No one had the guts to confront the naked emperor because he also has access to your phone, medical and email records.

Job security? Yeah. Bush style...

Could it be that these people either actually believe their lies or get off on believing that they have pulled one over on everyone.

• Them believing their own lies is probably unavoidable on some level after repeating the same bullshit so many times AND surrounding themselves with other people hypnotized by the crap...
• Pulling something over on people, especially something as brazen and reckless as the 'great bush lie' has to be quite thrilling...

The fact that their own bullshit isn't absorbed by the 'average American' isn't so shocking because they are the ones force fed on the diet of total bullshit. Other people, the rest of us (mostly us?), have better taste and can smell a fraud at twenty paces.

In logical terms, the statement reads: "Liasson said that Americans don't want A, but rather, want A only if B."

A = withdrawing troops

B = "conditions on the ground" warrant it

Polls conclusively show that Americans want A - not "A only if B."

That is an inaccurate abstraction of what you originally wrote. In logical terms, the statement reads: Liasson said that Americans don't want A but rather want B.

A = "to withdraw troops from Iraq within 16 months"

B = "withdrawal only when 'facts on the ground' permit it"

A and B are too different kinds of withdrawal: A is withdrawal in 16 months; B is withdrawal only when "facts on the ground" permit it. The polls do not conclusively show that Americans want A and do not want B. The polling data are ambiguous and equivocal, making the possibility that Americans want both A and B a plausible reading. What will happen if Americans come to believe that they cannot have both A and B at the same time is unclear from the current polling data.

Apologies, you're right. I was actually assuming that Obama will cave on his Iraq policy. THat's not fair, at all. But I expect it to happen anyway.

He allegedly has no clothes.

And why do these facts and conditions on the ground keep reminding me of certain allegedly illegal settlements?

But I have less fear of taking the gop on. I play by their rules and use their tactics against them. I like to put those reading this in their place, and fear in their heart. So they can see what it's been like for us to fear the last 8 years.

I want to apply the same rules to them, as they apply to us. Like I would like to apply the same standards to mr greenwald, as he applies to keith olberman. fox/rush to the gop. Yin and yang. Cause and effect. balance. i have differant goals than carol. But she is a genius, so they say ;)

My guess is that Liasson probably feels that wildly asserting things to be true when she's just guessing (after wilfully keeping herself ignorant) counts as truth telling, comparatively, because she decided to throw in her professional lot with people who tell blatant whoppers like this for a living:

HUME: But is [Obama] on the verge of changing on his long-stated promise that says, "The mission is to get out and I'll have them all out, all the forces out, in 16 months?"

As Hume certainly knows full well - and as Liassan, meekly acquiescing in the lie in order to build her little sandcastles on top of it, knows full well, Obama has never said "all the forces out". He has been scrupulous in always saying "all the combat forces out."

When lies are the air you have chosen to breathe, how can you be expected to notice when mere falsehoods slip out of your mouth from time to time?

Omitting this gratuitous closing does not impact on the essential meaning or purport of Olbermann's statement, which is intended to convey that Keith is stooping to swat at a mosquito with a flyswatter borrowed from a true and noble Legal Eagle.

At least in the eye of this beholder.

Yes, and as soon as someone pointed out that it should be included because they thought it changed the meaning, I edited the post and included it, even though, to me, it didn't change the meaning at all and, in any event, was nothing more than a side quote to give the flavor for his commentary.

By contrast, the bolded part of this: "So Liasson just flatly stated that 'the American people' . . . . don't want to withdraw troops from Iraq within 16 months but instead favor withdrawal only when 'facts on the ground' permit it" is obviously critical to the meaning of the statement, since it's the bolded part that makes Liasson's statement so patently false.

In logical terms, the statement reads: "Liasson said that Americans don't want A, but rather, want A only if B."

A = withdrawing troops

B = "conditions on the ground" warrant it

Polls conclusively show that Americans want A - not "A only if B."

Leaving off the "but rather" clause -- as Carol Richard did -- changes the meaning fundamentally.

"@ Carol

Olbermann

Are you really just rufus11, with access to a shift key?

-- SusanMc "

I talk about relvant pertaining issues. i could care less about high school gossip. And back and forth between tv web personalities, and website journalists and bloggers. I just do me. I can't help if people follow my lead.

Whenever the pundit class refers to what Americans believe it is understood as the Americans that "matter". Since the word "matter" is inadvertently, but often, left out it leads to the confusion Glenn mentions in his post.

While it is possible to think of this as a problem with semantics, I feel that the problem is one of perspective. There is the perspective of the self-proclaimed aristocracy and then there is the perspective of the soiled masses; one cannot exist without the other.

Responsibility for the unseemly masses being uniformed is their own and should not be thought of having a relationship to the aristocrats, because that would require integrity among the aristocrats. Who has time for integrity in our busy world? People who matter understand that it was necessary to throw integrity under the bus for over paid salaries. Understanding this is the essence of being realistic. It is always better to be thought of as a realist rather than a sycophant.

Is it the fault of aristocrats that the profusely sweating masses do not keep up with current trends in personal hygiene? Only the unkempt masses on the left would attempt to shift the responsibility to those aristocrats whose mission is to entertain not to inform the unclean masses.

I hope that this comment brings clarity to some of the uninformed among the unwashed masses.