"Death panels," "bearing false witness," and the death of Sarah Palin's presidential ambitions.
On a conference call with some lefty Christian groups, Obama used the phrase "bearing false witness" to describe those who are intentionally misleading on healthcare.
Now, I don't know if he meant it with the depth that it impacted me, (he may have been trying to speak their lingo,) but it did ring in my head. Those self proclaimed "Christians" who are intentionally deceiving on healthcare are breaking one of the big ten commandments.
And needless to say, foolish professing Christians intentionally lying led me to Sarah Palin.
You know, if she's serious about a presidential run, the multiple "death panel" comments could be a real problem. At some point, (in the theory of a decent press) she is going to have to define whether she was knowingly telling such a huge lie about "death panels" or whether she was so extremely ignorant on a basic and provable element on the most major legislation of the year.
I don't see how either of those answers plays out well for her outside those who already love her. I mean, would you elect a President who lied that far or was that intentionally ignorant?
She did it multiple times.
Now, I don't know if he meant it with the depth that it impacted me, (he may have been trying to speak their lingo,) but it did ring in my head. Those self proclaimed "Christians" who are intentionally deceiving on healthcare are breaking one of the big ten commandments.
And needless to say, foolish professing Christians intentionally lying led me to Sarah Palin.
You know, if she's serious about a presidential run, the multiple "death panel" comments could be a real problem. At some point, (in the theory of a decent press) she is going to have to define whether she was knowingly telling such a huge lie about "death panels" or whether she was so extremely ignorant on a basic and provable element on the most major legislation of the year.
I don't see how either of those answers plays out well for her outside those who already love her. I mean, would you elect a President who lied that far or was that intentionally ignorant?
She did it multiple times.
posted by mikevotes at
7:17 AM
4 Comments:
I think it's actually both, not either/or.
By
zen, at 10:48 AM
I think it is possible that Palin has deluded herself into actually believing that these things are true. Certainly many of her fans have done so. In which case it is ignorant and foolish, but not "false witness" in a Biblical sense.
By
Patrick, at 11:08 AM
Last night I saw (I believe on MSNBC) a summary of who believed what was in the health bills. It was categorizing the information as the percent of the public who believed various specific falsehoods factored by what news source they had. Needless to say, the FOX news folks were the most min-informed about the actual content of the bills. Not surprising but still rather alarming.
By
Anonymous, at 11:12 AM
Zen. Fair argument, but either is difficult to defend in an interview.
...
Patrick, I tend to agree about "false witness," but for some reason when I heard that phrase it seemed to raise the stakes on the liars (considering they claim that strong bible belief.)
It seemed to raise the frame on their mistatements.
So, even if they're ignorant, it's still pretty significant.
...
Anon, that's off that NBC poll.
It's funny how much time they're spending covering what people believe rather than what is actually true, you know?
....
And, just as a blanket statement, I used Palin for this because she's way out there on this, not like the other pres hopefuls, and with her reputation as both misinformed and as a zealot, it leaves her very little wiggle room, especially if it comes back at her when the nation's mood has changed.
By
mikevotes, at 12:33 PM
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