Yet Another Obama Administration Official Lies To Congress?

[BeAChooser]

Yet another 'BeAChooser' lie has been exposed in short order thanks to you.

Read post #21. It's very clear that Bloom lied. So I didn't lie. You just did.

 

[Upchurch]

Have I? First, we have this:

But you say this {snip} proves he didn't lie under oath.

{snip}

Now whether you consider that lie inconsequential or not is irrelevant. Bloom lied under oath. And if he was willing to lie under oath about something you say is "inconsequential", isn't it more likely that he would lie about things that do matter?

I think you guys may be overreacting just a LITTLE bit.

Nope. B is nothing if not predictable. He was either going to pretend to be puppet master, ignore the thread completely, or cherry-pick information so that he can claim he is still correct even though Bloom clearly indicates that he was misquoted, which he was.

 

[Biscuit]

Now whether you consider that lie inconsequential or not is irrelevant. Bloom lied under oath. And if he was willing to lie under oath about something you say is "inconsequential", isn't it more likely that he would lie about things that do matter?

Would you also state that if someone gets away with j-walking they would be more likely to rob a bank?

This is just silly. You can't prove that he lied. Given the completely harmless nature of the supposed quote it was most likely a mistake and not an attempt to willfully deceive congress under oath.

Our two most likely explanations

1. Someone else said this and it was wrongly attributed to him.
2. He doesn't remember a joke he told 2 years ago at a party.

I can't believe you are so ideologically cemented that you can't look at the context of the supposed quote and realize there is nothing to see. This is not evidence of anything it is a mountain out of a mole hill.

 

[Upchurch]

2. He doesn't remember a joke he told 2 years ago at a party.

Ah. Fair point.

I can't believe you are so ideologically cemented that you can't look at the context of the supposed quote and realize there is nothing to see.

First time reading B's posts?

 

[TheL8Elvis]

So either Bloom lied or the Rattner lied.

False dilemma

And your source doesn't suggest that Rattner just made the quote up out of whole cloth. So that only leaves one conclusion. Bloom lied under oath.

Your source doesn't suggest that Bloom lied, therefor it leaves only the conclusion that Rattner made it up out of whole cloth ?

Does that somehow make less sense than what you wrote ???

 

[BenBurch]

Read post #21. It's very clear that Bloom lied. So I didn't lie. You just did.

Winning!

 

[BeAChooser]

Bloom clearly indicates that he was misquoted

No one denies that Blooms claims he was misquoted. Liars will tend to say things like that when caught.

which he was.

Neither you or Bloom have proven that. In fact, the only evidence offered by Biscuit indicates that the author of a book quotes him saying that.

Can you point to a quote by the author saying he misquoted Bloom? NO? Didn't think you could.

By the way,

http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnew...bout-09-qi-did-this-all-for-the-unionsq-quote

The Blaze notes:

The problem is, Bloom’s denial contradicts two otherwise credible sources, including a book written by his car czar predecessor, Steve Rattner, and a published account in the Detroit News. Both claim that Bloom did in fact make the comment in question

http://www.detnews.com/article/2011...-words-belie-motives-of-GM--Chrysler-bailouts

And Bloom told the House Subcommittee on Regulatory Affairs, Stimulus Oversight and Government Spending last month that he "did not say that" he "did this all for the unions" at a "celebratory" auto task force dinner in the Rosa Mexicano restaurant in late July 2009.

Trouble for Bloom, the president's adviser for manufacturing policy, is he's quoted twice as saying just that — first by his then-boss, Steven Rattner, on page 269 of his auto bailout book "Overhaul" and second, on Nov. 24 of that same year, by my savvy colleague David Shepardson, Washington bureau chief of The Detroit News.

... snip ...

When The News reported Bloom's comment that November, neither Bloom nor the White House complained or sought a correction.

... snip ...

Even if he did say it, jokingly or not, it's what the Obama administration did that matters. Secured bondholders were subordinated to union claims. Delphi union pensions were protected with taxpayer money, but salaried pensions were not. Union contracts were summarily renegotiated, but the "holy trinity" of wages, health care and pension benefits for active workers was left whole.

And the last statement is why this matters. It's why this wasn't just an inconsequential lie. Admitting that he did do it "all for the union" would be ... as the article points out ... a smoking gun pointing towards something far more serious. Something not inconsequential at all. So that's why he lies.

 

[leftysergeant]

Not remembering a non-audio-recorded speach is not a lie. Another elephant-standing-on-his-foot falacy of language for B.A.C.

My next question is why that snivelling little sociopathic drongo Burton was making so much of an off-the-cuff comment in the first place.

 

[Biscuit]

Ah. Fair point.


First time reading B's posts?

When ever I engage with BaC I think back to the thread about the crowd size at Glenn Becks rally. BaC was adamant it was in the billions but after much hard work a number of people were eventually able to convince him to revise his numbers.

I know he can be reasonable and I figured the full context that was omitted from his OP source would make him realize that there is no substance to his accusation.

Well so much for that...

