Is Kerry lying because he is nervous?

Sen. John Kerry Has Hillary Jitters

Apparently Sen. John Kerry is getting nervous about the avalanche of polls showing that his colleague, Sen. Hillary Clinton, is the overwhelming favorite for next year's Democratic presidential nomination.

So much so that during last night's "America Rocks the Vote" debate in Boston, Kerry cited what turned out to be a phantom poll showing him ahead of Clinton.
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Without missing a beat Kerry shot back, "Well, it all depends on which poll you look at. I saw a poll the other day that showed me about 15 points ahead of her."
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Kerry staffers, however, were unable to produce any evidence to back their boss's claim.

edited to add nonbiased source for quote:
Debate Transcript

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It is interesting and a bit perplexing that he would lie about this. There is no reason to fear Hillary because she would need to get on the ballots pretty darn quick to get into the mix, unless they (the DNC) has some sort of 'surprise' ready for us in the next couple of weeks.

Maybe. But, I think he was referencing a poll where she wasn't in it. A slap more at the media.

Who's the her if you're right? Carol Moseley Braun?

Looks like a lie from your definitions from here.

.

What are the ground rules again for determining the difference between a lie and ingeniously clever banter?

That's really weird!

Not bashing Kerry at all, but I knew as soon as he said that it was false.

I was watching the debate with my mom and as soon as he said that I said "Yeah, right!"....LOL!



For the record Im Dean, Clark, or Kerry all the way. I think a Dean/Clark ticket would be sweet.

Dean '04...

Right Wing Bullshit from Newsmax.

If he did, does it matter who reported it?

I posted the debate transcript and his full answer. I originally didn't notice the Phoenix News was linking to a Newsmax story. So, I won't rely upon them to call Kerry a liar for me and I will do it myself.

I heard Kerry say it at the last debate.

Isn't that an ultra-right wing site.

To assuage your fears though, here it is from the source:

Debate Transcrip

COOPER: Senator Kerry, we've got an e-mail for you. It says, 'What do you think about the recent polls that put Hillary Clinton 20 percent ahead of all you guys?'

(LAUGHTER)

(APPLAUSE)

KERRY: Well, it all depends on which poll you look at. I saw a poll the other day...

COOPER: I knew you were going to say that.

(LAUGHTER)

KERRY: I saw a poll the other day that showed me about 15 points ahead of her.

Look, here's what's important to all of you.

Every young person that I talk to in this country is disappointed by politics, by Washington and the sense that nothing that happens is real and it doesn't affect your lives.

I want your help in this race because I have lived the experience of being a young person who is trying to make a difference for our country. Lived it during the civil rights movement in the '60s, in Vietnam fighting. When I came back, standing up against Richard Nixon and fighting to end the war; taking on Ronald Reagan's illegal, clandestine, unconstitutional war in Central America; blowing the whistle on Oliver North and his private aid network...

(APPLAUSE)

... blowing the whistle on Noriega; standing up with John McCain to get answers for our families that they hadn't had for 20 years. I took on Newt Gingrich when he tried to gut the Clean Air and Clean Water Act. And I led the fight to stop them drilling in the Arctic Wildlife Refuge.

(APPLAUSE)

What we need is a president who has a proven record of taking on the special interests; standing up and fighting for people and making life better for Americans.

KERRY: And that's what I'm going to do.

But this story is an opinion piece. Saying Kerry was "lying", is an opinion. Saying Kerry is nervous about Hillary Clinton's poll numbers is an opinion. All these are right wing opinions from newsmax.

Anyway, I asked a question about it in the admins forum, I wasn't sure if I should alert on it, because I know it's frowned upon to use right wing sources.

And I will take the liberties that another poster took earlier and label Kerry a liar myself and not rely upon a third party to do it for me.

Kerry lied about a poll that doesn't exist to dodge a question in the debate.

Here you go -http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2003/11/6/04732.shtml

Look, it even says newsmax on top of the banner.

