Stupid Lies - Other than Trump

[Seriati]

Given how many threads we've had dedicated to Trump, thought it might be interesting to catch some of the silly ones that other people tell from time to time.  We could have pulled Warren's claims in real time, but they are a bit stale now.  AOC pretty much spouts nonsense daily, but - much like I said with George Bush - being wrong is not the same thing as telling a lie.  But this one made me laugh.  Sort of in the field of "self owns."

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/kamala-harris-says-she-listened-to-snoop-dogg-tupac-while-smoking-weed-in-college-years-before-they-made-music

Not a major issue to me, just the kind of silly lie politicians routinely tell to try and build a connection with common people.  I seriously doubt they'll make a federal case out it.

[TheDrake]

That's a funny one. Before I clicked through on the link, I tried to remember when I listened to doggystyle. I would have sworn I listened to it in college, but I graduated in 93. I also pictured it being on cassette tape, for some reason. I had certainly stopped listening to cassette tapes by that time.

I think if I were a politician, I'd have to dodge any question about music, or be forced to live in John Kerry's shoes. I believe I'd give Trump a pass if he screwed up someone's discography, but he'd probably have memes made out of it anyway.

It sure would be funny if she was also lying about smoking weed.

[TheDrake]

Zuckerberg Lies to Congress

[LetterRip]

Seriati,

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/kamala-harris-says-she-listened-to-snoop-dogg-tupac-while-smoking-weed-in-college-years-before-they-made-music

Stuff like this is almost never a lie.  It is simply the unreliable nature of memory.  She almost certainly believed that she was listening to those artists at that time - in all likelihood her brain simply merged memories from that time period with later memories where she was listening to those songs and smoking pot.

Our brains change each memory whenever we access it; amalgamates memories together; sometimes we remember stories of others (including stories from reading fiction and watching movies) as our own; even dreams can be 'remembered' as real, etc.

[Seriati]

That's very charitable of you, it may even be true, however, it's not the standard that ever applies the other way.  Do you agree, that it's also very common for politicians to tell stories that they think make them more relatable to their audience without being overly concerned whether they actually happened to them?

I can't for one second imagine that I could give an honest answer to a question about the music I listened to at any party in college (other than one but only because I remember the name of the band).  But I wouldn't feel compelled to put a name on them either.  So why did she?  Because it sold a story that she wanted to tell.

I mean, this is very long in the tooth, but remember this one?  https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-2000-09-19-0009190269-story.html  Gore clearly pulled research into the "personal" story that made it verifiably wrong.  Why?  Cause it was a good story.  Was a true story where he fudged the details (easier to get the amounts from Dem research than to remember the personal details), or just a personalization of a story that he wanted to pitch?

[TheDrake]

T-Bone then became a regular in Booker's anecdotes. "I said hello to this guy and I'll never forget he leaped off the steps where he was standing and looked at me and threatened my life," Booker said during a speech at The New School in New York in 2007, not long after he was elected mayor of Newark, according to the New Jersey Star-Ledger. "I later got to know this guy and his name was T-Bone and I'm a vegetarian so that was a particularly vicious threat."

Ah, yeah

The validity of Booker's T-Bone story was questioned in 2013, when he ran for Senate. That's because no one had ever heard of a drug dealer in Newark who went by that name. In August of that year, National Review spoke to Clement Price, a history professor and friend of Booker who claimed the then-Senate candidate admitted to him in 2008 that T-Bone was not real. Rather, he was a "composite" of various people Booker knew in Newark. "Cory realized that he had erred," Price added to the Star-Ledger. "He told me that my criticism of his invention of T-Bone made perfect sense to him and he had made a mistake."

[LetterRip]

That's very charitable of you, it may even be true, however, it's not the standard that ever applies the other way.

I'm fairly universal in this standard.  I almost never call anything a lie that could be a legitimate trick of memory and have frequently called out others calling things "lies" that probably aren't.

Do you agree, that it's also very common for politicians to tell stories that they think make them more relatable to their audience without being overly concerned whether they actually happened to them?

This isn't universal, but certainly happens.

I can't for one second imagine that I could give an honest answer to a question about the music I listened to at any party in college (other than one but only because I remember the name of the band).  But I wouldn't feel compelled to put a name on them either.  So why did she?  Because it sold a story that she wanted to tell.

So you appear to have not listened to the interview and taken your sources at face value - and I wrongfully assumed they were accurately reporting what happened. I should have checked your source, which I just did. 

The smoking dope and listening to music were two separate questions.  She was being asked about her music tastes by a DJ.

Charlamagne tha God, one of the show’s hosts, asked Ms. Harris if she had ever smoked marijuana herself — a question presidential candidates have long been loath to answer. Ms. Harris confidently said she had, adding, “and I did inhale.”

“It was a long time ago,” Ms. Harris said, laughing.

Later in the interview, Ms. Harris was asked about her taste in music. She has previously named California artists like Tupac and Snoop Dogg among her favorites.

“What does Kamala Harris listen to?” asked D.J. Envy, another one of the show’s hosts.

Before Ms. Harris answered the question, Charlamagne tha God interjected, asking her to say what she listened to while she smoked in college. Everyone laughed, before D.J. Envy appeared to return to his original question.

“Was it Snoop?” he asked.

“Oh yeah, definitely Snoop,” Ms. Harris said. “Tupac for sure.”

Chaos ensued. The viral tweet pointed out that Snoop Dogg and Tupac did not debut until Ms. Harris had left college. Then music blogs and conservative outlets begin to write up the exchange. However, several of them omitted the fact that D.J. Envy had asked Ms. Harris more generally about her music opinions, a key portion in the exchange that makes it unclear whose question Ms. Harris was responding to.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/13/us/politics/kamala-harris-snoop-tupac.html

[Seriati]

I'd be happy to listen to the clip if you know where in the 42 minute video that the NY Times linked to the relevant clip plays.

I note that what you quoted supports the original narrative except for this "editorial comment" "before D.J. Envy appeared to return to his original question."  I see no reason basis for that comment.  He could just as easily have been following onto Charlamagne tha God's comment, which is how many who heard it took it.  Why do you believe an editorial comment, that's clearly there to push a narrative?

[TheDrake]

I think the more interesting thing in that context is that he was the one who prompted "Snoop" in the first place. I'm not going to subscribe to NYT and cue to the right area to hear the tone of voice, it simply isn't that important.