 

[BeAChooser]

Our two most likely explanations

1. Someone else said this and it was wrongly attributed to him.

Spin spin spin.

He doesn't remember a joke he told 2 years ago at a party.

Then he should have said "I don't remember." No, he categorically denied saying it ... which makes him a liar if he said it.

I can't believe you are so ideologically cemented

Look in a mirror.

This is not evidence of anything it is a mountain out of a mole hill.

But it's not a mole hill, as I explained in my last post. If Bloom admits that he said it (and I think he did), then he's admitting what we've said all along. The GM bailout was about helping the union and buying votes for democrats with taxpayer money. And if that's not a crime, it really should be.

 

[leftysergeant]

The GM bailout was about helping the union and buying votes for democrats with taxpayer money. And if that's not a crime, it really should be.

Well, if saving our industrial base during a time of ecconomic collapse can be called buying votes, what do you call saving the miserable hides of the money-dealers who put us in this trick?

If American working people are out of work, the ecconomy slows down. It makes no difference, for the most part, to the small businesses on Main Street if the fat useless parasites on Wall Street can afford another Ferrari, if the unemployed GM worker can't buy a jug of milk.

Making old people work until they do a faceplant in the turret lathes so that some fat-assed oil company executive doesn't have to share the sacrifice is a more heinous crime.

Creeps like Issa and Burton get their panties in a bunch over some trivial crap sometimes.

 

[Biscuit]

But it's not a mole hill, as I explained in my last post. If Bloom admits that he said it (and I think he did), then he's admitting what we've said all along. The GM bailout was about helping the union and buying votes for democrats with taxpayer money. And if that's not a crime, it really should be.

Wrong. If he actually said what your sources claim he said than he's admitting to what you sources claim: That he made a joke. And if thats a crime then continuing with your claims in this thread should get you a life sentence.

Unless you have a source that says he said it and meant it as a serious statement regarding the motivations for the work they were celebrating that night. Do you have that source BaC?

 

[cwalner]

But it's not a mole hill, as I explained in my last post. If Bloom admits that he said it (and I think he did), then he's admitting what we've said all along. The GM bailout was about helping the union and buying votes for democrats with taxpayer money. And if that's not a crime, it really should be.

Um, no.

Even if Bloom does admit to saying this, even the other witnesses indicate it was said as a joke.

This reminds me of the scene from My Cousin Vinny, when the cop is reading the transcript of the interview, intentionally leaving out inflection to make it seem like the kid confessed.

 

[BeAChooser]

When ever I engage with BaC I think back to the thread about the crowd size at Glenn Becks rally. BaC was adamant it was in the billions but after much hard work a number of people were eventually able to convince him to revise his numbers.

First, I never was "adamant it was in the billions" (in fact, I never even suggested the crowd was close to a million).

Second, I appreciate your recognizing that I can be reasonable.

Third, I was only only person on that thread doing actual calculations (the "hard work) of the number of people at the rally (that's what skeptics should do).

And, fourth, no one convinced me … only the eventual results of those calculations did that.

I started with calculation: http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=6281534&postcount=231 . Then as more data came in, revised it: http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=6282688&postcount=290 , http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=6284089&postcount=300 , http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=6284781&postcount=327 . It wasn't until even more data came that I was able to come up with an estimate: http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=6286112&postcount=367 , consistent with the CBS' … and I then stated my willingness to accept their estimate.

And, like I noted in that thread: http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=6288621&postcount=389 , "Now if the folks on your side of the political aisle could admit when they are wrong."

 

[BeAChooser]

If he actually said what your sources claim he said than he's admitting to what you sources claim: That he made a joke.

If he actually said what the sources claim, then he lied under oath.

And if thats a crime

Making a joke is not a crime, but lying under oath is. Or do you wish to redefine "is"?

 

[BenBurch]

But you can't even begin to prove what was actually said, can you?

 

[Upchurch]

Neither you or Bloom have proven that. In fact, the only evidence offered by Biscuit indicates that the author of a book quotes him saying that.

...as a joke. Whoever is saying that he was serious would be misquoting him.

 

[BenBurch]

Can I say that threads that repeat fact-free allegations like this really disgust me?

 

[Biscuit]

If he actually said what the sources claim, then he lied under oath.

Or he didn't recall saying that. Being mistaken is not lying.

Or he never said that and the people claiming he did are mistaken.

Making a joke is not a crime, but lying under oath is. Or do you wish to redefine "is"?

Good one! Lets define "lie" instead.

Lie. Noun: An intentionally false statement. Prove that was intentionally trying to deceive congress. Because in order for this to be a crime thats what would have to happen.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

If he actually said what the sources claim, then he lied under oath.



Making a joke is not a crime, but lying under oath is.

You mean Congress isn't allowed to take context into consideration?

Yeah, right!

(So now, if I later testified that I rejected the proposition that Congress is not allowed to take context into consideration, would I be guilty of perjury? Or would I have to remember that my rejection took the form of sarcasm when I said, "Yeah, right!")

And more importantly, do you think that's how Congress ought treat this sort of testimony?