Political Junky
Gold Member
- May 27, 2009
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In their pursuit to put down President Obama, the GOP has made themselves look like fools.
Republicans Lie About Obama's Fourth of July Plans | The Philly Post
Heres a fun question to ask about the Republicans who spent the weekend spreading lies that Barack Obama was going to spend Independence Day raising campaign cash in Paris: Are they dumb, or evil?
Me, Im betting on both.
The case for dumb starts with Andrew McCarthy, a lawyer and writer for National Review magazine. On Saturday morning, he posted a one-sentence item to the magazines blog saying that President Obama would spend July 4th in France on a fund-raising trip.
That was flatly untrue: AP had already reported on Friday that the President would spend the holiday at the White House at a barbecue for military families. The real story sounds really patriotic; the false story sounds really unpatriotic. So of course, McCarthy believed the false story.
In fairness to McCarthy, it was easy to understand his confusion. His blog post linked to an ambiguously worded item at Breitbart.com that noted Obamas campaign would be raising cash from American expatriates in Francethat may be the only place where Obama can still find cheering throngs. Its not difficult to see how that could be misreadothers did sobut McCarthy had National Reviews megaphone to make his mistake more loudly.
So why do I think McCarthy was dumb to publish the blog post?
Because he was far too willing to assume the worst about President Obama. He didnt stop and apply a political Occams razor to the situation: Theres no presidentnot even this onewhose political instincts are so awful that hed spend the countrys No. 1 holiday in France, grubbing for money. You dont have to be an Obama fan to realize the president isnt that stupid.
If McCarthy had given the matter five seconds thought, he mightve done a quick Google search to verify the Breitbart report. Instead, he published the falsehood.
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Republicans Lie About Obama's Fourth of July Plans | The Philly Post
Heres a fun question to ask about the Republicans who spent the weekend spreading lies that Barack Obama was going to spend Independence Day raising campaign cash in Paris: Are they dumb, or evil?
Me, Im betting on both.
The case for dumb starts with Andrew McCarthy, a lawyer and writer for National Review magazine. On Saturday morning, he posted a one-sentence item to the magazines blog saying that President Obama would spend July 4th in France on a fund-raising trip.
That was flatly untrue: AP had already reported on Friday that the President would spend the holiday at the White House at a barbecue for military families. The real story sounds really patriotic; the false story sounds really unpatriotic. So of course, McCarthy believed the false story.
In fairness to McCarthy, it was easy to understand his confusion. His blog post linked to an ambiguously worded item at Breitbart.com that noted Obamas campaign would be raising cash from American expatriates in Francethat may be the only place where Obama can still find cheering throngs. Its not difficult to see how that could be misreadothers did sobut McCarthy had National Reviews megaphone to make his mistake more loudly.
So why do I think McCarthy was dumb to publish the blog post?
Because he was far too willing to assume the worst about President Obama. He didnt stop and apply a political Occams razor to the situation: Theres no presidentnot even this onewhose political instincts are so awful that hed spend the countrys No. 1 holiday in France, grubbing for money. You dont have to be an Obama fan to realize the president isnt that stupid.
If McCarthy had given the matter five seconds thought, he mightve done a quick Google search to verify the Breitbart report. Instead, he published the falsehood.
<more>