New Color Coded System

Since the color coded terror system has worked so well I want to propose one for lying.

Puce for outright, indefensible lies.
Grey for lies of omission, where you tell part of the story but leave the "bad" stuff out.
Charcoal for slight obfuscations.


Let's, once again, look at this weekend's Meet the Press.

Mary Matalin was on and she had this to say about the nomination of John Bolton:

The people who're coming out of the woodwork are avowed, outspoken Bush bashers. The woman that came out of Texas who was chased down the hall, allegedly, which there's no other contemporaneous witnesses, is Mothers Against Bush. See, these are Bush bashers. These are against Bush policies. They're not against the whole policy.

Now, is she in the puce zone or the gray zone?. Carl Ford, who came out strongly against Mr. Bolton in the committee hearing is a conservative Republican who supports President Bush. So, Ms. Mattlin didn't say "all" people against Mr. Bolton are Bush Bashers so is she in the clear? I think not. Did Mr. Russert follow up? Of course not.

Ms. Matalin had a couple of interesting things to say about judges:

...but that the secular left has behaved imperialistically--there's no other word for it. They have subverted the democratic process by taking their issues to the judiciary. What the so-called religious right has done has taken their petition and their concerns into the democratic process, into the public square.

Really? 2000 Election come to mind for anyone? Or the fact that the Republicans tried to overrule the courts' decisions on Terri Schiavo? The courts were not activist enough for the Republicans. And, really, what issue are we, the secular left, taking to the judiciary? I suppose the big one is Roe v Wade but that was over thirty years ago. Separation of church and state? Maybe, I'll grant you that, but I don't have an issue with it. I understand if you do but not everyone is Christian so perhaps a little compassion for the Jewish kid who would be sitting down when everyone else in class is praying to Jesus would help.

She went on to say:

If they want to debate these judges, the qualifications of these judges, all of whom have received the "gold standard," according to the Democrats, the highest regard from the ABA.

So, the Democrats are saying that ALL of the judges have received the gold standard. Really? Now, is she saying they've all be ranked well qualified? No, she uses the term gold standard and she does say the highest regard from the ABA. As mentioned in a previous post...that is an outright lie. I'm going to rank this one as puce.

I wrote Mr. Russert an email asking him to please push people to tell the truth.

I'll let you know how that works out.