybe, a bad thing. Even when that government agrees with you on an important issue.
A recent poll showed that only 23% of people under 30 know that George Washington was the first President. Science is a bit more complicated. Case closed.
We are heading down the road of populism — another name for being “uneducated”. Chu is fundamentally right but lacks any political DNA. You seem to conflate the statement from Chu’s office and what Chu said personally. How do you know that the statement came directly from Chu? Oh, that requires critical thinking….
The science on global warming is indisputable. The rise of greenhouse gases in the industrial era being due to man is also indisputable given the data (CO2 has risen 38% since 1950). The current decade long short decline in temperatures came twice before in the past century before it rose again — once in the early 1900′s and once at about 1950. This is a cyclical event given the data. The issue of how global warming will affect the population, however, is unproven and open to debate. There are logical arguments on either side.
What we do know is that urbanization is a continuing worldwide trend and that foments pollution — which has proven to hurt the population from a health perspective — reduced lung capacity, cancer, etc. Inasmuch as we concentrate on pollution, we will affect greenhouse gases to some degree.
Bob, you said “You seem to conflate the statement from Chu’s office and what Chu said personally. How do you know that the statement came directly from Chu?”
Since you’re such a critical-thinking genius, show me where in the text I conflate Chu’s personal statement with the statement from his office. I asked, “Just how stupid does Dan Leistikow think people are?” Learn how to read.
I didn’t conflate anything. But if I wanted to, I could point out that Chu’s office works for Chu and is answerable to him. If he wanted bonus points for forthrightness, he could release a statement to the effect, “What I said about Americans being like teenagers was poorly phrased and insulting to many people. Dan Leistokow’s attempt to protect me from my politically unwise words was a blatant lie that anyone could see through. Obviously, I wasn’t talking about educating teenagers about conservation. I stand by my original statement, though I now realize that I should have phrased it in a less insulting way and should have just clearly stated what I mean, that people must be forced to conserve energy because they are either not smart enough or not responsible enough to do it voluntarily.”
Or, more realistically but still unrealistic, he could make Leistokow apologize for lying so boldly, and badly. But my guess is that Chu is relieved that his office lies to protect him and bail him out when he says something that he believes but is politically unwise to say. It doesn’t come from him directly, by design. It’s called plausible deniability. This way Bob can say that Chu didn’t lie, he has nothing to do with what his office does, others are conflating the two. All politicians, cabinet members, etc. do this. Bob, if you think this post is about Chu or global warming, read it again.
Scott, the title of your post is about politicians lying. As support, you take Chu’s remark and then say that the “lie” comes from Leistokow. You make the ASSUMPTION that Chu has approved Leistokow’s remark. If you didn’t, you couldn’t claim it as a “lie”. More than likely, it was a PR guy making a stupid statement, and not a “lie”.
So, yes, you have conflated the remarks of two different individuals which shows a lack of critical thinking.
The remark of the PR guy was simply dumb — perhaps he was one of the majority that didn’t know that George Washington was the first President. But you infer the “lie” to Chu.
You are making a populist comment to rally the troops. That is why most of us are upset at not only ALL of the people in government, but you political hacks as well.
Is Chu ultimately responsible for his office. Certainly. But as you say, this is YOUR GUESS — and not fact. Damage control is a tool for all politicians — and I hate it as much as you do. But if that is the point you wanted to make, why just point at Chu and not the rest of Washington — both right and left? No, Scott, your ultimate purpose was to demean someone who supports a global warming agenda — and you know it.
To prove I’m wrong, why don’t you take someone from the opposing side and make the same analogy?
Here we go again. Someone brings up that Chu is lying about what he said, and we get a “genius” in the comments section mentioning how Bush lied. Who cares? That is totally and completely irrelevant to the discussion of Chu. I get so sick and tired of lame “well look at what Bush did” “arguments”. George Bush has been out of office for over eight months now. When discussing the actions of Obama cabinet officials, discussing what George Bush did goes beyond irrelevant into the realm of partisan hackery, particularly when you devote two sentences to Chu and paragraphs to Bush, even going so far as to provide links. What a joke.
And please, spare us the “you lack critical thinking” comments. Anyone who thinks a guy is going to make a publicized statement, right after his boss makes a fool of himself, without getting permission to do so is the one who lacks critical thinking. It is amazing to read the hilarious rationalizations people will engage in order to not criticize this administration. And what is particularly lame is how certain individuals claim that attributing the words of Chu’s spokesman to Chu is somehow lacking in critical thinking, yet they turn right around and state that calling out Chu is automatically an attack on a global warming agenda, despite the fact that no such attack is present, at all, in the piece. The fact they use the phrase YOUR GUESS right before they do so makes them even more braindead.
“To prove I’m wrong, why don’t you take someone from the opposing side and make the same analogy.”
Anyone who writes the above sentence and then calls someone else a political hack is either so blind to his own hypocrisy or….well I can’t figure out a way to end that sentence. If someone is lying, someone is lying. But for some, the standard is different if a D is behind the name. Hey Bob, to prove I’m wrong, why don’t you make an unqualified condemnation of an obvious liar.
Personally, I’m partial to critical thinkers who apply the word “indisputable” to anything more complex than the multiplication table. Considering there’s an equally vast – but much less publicized and much more vilified – body of scientific opinion that climate changes are cyclical and natural, while environmental pollution and certain other indignities visited upon environment (e.g., turning wetlands into bedroom communities) are, indeed, man-made.
