Even if she didn't know that what she was saying was false, she also didn't KNOW that what she was saying was true.

To then make a statement on something you don't know about as if you did is another kind of lying -- particularly in the context she was speaking in. This is akin to the lies Bush told about Iraq.

Here's an example: my boss just asked me a question about some numbers in a report we did and I don't know recall what the answer is. If I then tell my boss the answer is X and it turns out I'm wrong, he has every right to ask me what the hell are you doing tell me X when you don't know?

There is something called the ethics of belief, famously summarized by William Clifford as, "It is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence." Clearly, since the evidence, as Glenn laid out, is so uniformly opposed to her claim there is no way she cold have done due diligence before making that claim on national tv.

Don't go on national tv and attack a presidential candidate citing some "fact" unless you have good reason to do so. Its fine if you make an occasional mistake (as long as those mistakes don't always work against one side *cough anti-Democratic bias cough*) because you simply misremembered someting or if the facts are unclear and you can make a case either way.

But in Liasson's case the facts all point in the opposite direction. This is not misremembering or misinterpreting murky data. Liasson was just talking out of her ass while she launched an attack on a Democratic presidential candidate. All the media whores should be EXTRA EXTRA careful not to lie about Democratic presidential candidates given the way they slandered Al Gore and handed the White House to the most disastrous president in American history.

Obama sold out on FISA in order to take the UNPOPULAR position. That is not only craven, it is stupid. The ACLU did a poll, conducted by Steny Hoyer's pollster, that shows that voters across party lines oppose the contents of this FISA bill.

If Obama wasn't a pussy he'd be attacking McCain on FISA not capitulating like a coward. I'm afraid that Obama simply doesn't have the stones to beat the Republican noise machine. All of his frightened "centrism" (center my ass) is so much ammunition that he could use to go on offense that he is just throwing away.

Note to all of you deluded centrists who think you are realists: the model of running away from your base and being frightened of the opposition that you always tout is precisely the opposite of what led to the Republican party's incredible success over the last 30 years. You people are not only unprincipled cowards -- you're incompetent Machiavellians.

From Reuters: "But Obama said he wanted his supporters to know that although he might not agree with each of them on every issue, when he differs it is not because he is playing politics."

I call bullshit on Obama.

I lost all respect for my party yesterday.

Obama will not get one thin dime from me, and he'll be mighty goddamned lucky if he even gets my vote.

jebbie said, 'If you place more value in your money than in your vote, you should immediately go register with the Republican Party. Shooter will welcome you with open arms and closed checkbook."

Bite me, moron. You got it precisely backwards, dumbass. I MAY not -- and I emphasize MAY -- not withhold my vote from that little pussy, Obama, and only because McCain is obviously much worse. But all I can say about two assholes that sell out the Constitution is that they're BOTH assholes. The point is that I value my vote much MORE, you friggin' idiot. I may decide that its worth sending a message with my money but that the vote is too important to withhold.

But you know what? I'm beginning to care less and less who wins. Fuck all of these little pussies.

In any game, if one of the players doesn't have to follow the rules then you have what is known as a rigged game. Politics in America for the last 30 years has been a rigged game. The concept of the rule of law itself isa great example. When Clinton was president, Republicans lined up in the Capitol to lecture the rest of us on the profound importance of the rule of law, and to claim that this is why they were impeaching Clinton. Of course, now that a Republican is president, neither Republicans nor the media give a shit about the rue of law. On the other hand, neither does Barack Obama or half the Democratic "leadership" (a term which can only be used in scare quotes).

On as side note, the phrase, "criminalizing differences in policy" has become essentially a term of art. It first was used as an excuse, as far as I know, during Iran-Contra. It was just as much a load of crap then as it is now.

Question: aren't lefty magazines supposed to "satirize" the, uh, right?

Its a Nixon going to China thing, Gary. The New Yorker cover is a caricature. Caricature is when you unrealistically exaggerate real characteristics. If even the liberal New Yorker 1) chooses to caricature Obama and 2) caricatures the same kind of things the right would, then it must be the case that Obama is deserving of being attacked by the left and it must be because there is a telling grain of truth in what they depict.