The Post Fact Society of Planet GOP

"The Post Fact Society". This brilliant term was created as far as I know by Farhad Manjoo and brought to my attention by John Gordon's blog entry. Gordon also talks about it here.

Essentially, if you go over the entires of FactCheck.org (among other places) you start to see a pattern in this election. Both candidates spin the facts to their own advantage but, by and large, the crown for bald face lying (and even lying about lying) lies with the McCain campaign.

What is so strange about this for me is that he is running a campaign about character. Both he and Palin are both liars. Yet, it seems to be working.

The lies are right in the heart of the rhetoric the right has been believing for decades. Right from "Reagan was the bestest president ever" to "There really are weapons of mass destruction out there. Honest. Believe me. I'll hold my lips still so you'll know I'm not lying." Since the lies conform to the rhetoric they are taken as gospel truth.

From what I can tell, a lot of the people who are supporting any of the candidates have parked their brain at the door.

For example, in a recent poll, "White women shifted from an eight-point pre-convention edge for Obama to a 12-point McCain advantage now."

What? The sound you hear is my jaw hitting the floor.

I mean, let's think about this. Let's look at Hillary who's interested in universal health care, getting out of Iraq and about as right wing as she is an armadillo. Now, let's look at Palin: creationist woman asking people to pray for her gas pipeline and thinks the war in Iraq is a task sent down by God. (Don't take my word for it. She said it herself. See here and here.)

Now, anyone who has an IQ over that of the average asperagus can see these are two completely different political points of view. It's clear which one I'm in favor of but that's not the point. This is every bit as different as Obama and McCain.

So, this means one of two things:

1) The voting constituencies that shifted never listened to either candidate
2) The voting constituencies that shifted didn't care what the candidate said or stood for. It's a woman and I'm voting for her.

In either case, the facts make no difference.

It gets even worse. The Bush campaign in 2000 was a diabolically brilliant network of lies and deception. The 2004 campaign was even more brilliant-- who would have thought that winning a medal in Viet Nam could become a liability? As articulated in South Park: When Hell wants something done in the living world it does what it has always done. It uses the Republicans.

But the lies coming out of the McCain/Palin ticket are silly lies. False on the face of it. Able to be shown as lies by the merest of efforts. Not even credible to the most casual of observers. And that's just the ones they say about themselves. The ones they say about Obama are real whoppers.

Yet, people believe them. Swallow them quicker than a brookie for a dry fly.

I don't have a problem with McCain/Palin's political views. I don't subscribe to them but so what? I have my own reasons for going with Obama and they don't involve color.

But these shenanigans make me realize for the first time the scale of the problem those of us that attempt rational thought have to confront.

It's why the Discovery Institute is so successful in convincing hearts and fails so miserably in a court of law. Hearts are won by faith and love. But you need to be able to actually think to win a court case or write a scientific paper.

The Republicans like to create myths of their recent heroes. Reagan, instead of being saved from being responsible for truly impeachable offenses by suffering from Alzheimer's, is the great president all subsequent presidents should emulate. Bush the First, though nasty as hell, actually proved himself capable of pulling together a real coalition of the willing and deserves far more praise than his bumbling predecessor. His son, however, created a coalition of the copted and got us trapped in a war that sure didn't look like Viet Nam when he started. That didn't stop him. He made it into one anyway.

Myths don't need facts to support them.

You can't say from the campaign whether a candidate will be a good president or not. What you can say about presidential politics is they show the character of the candidates and that will inform the style of the presidency. Whatever they do in office will reflect the character of how they campaigned.

Eisenhower had a fairly formal but low key campaign and had a similar presidency.

Kennedy was rougher on his opponents and was all about looking graceful when he threw the sucker punch. That's they way he governed.

Johnson wanted to be everybody's Good Ole Boy. Didn't work very well.

Nixon-- well, you get what you pay for.

Carter campaigned on moral authority. But it didn't play well for him in the White House.

Reagan campaigned on gentility. He slept through most of his presidency.

Bush the First was every bit as nasty as Nixon. He started the current pattern of sleazy lying of Republican campaigns. Well, he lied. But he lied well.

Carter was slick willie and he was (I hear) hung for it.

Bush lies every time he opens his mouth. Once president, he tried to make everybody else lie like he did. Or at least spout the same lies. Poor Powell. He was torn to pieces trying to manage it.

Now: Instead of a president that spins, do you want a president who is so two faced he'll create lies that insult your intelligence?

Well, 47% of you do.
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Links of Interest
DIY for Mad Scientists
Panspermia
The Triassic Marine Reptiles
Carnival of Space
Squirrel Smasher
Democrats, Lighten Up
Wonderkammering again
Plastic Logic
Container Based Computing
The Sleeping of Elephants. And others.
Possible Breast Cancer Vaccine
Hacking the Big Bang Machine
Creationism in Britain
Gasp! Republicans Don't Like Media to Question Palin