Two Down -- Two to Go

Two down and two to go.  Debates, that is.  This last one with VP Joe Biden and Congressman Paul Ryan was pretty interesting.  Since I am not a debate aficionado I hesitate to judge who was the winner based on style, manner of presentation, etc., but I do know a lie when I hear one.  I’m not talking here about incorrect statements such as Biden’s when he commented that Ryan had written two letters asking for stimulus funds.  According to The Huffington Post, Ryan had actually written four.  A goof like this has no bearing on the point Biden was trying to make, nor did it change the direction of the discussion.  An incorrect statement, yes.  A lie, no. 

What is a lie is when Ryan started throwing all sorts of numbers around over taxes and who would pay what.  I learned years ago in politics that when someone does that, almost invariably they are trying to obfuscate what is being said.  Most people concentrate on the numbers and don’t hear the words.  Since I am terrible at numbers I don’t listen to them, but concentrate on the words.  My, oh, my.  What one can hear!!  Or when Ryan tried to state that some budget plan of his had bi-partisan support because Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon supported it.  Even I knew that Wyden had withdrawn his support.  For Ryan to say that plan had bipartisan support was a lie.

I really wish lying were a major part of calculating who had won a debate and who hadn’t.  The pundits could say, “It appears that so and so has won this debate, but we haven’t heard from the fact checkers yet, and when we do we’ll reevaluate our opinion and let you know”.  The fact checkers, of course, will have to have some criteria such as that which I have outlined above in order to keep goofs and gaffes from being called downright lies.  But that shouldn’t be hard to craft.

This next debate should be a humdinger!