by Jerry Richardson

Lanny Davis, liberal, Democrat, former Clinton defense attorney, and long-time, Clinton apologist, weighed in (9/15/09) on the Joe Wilson "You Lie" controversy.

In case you haven't heard about the controversy, during President Obama's recent address to a joint session of Congress, Obama made the following statement:

“There are those who claim that our reform efforts would insure illegal immigrants. This, too, is false. The reforms I’m proposing would not apply to those who are here illegally.”

– Reference (1) at bottom.

Immediately, Congressman Joe Wilson (R-SC) shouted from the floor, “You lie”.

Lawyer Davis makes two excellent points in his article that I am in total agreement with:  First,  "Lying requires intentional deception—not accidental or careless falsehoods."  I think most rational people understand this and agree.  It is the intentional part of any statement that can cause it to be a lie.

Second, Lawyer Davis points out that Democrats were guilty of this during the Bush administration:

"Yet many Democrats repeated over and over that former President Bush was a "liar" and continue to do so to this day. They failed to make the same distinction as did Mr. Wilson: the difference between intentional vs. non-intentional deception."  – Reference (1) at bottom.

Davis then asserts that there is no evident of lying – one wonders how Davis knows this – then discusses the possibly of Obama being mistaken:

“There is no evidence that Mr. Obama believed this statement to be untrue — which would make it a lie.

However, the irony is that Mr. Wilson would have been reasonable in saying (after the speech — not shouting from the floor) that Mr. Obama’s statement on Wednesday night speech was not entirely accurate or, at least, was ambiguous or incomplete.

As Declan McCullagh wrote on CBSNews.com, if Mr. Obama were referring to the only comprehensive health care bill that has yet passed the congress — House Bill H.R. 3200 — then his statement could reasonably be said to be not entirely accurate.” – Reference (1) at bottom.

 Contrary to Lawyer Davis' no-evidence assertion, Congressman Joe Wilson probably based his shout on the following, and on the reasonable assumption that Obama knew this:

“...H.R. 3200 does not explicitly pay for health benefits for illegal immigrants. It never has, and no one has ever said that it did. The issue is enforcement and the provisions in H.R. 3200 are completely inadequate to ensure that illegal immigrants do not illegally obtain health care through the bill. In the House Ways and Means mark up of H.R. 3200, Rep. Dean Heller (R-NV) introduced an amendment that would use two citizenship status verification systems, the Income and Eligibility Verification System (IEVS) and Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) programs, to establish an individual’s eligibility to obtain the bill’s proposed affordability credits or enroll in the public insurance option. Both programs are currently used to determine citizenship status and eligibility for other public assistance programs. The Heller amendment failed on a straight party-line vote [Dems opposed].”

 – Reference (2) at bottom.

Davis, being the consummate lawyer, is absolutely correct in his analysis of the difference between a mistake and a lie.  But, virtually ever scoundrel in history, when caught red-handed in an impossible-to-believe untruth has used the mistake-ploy: So I made a mistake, modern version, I misspoke.  And, of course, there is no way ever to absolutely prove a person's intention, unless the person tells you their intention.  We cannot read minds.  So, in real life, as in a court-of-law, intention has to be inferred. 

The realistic issue in dealing with the question of Barack Obama's truthfulness is:  How many mistakes and especially very evident mistakes does Obama get to make before we justifiably infer that he lies, often?  How many supposed non-intentional deceptions from Obama do we have to excuse before we justifiably infer that his deceptions are intentional, hence lies?

How many political promises does Obama get to break before we justifiably conclude that he either intentionally makes promises which he does not intend to keep; or that he is unacceptably irresponsible in promising actions for which he has no substantial plan?

The standard used for evidence in a criminal court of law is beyond a reasonable doubt.  But is a court standard the proper standard, outside of court, in an evaluation of the truthfulness of Barack Obama?

Perhaps, but which court standard?