That is as neutral as you can get.

So ignore the first link and deal with Kerry's direct quote I posted.

He lied.

Do you now agree the story you referenced is a newsmax story?

I originally didn't notice the original source, the moment it was pointed out to me, I went right to the transcript just to make sure that it wasn't a Right Wing conjob.

So I put up the direct quote (I even made sure to paste ALL of Kerry's answer, not just cherry pick the sentence that I liked) and stopped relying on a third party to call him a liar and did it myself.

Kerry lied.

Otherwise why would you talk about a neutral source?

Anyway, I have my answer from the admin, and he told me to alert on it, that it is considered questionable to use right wing sources, so I will now do so.

if Hilliary entered the race how could he possibly be that far ahead of all three?

he always answers ridiculous questions with a joke. i mean, how is someone supposed to answer a question about a poll that includes a candidate not even on the ballot? it's like "what do you think of polls that show britney spears 40% ahead of all of you?"

pfft.

Interesting defense.

i thought it was a joke. you think he's lying. well, what would you have him do about this non-joke out-and-out lie? is it important, since she isn't even on the ballot? what poll was the moderator refering to when he said she was ahead?

I find it fascinating that his first reaction was to lie instead of dismiss the poll based on the fact she isn't running.

And then dismiss his lies as jokes or unimportant.

Like I posted elsewhere, I don't know a politician who doesn't make statements that can be construed as lies if you want to see them as such.

What bugs me is to see Kerry supporters spend plenty of time insisting Dean is nothing but a filthy liar...but work equally as hard to have Kerry's mistakes dismissed.

Even going so far as to post deceptive photos to make points...

I think we're riding the desperation express here.

I'm working hard to get my positive view back...

This thread was mainly to bring the holier-than-thou attitude down a notch. If we look hard enough into any candidate's words, we will find discrepencies like this.

Do you know how many polls must pass through a candidates hands during a week? They don't always know the parameters of the poll. These candidates are being inundated with information and with people asking them questions and they are not getting full nights sleep. They are in hotels and shaking hands constantly. We cannot expect them to keep everything 100% straight all the time.

So, we can either set our standards so high no one can meet them or allow our candidates to be human. I vote the latter.

So you x'ed 'em all out now? LOL

Big difference.

That would be 'in your opinion'

that Dean claims he was trying to start when he made his clumsy statement.

 
http://www.dmregister.com/news/stories/c4789004/22649906.html
Kerry criticizes Dean's gun views
By THOMAS BEAUMONT
Register Staff Writer
11/01/2003
------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>>
Kerry, a Massachusetts senator, said Dean's opposition to an assault weapons ban in 1992, recorded in a National Rifle Association endorsement questionnaire, contradicts his position as a presidential candidate supporting a federal assault weapons ban.

Kerry supported the 1994 bill that outlawed the sale and ownership of assault weapons, which Dean says he now supports.

"Howard Dean, during the time we were trying to pass it, was appealing to the NRA for their support," Kerry said, while visiting a rural Story County farm.
"We don't need to be a party that says we need to be the candidacy of the NRA. We stand up against that."

Dean has said 2000 Democratic nominee Al Gore lost the election because he failed to win Southern states, where disaffected Democrats who favor gun owners' rights were reluctant to support him.

"I still want to be the candidate for guys with Confederate flags in their pickup trucks," Dean said Friday in a telephone interview from New Hampshire. "We can't beat George Bush unless we appeal to a broad cross-section of Democrats."

Dean said he answered the questionnaire while running for re-election as governor of Vermont. He has said he was never asked to sign a gun control bill during his Vermont tenure.
>>>>>>>


Now...please notice how Dean's lies here were meant to hurt his opponents.

How many lies are in this one speech?