“But if that is the point you wanted to make, why just point at Chu and not the rest of Washington — both right and left?”
Because Chu’s statement was in the news and recent, and the lie was particularly bold and blatant. Government officials lie all the time, on the right and the left. I don’t know how often the lie is as bad as this one — I mean “bad” as in poorly constructed and not believable. It’s like Leistokow wasn’t even trying. This particular lie is a perfect example of the contempt Daniel K talks about in his comment above.
If someone on the right lies so blatantly next week and provides me with such an obvious example to highlight the dishonesty of politicians and their functionaries, and I read about it, I will write about that. I write about what’s in the news. I don’t do research projects or try to find balance so every Bob out there will be assured that I’m not a partisan hack. The statement from Chu’s office jumped out as an absurdly clear example of lying, so I wrote about it. That it was connected to global warming has nothing to do with it. I took pains to point that out in the original post. I am interested in the post in pointing out dishonesty. If you can only see that through a left/right filter or a devotion to defeating global warming denial, that’s too bad.
OK, how’s this for even-handedness: Secretary Chu’s assessment of the American public as disobedient teenagers is every bit as insulting as Dick Cheney’s dismissive “So?” when asked by ABC News about the discrepancy between his assertion that we are winning the war in Iraq and the polls showing that two-thirds of the American public disagree. (Cheney was out of the office by that time, but let’s say that’s irrelevant. He may want to get back into politics yet.)
Bob, Andrew, feel better now?
Also, considering that Obama ran on a ‘change’ mandate, it’s the height of nonsense to claim that since Bush did X if Obama does it too, hey presto- the criticism disappears.
That’s hardly change. That’s more of the same. It’s a ridiculous, self-defeating non-argument.
It’s also the height of nonsense to assume that since you criticize someone in Obama’s administration you must have supported Bush’s administration. Russians used to have an option on their ballots- ‘none of the above’.
…perhaps American ballots should include it too.
“It’s also the height of nonsense to assume that since you criticize someone in Obama’s administration you must have supported Bush’s administration.”
That is a fascinating knee-jerk reflex. I see it often, this inability to fathom that one might find the behavior of both sides equally reprehensible for the same reasons. I believe it’s called hypocrisy: trashing the opponent while defending the guy you agree with for doing the same thing.
Andrew, how did you feel when Dick Cheney said “So?” Did you agree that the public is a ass, a idiot, and doesn’t know what it’s talking about? Because by your analysis, both Cheney and Chu are equally right.
Well, one of my problems is that I’m a mathematician and I think about everything quantitatively. This gets me into a lot of trouble and makes me painfully boring at parties.
(Note: Andrew is lying. He is not a mathematician. But he thinks he is one. He never tells the truth though. That was a lie right there.)
I think in analog, not in digital. I use fuzzy set theory, not binary. As such I don’t divide presidential administrations into two sets: “honest administrations” and “dishonest administrations.” Because a) that wouldn’t be a very useful distinction at all and b) one of them would be the empty set.
(That was sort of a math joke.)
So yes, I can’t help but be a little bit more concerned with a policy of systematically and grossly distorting science to mislead the entire nation on the subject of dramatic potentially catastrophic impact on the environment of the planet, or lying about weapons of mass destruction in order to provoke the public into supporting a war, than I am about a statement from a spokesman about an undiplomatically phrased comment.
As an example: I could divide the world into “good” and “bad,” with classic, non-fuzzy sets. But then I’d have to put Adolph Hitler, and the squishy kiwi fruit I just threw out into the same set. They were both bad, there’s no doubt about it. I just think Hitler was worse, that’s all. A good bit worse as it turns out. The kiwi, though icky and gross, would probably not have even made me sick. It would definitely not have invaded Poland. Maybe the Sudetenland, but that’s it.
I suppose my point (I make it a policy to write whatever comes to mind until I figure out my point) is that if you are looking for a completely honest government administration, you’ll never ever find one. Our brains want to divide everything into 0 and 1 because classical logic is so much easier, but the actual universe out there is fuzzy and analog. Everything is somewhere in between, Like .24376 or .83547 or, one of my personal favorites, .45929
As a card carrying fuzzy logician (note: He has no card. What a lying sack of shit!) I don’t think it makes sense to talk about most things in terms of either/or, yes/no, but to talk about things quantitatively. And since the subject was dishonesty in government, It seemed to me a relevant observation to note that we recently saw what might well have been the most dishonest administration in US history, which lied on a truly massive scale about things of staggering importance. And that, so far, the present administration hasn’t done anything that compares.
My kiwi fruit was indeed bad, yes, but call me a hypocrite if you will: not as bad as Hitler.
P.S.
To return to Scott’s original point, though: Leistikow’s lie, though not on a matter of grave importance, was a particularly clumsy and obvious one. Borderline hilariously so. (I just crossed the border! Hahaha!) You’d really have to be an idiot not to see right through it, so I suppose that does make it all the more insulting.
But, as I noted before: the USA is made up primarily of idiots (and Starbucks). I think Chu, Cheney, Alexander Hamilton, and I all agree on that. I’m sorry I can’t be more diplomatic and pretend I don’t believe that. I’d make a terrible politician. I just don’t lie well.
(Note: he’s probably lying about that.)