As I have said now FOUR times, the phrase "lies plenty" was in an offhand response to Magyar's statement which contained the word, not to you and not in the post where I listed all of Obama's false statements.
No, that's not true.
You did use the specific phrase "lies plenty" in your reply to Magyar; but that was by no means the only post in which you claimed that Obama lies frequently.
In a reply to Tricky on that same page, for instance, you said "
there are plenty of exmples of Obama lying, and even perpetuating the same lie multiple times after it has already been reported as a lie."
In a reply to me you suggested that the reason AlBell didn't provide examples of Obama's lies is "
because there are so many."
Here is a quick review:
1. In
post 207, AlBell makes an oblique claim that Obama lies frequently, but dodges on actually providing evidence.
2 (a) In
post 210, Magyar asks AlBell to point out examples of lies Obama has told.
2 (b) In
post 211 I echo this request. In doing so, I specifically point out that it is poor skeptical practice simply to post a link, and that if one actually has good evidence to support one's claim it is good skeptical practice to actually present it.
(A link should be the equivalent of a footnote. It is a good supplement to a presentation of evidence, but it is not a good substitute for a presentation of evidence.)
3 (a) In
post 213 you reply to Magyar by saying
"Obama lies plenty".
3 (b) In
post 215, you reply to my request for examples of Obama's lies by saying:
Maybe AlBell didn't provide them because there are so many.
4. In
post 221, Tricky quotes you saying "
Obama lies plenty". You reply in
post 224 "
I'm not equating Bachmann and Obama. I'm just saying that there are plenty of exmples of Obama lying, and even perpetuating the same lie multiple times after it has already been reported as a lie."
There are several other posts on that page -- posts addressed to you, and posts made by you -- in which the word
lie features prominently. So, no, it was not simply an offhand remark made carelessly in your reply to Magyar.
... I never meant to imply that the statements in the long list were intentionally false, just that they were false.
Then you should not have presented the list as a list of Obama's lies. You should have stated clearly up front that these were not examples of lies but they were examples of statements which you considered to be false in some way. And then you should have chosen a few and explained in what way you considered them to be false. That would have made it clear what you were claiming, and that would have made it clear whether the examples you selected supported that claim.
While lies are false statements, not all false statements are lies. Everyone makes statements which can be considered false. People speak carelessly. Sometimes they get a detail wrong. Sometimes they word things in such a way that the statement is essentially true but may need additional qualifications to be exactly true.
For instance, if someone says, "I literally exploded when I heard that", it's almost certainly false. If someone says, "I'm going to lay down," that's almost certainly false (or, if not, it's million-dollar-challengeworthy). But if a claim is made that someone is a frequent liar, those are not examples I would take seriously as evidence in support of the claim.
AlBell called Obama the "liar-in-chief".
That is the claim you chose to defend.
That is the claim for which you provided the laundry list of Obama statements. And the laundry list you provided (as you now admit) is
not a list of lies.
For instance, the statement that
preventive care saves money is not a lie. (As of
post 294 we appear to be in agreement on this.)
It is possible Obama is wrong that preventive care saves money; it is possible PolitiFact is wrong that it doesn't. But that does not make Obama a liar if it turns out preventive care does not save money; and it does not make PolitiFact liars if it turns out preventive care does save money. This is a matter about which reasonable people can honestly disagree.
(In contrast, your statement that you never called that statement a lie was false. If you had continued to stick by that claim, that would have been lying. Your new defense, that you only said Obama lies frequently in an offhand remark to Magyar, is similarly false.)
My point in pursuing this is not to call you a liar. My point is to repeat, once again,
the importance of stating claims clearly and presenting the evidence clearly.
You may have honestly misunderstood what Magyar and I asked about. There's no shame in that. But if you had taken the time, back on page 6, to spell out clearly the claim you were making and the evidence you were presenting, the confusion could have been cleared up right at the beginning.
That's why it's important to take the time to say things clearly. If you have a claim to make, say clearly what the claim is. If you have evidence which you think supports that claim, lay it out clearly.
Debaters present evidence in order to win an argument. Skeptics present evidence in order to discern what is true. If the claim being made is
true, then a clear presentation of and examination of the evidence will help to establish that. If the claim being made is
not true, a clear presentation and examination of the evidence will help to establish that as well.
That's what a skeptic should be interested in: finding out if the claim is true or not. So whether the evidence you have is strong or weak, present it clearly and honestly. Don't dress it up to look stronger than it is. Don't try to shelter it from scrutiny. Present what you have, as honestly as you can, encourage others to scrutinize it honestly, and see where that leads.
That's why it's important not to simply post links (the way AlBell did). That's why it's important not to simply post laundry lists (the way you did). Present the evidence in a way that makes it easy for people to examine and weigh.
If more people would get in the habit of presenting evidence in that way -- rather than presenting evidence in ways calculated to maximize the chances of persuading people of the claim, regardless of the actual strength of the evidence being presented -- it would be easier to see more quickly which claims have merit and which ones don't. That's what the aim of skeptics should be. And it's something I hope you and I can agree on.
