lies and the liars who tell lies

in one of the weirdest kabuki dances ive seen in a long time, the democrats are trying to find every euphemism they can find to say that Blinky et al lied to go to war, without actually saying the L word - and we've got all the hosts on fox and other places trying to get the Dems to say "Yep - we're calling him a liar", but the Dems duck and weave and use terms like 'misled' and 'cherry-picked' and 'removed caveats', 'tinkering with the truth' etc etc. i'm not sure why the Fox crew are trying to get them on record, nor am i sure why the Dems dont wanna go on record with the L word - although i can kinda accept (or at least undersand) the political premise that it might be poor etiquette to call other people liars (despite the fact that a majority of the country now - finally - realises that the egadmin lied).

now we get to the strange bit - ok, so the dems wont say 'bush lied' - but Blinky and cheney and others keep saying 'they are calling us liars' AND they are saying 'they are liars for calling us liars'! odd, right?

the dems wont use the 'liar' term to describe Blinky et al - but the maladminners are happy to say, loudly and often, that the dems are calling them 'liars', and they call the Dems "Liars", for calling them liars! (that sentence probably doesnt quite make much sense, but im sure u get my point)

meanwhile, Bill Kristol says "If the American people really come to a settled belief that Bush lied us into war, his presidency will be over," which is pretty reasonable, but he also says "The lie that Bush lied us into war threatens the Bush presidency in a way no ordinary political charge does. Bush needs to refute it--and to keep on refuting it--for his sake, for the nation's, and for the sake of the truth," (which is really funny)

as im sure you already know, one of the greatest tenets in negotiating (and spinning) is that you never verbalise negative ideas about yourself, even to deny them. "i am not a crook" is a classic example, "i dont beat my wife" is another - so for Blinky et al to yell "they called us liars" is truly amazing - apparently they think they have nothing to lose. if they can convince the public that they arent really liars, then it will rewrite just abuot every book ever written about these thing.