The David Kilcullen Collection (merged thread)

[jlechelt]

misuse of the term lie. ... For example a mistake is not a lie. ... Changing ones mind is also not a lie. A statement of present intentions is just that and if you change your mind, your original statement was still not a lie.

Agreed. There is much misuse of the term lie. Also, mistakes and the changing of minds are not lies. However, the two points I made regarding President Bush were not examples of mistakes and mind-changing.
First, President Bush was already considering changing his Secretary of Defense when he stated clearly that he had no intention of changing his Secretary of Defense. Read the transcript of President Bush's post-election press conference: he even explained why he said he was going to keep him when he knew he wasn't going to.
Second, when he stated just before the election "absolutely we're winning," and then flip-flopped immediately after the election and stated that "we aren't winning, we aren't losing," there was no real-world event that hit the US war effort in such a way that would have magically brought about a changing of the presidential mind. The US situation in Iraq was the same when he made both statements.
Perhaps you can offer an explanation for why he lied. Maybe you think the lies were justifiable. Elections are important events, and I'm sure he felt the nation was better served with the GOP still in control of Congress. And so, towards those ends, he felt the lies were justifiable. But none of those factors make the lies he told anything other than lies; a reasonable person cannot claim that both examples were not lies.
I don't want to harp on these points. The lies were not the worst things that ever happened. And all reasonable people can agree that all presidents and political leaders have lied at some point. (Who among us would claim he or she never told a lie?) However, it amazes me that people have a tough time admitting this simple fact. So lets get back to the mind-changing experiences and mistakes at hand.

Perhaps it is because I have prosecuted fraud cases and other cases involving false statements, that these kind of arguments bother me so much. But, they really distract from the substance of the debate we should be having on policy.

Indeed these arguments distract from the larger discussions of the mistakes made in this war. So admit to reality and let's move on.

BTW, Bill Clinton's intentionally false statements were not just about a personal matter. They were about an attempt to deny a plaintiff in a sexual harassment case a fair trial. Defendants in cases are not allowed to lie to avoid responsibility for their conduct. That is why the court held him in contempt.

Bill Clinton's intentionally false statements were indeed about a personal matter. That personal matter ALSO had to do with accusations of sexual harassment. Charges of sexual harassment, mind you, that were never proven. That doesn't justify lying under oath, but it's a far cry from the problems we now encounter in the world.