*He tells the audience that those four guys raised their taxes. (GOP spin)
*That they supported Bush's taxcut for the wealthiest. (None of them voted for it)
*That they were all saying they were antiwar now. (No, they stood by their IWR vote, but, criticized Bush's poor follow through)
* Implies he's antiwar (but doesn't explain his support for IWR w/Biden-Lugar amendment)
* Claims to be a straighttalker, lists accomplishments, but, doesn't even mention his civil unions bill at this gathering.
*That they are all "Bushlite" (odd coming from a Libertarian leaning centrist known for compromising with the GOP, and boasted to the CATO Institute they should love his penchant for deregulation)
http://www.cmonitor.com/stories/news/local2003/012303dean_2002.shtml
Dean promises to deliver straight talk
By LISA WANGSNESS
Monitor staff
Former Vermont governor Howard Dean accused his Democratic presidential primary opponents yesterday of trying to run against the very Republican policies they'd supported in Congress.
"I think our party is suffering because we keep nominating people who will say anything they have to say to get elected," he said.
>>>>>>>

He said nothing at all about what he is probably most famous for doing as governor: signing a court-ordered bill to legalize civil unions for gay couples. In other forums, Dean has said he would leave the issue up to the states to resolve individually.
>>>>>>>>


" I can't wait for those four guys from Congress to come up here and explain to us why they wanted to raise your property taxes after they supported a tax cut for the wealthiest people in America," he said.
>>>>>
"Today, they're running around telling you folks they're all anti-war," he said. (Later, he acknowledged that Lieberman's vote was consistent with the senator's comparatively "hawkish" position on Iraq.) "We're never going to elect a president that does those things. If I voted for the Iraq resolution, I'd be standing in favor, supporting it right now in front of you."
Dean said he would have voted instead for the Biden-Lugar resolution, which he said supported disarming Saddam using multilateral action, and which did not call for a "regime change."
>>>>>>>
So Democrats, he concluded, must nominate a candidate who can win. "Remember," he said, "we're not going to beat Bush with Bush lite."

Now we get to debate whose lies are worse. Wow, this makes for a great primary.

Felt confident enough to be posting his policy viewpoints instead of deceving DU'ers and nitpicking on candidate statments while dismissing his.

Kerry has no problem lying to make himself look good, its been obvious for a long time.

Even though I cannot stand the man....I think he just shot out that remark out of anger and nervousness. I don't think he planned to lie.

But of course that raises what he might do in the Oval Office with such a character. I'd rather have Dean's straight-talking "gaffes" than such nerve-born misfires any day.

I'm really tired of trying to destroy candidates.

He's not my candidate, but he is a human being. And all of the candidates are under tremendous pressure.

We all know Sen. Kerry would never LIE! :eyes:

who cares what Kerry said here? He may have told a white lie as suggested above- a Massachusetts Poll or whatever- a military poll- who cares? The point is Hillary is not running.
But I will allow the Kerry haters that this is fair game for a smear here, although unlike the flag comment this has nothing to do with this campaign.

The real question is what standard we hold our candidates to.

Talking about Dean referencing race this morning when the issue with the flag was regarding the NRA and calling that a lie when Dean has been talking about it all together, that in his mind, it is all one and the same and since people were attacking it on the racial end that is how he responded to it. Spin it however you want, the fact of the matter is it isn't a big deal. Neither is this.

Again, I just hope people using the flag issue as an attack issue truly understand the tactic they are using.

I can't get the context in a transcript. He could've said it in an off-hand remark, like "What do polls matter, you jerk?" type of remark, or an actual attempt to state a fact, which I highly doubt.

For all you Dean supporters saying how Kerry's character is so flawed because of this, I do not have to remind you the infamous Mr. Dean's tendency to make even more outrageous remarks. That is all.

Or how about Edwards? Kucinich? Etc., etc.

And you don't vote.

He was trying to make a vague point as to how worthless polls are.

not that it matters

I don't like it because it caught Kerry in a white lie; I like it because it shows how anyone can play 'Gotcha!' with any candidate. We have so overused the word 'lie' that it is on the verge of becoming meaningless. :shrug:

Edit: spelling

I think that was exactly the point intended.