There are three standards of evidence in law: 1) Preponderance of evidence, 2) Clear and convincing evidence, and 3) Beyond a reasonable doubt. Each of these standards carries a higher burden of proof than the preceding one.

Preponderance of evidence (based upon the credibility not the amount of evidence) is the standard most often used in civil court cases. The definition of this standard is somewhat vague but is described in words equivalent to  “enough evidence to make it more likely than not that the fact the claimant seeks to prove is true.” 

– Reference (3) at bottom,

What would be the minimum necessary conditions to count for evidence relative to a possible Obama lie, if Preponderance of evidence is used as the standard?  First, that the statement Obama made was not substantially the truth.  Joe Wilson knew that it wasn't and Lawyer Davis discusses this possibility:

“...Mr. Wilson would have been reasonable in saying (after the speech — not shouting from the floor) that Mr. Obama’s statement on Wednesday night speech was not entirely accurate or, at least, was ambiguous or incomplete.”  ­-- Reference (1) at bottom.    

Second, that Obama has displayed a pattern of making multiple untrue (incorrect and misleading) statements, especially about the same topic, healthcare.  Given an untrue statement,  and given that Obama has indeed established a record of making multiple incorrect, inaccurate, and misleading statements concerning healthcare, it is not unreasonable to conclude via preponderance of evidence that Obama was lying.  In fact, it is the most reasonable conclusion.  – Reference (3) at bottom.

Lawyer Davis seems to want to impose the highest court-standard of evidence on any critic of Obama.   This would make it virtually impossible to ever identify as a lie, a statement that very likely is a lie.    The standard that Davis seems to want to impose is the following, I'll label it

The Davis rule of evidence:

Because it is virtually impossible to distinguish the difference between a mistake and a lie, a person should never label a statement a lie unless it is admitted to be a lie.

I don't believe that we should feel obligated to abide by the Davis rule of evidence: and hence allow a consummate, Alinsky-trained-community-agitator, such as Barack Obama to get away with multiple falsehoods simply because we cannot prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that for a given single statement, Obama knew, before he made the statement, that it was false.   

This situation reminds me of the fable of Chicken Little (the sky is falling fable). 

CHICKEN LITTLE

Chicken Little always had his lunch under an acorn tree (maybe an ACORN tree).  One day during lunch, an acorn fell and hit him on the head.  Ignoring reality, Chicken Little ran about screaming “the sky is falling, the sky is falling”.  All the other animals panicked and ran to their barns so as not to be hit by pieces of falling sky. 

After a while, the animals peeked out of their barns and saw that the sky was not falling.  They overlooked this mistake of Chicken Little, reasoning that it must have been an honest mistake.  After all, everyone makes mistakes.  In a few days Chicken Little, during his lunch, was again hit on the head by a falling acorn.  Ignoring reality again, he ran around screaming “the sky is falling, the sky is falling”.  Once again all the other animals panicked and made mad dashes for their barns so as not to be hit by a piece of falling sky.  After a few minutes the animals peeked out and saw that the sky was not falling.

When a third acorn hit Chicken Little on the head, and he again ignored reality, and ran around screaming, “The sky is falling, the sky is falling”, none of the other animals paid any attention to him, none of them ran for their barns.  Did they believe that Chicken Little had lied, or that he had just been repeatedly mistaken?  It really didn't matter, the other animals had decided to pay no more attention to Chicken Little if he screamed “the sky is falling, “the sky is falling.”  Unfortunately, they also paid no attention to Chicken Little's screams, on the night that a hungry fox invaded the chicken house and dragged away Chicken Little and ate him for supper.

Moral of the story: If you mislead people often enough, they won't worry too much about proving that you are a liar, they will just discount what you say.

FOOTNOTES:

(1) Right and Left Need to Understand Meaning of 'You Lie'

(2) Obama Speech Fact Check

(3)  Law Encyclopedia: Preponderance of Evidence