Re: [MLUG - DISCUSSION] is it possible to define "a lie"?

[Stephen Montgomery-Smith <EMAIL:PROTECTED>]

Mike Miller wrote:
> On Thu, 1 Mar 2007, Stephen Montgomery-Smith wrote:
>
> > > You should try to see the big picture too.  Why does O'Reilly often 
> > > claim that he is not a registered Republican?  I mean, why mention 
> > > it? Why does he often say that he opposes the death penalty?  Why is 
> > > that important?
> >
> >
> > All I said is that he screwed the pooch.
> >
> > But look, if you are simply trying to say that O'Reilly is trying to 
> > project a certain image to certain people, that doesn't necessarily 
> > reflect entirely accurately who he really is, I have already admitted 
> > to that possibility.  I called it "him not being quite the totally up 
> > front guy he claims to be."
>
>
> Another way to put it is that he is trying to deceive his viewers about 
> who he really is.  He claims that he is an independent thinker, not 
> ideological, "no spin," so when he sides with the Republicans over and 
> over and over and over again, it is because the Republicans seem to an 
> objective observer to be correct.  As evidence that he is not simply a 
> Republican ideologue masquerading as an objective and independent 
> observer he makes claims such as "I am not registered as a Republican," 
> or "I oppose the death penalty."
>
> So you look into it and you find the he is "not being quite the totally 
> up front guy he claims to be" which is euphemistic for "O'Reilly's 
> persona is all a charade," or even "O'Reilly seems to be a liar."

Yes, but a great many people engage in this kind of deception about who 
they really are, and many of them do so unconsciously, even to the point 
of self-deception.  It is by no means clear to me that O'Reilly does 
this on purpose.  It is rather like bias in the media - it is quite 
likely that at least some of it is there by mistake.

I am sure that some people do it in a cold calculating fashion, and 
others don't.  But which O'Reilly does is hard to say.

But it is also, to some extent, immaterial.  Really the proper way to 
assess O'Reilly is to listen to the message, and analyse that, not to 
try to analyse the messenger.

--

Stephen Montgomery-Smith
EMAIL:PROTECTED
http://www.math.missouri.edu/~stephen

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