“jmaharry” Stubbornly Calls Me a Liar Even As He Continually Misstates Facts and Refuses to Admit It
I am getting a little sick of commenter jmaharry, who continues (even today) to call me a liar, even as he stubbornly refuses to correct repeated misstatements he has made on this site.
To take one prominent example of jmaharry’s repeated misstatements, let’s look at his continual misrepresentations regarding lyin’ Joe Wilson. jmaharry stated in this comment:
Wilson stated in a long letter to the 9/11 commission that he had seen the dox, and identified them as fraudulent. I guess I would believe him before you. This was the ‘evidence’ the Admin. used to make ther case to the American people.
The “dox” jmaharry refers to are forged documents that Wilson in fact did not see before he gave his report to intelligence officials — though Wilson once claimed otherwise to Nick Kristof. Wilson eventually had to back off this claim, and never gave a decent explanation; even lefty Kevin Drum had to acknowledge that Wilson had lied about having seen the documents.
I conclusively refuted jmaharry’s nonsense in this comment, in which I gave a link to the letter itself, in which Wilson stated that he had not seen the documents in question. Wilson said in that letter:
The first time I actually saw what were represented as the documents was when Andrea Mitchell, the NBC correspondent, handed them to me in an interview on July 21. I was not wearing my glasses and could not read them. I have to this day not read them. I would have absolutely no reason to claim to have done so.
This is, of course, the exact opposite of what jmaharry had just gotten through saying.
jmaharry, having falsely claimed that Wilson had seen the documents in question, and having seen my evidence proving the exact opposite, pretended that he had never made that claim, in this comment:
As for Joe Wilson, I responded in the earlier thread. I referred to his detailed letter to the 9/11 Commission, in which he categorically refuted the dox which lay at the heart of the Administration’s argument for the case of Iraq seeking yellow cake. And which the Administration publicly admitted were without merit. The Administration’s admission speak’s for itself.
I think you should understand that Wilson’s report to the CIA, re: his Niger trip, was rendered verbally. This may open the way for a certain amount of ambiguity in his findings. And, certainly, the fact that there were contacts between Niger gov. reps and Iraq reps, as verbally conveyed by Wilson, leads to another layer of ambiguity.
The administration’s refutation of the president’s SOTU address, however, is unambiguous. It is also unprecedented.
Translation: “Blah blah blah. I am going to pretend I never said Wilson saw the documents, and hope nobody notices.”
jmaharry, we noticed. You made a claim, and it was wrong. Meanwhile, you had the gall to call me a liar.
This is only one of several misstatements jmaharry has made on this site. Another favorite of mine, which occurs in one of the links above, is the one in which he claims that the FAA is not part of the Bush Administration. (!)
It must be nice to live on another planet; I’ll never even get into outer space.
I have a simple request for you, jmaharry:
Admit you were wrong to call me a liar, or get the hell off my site.
Thank you.
Heh.
Dwilkers (a1687a) — 2/13/2006 @ 3:23 amWow, I’m glad I never made you that mad at me Patterico. 🙂
Jmaharry, be careful talking about Joe Wilson. His story is so politicized that getting to the truth of it is difficult if not downright impossible.
I’ll give Patterico and Clam a complement here although I am a liberal myself – they have credibility and almost always get their facts straight. So if you choose to argue with them about matters of fact, make sure you have a reliable source to back it up.
Psyberian (1cf529) — 2/13/2006 @ 4:45 amI held out some hope for jmaharry because of my experience with Psyberian, who (as Tillman) called me a liar as his first act on the site. I tried to reason with Psyberian/Tillman, and found that I was able to. That doesn’t mean we agree, but Psyberian stopped calling me a liar and started arguing the facts. I am now pleased to have him as a commenter.
So far, jmaharry has taken a different path — one of refusing to correct his own misstatements, while continuing to call me a liar. I see shreds of decency there, so I’m still hoping he takes the Psyberian path.
Patterico (de0616) — 2/13/2006 @ 6:30 amCentrist vs. leftist. Psyberian vs. jmaharry. The latter represents the core of the “Society of Subversion” – Lying to take over the government. And the more they do it, the more they lose standing. Will they never learn? Debate is better than just obfuscating.
Even though I try to be careful when I post, I have made some whopping mistakes. When they are pointed out – I come back and apologize and try to find a different way to get my point across (not always strongly at that). But the point is we learn by debate – informed debate – not just digging in our heels and whining. Someday maybe jmaharry will learn.
Specter (466680) — 2/13/2006 @ 6:55 amOur esteemed host wrote:
The Liberal Avenger recently banned a commenter, for what he called “trolling,” and then relented after about a day, having had people comment (not all of whom were opposed to the banning) on the action.
It is, of course, your site; you own it and can allow or disallow anyone you choose. But I’d say don’t ban, and don’t let him get to you, even if he is a liar. If he posts lies, your presentation of the facts will discredit his arguments far more effectively than telling him to get off the site.
Dana (3e4784) — 2/13/2006 @ 7:51 am“The dox jmaharry refers to are forged documents that Wilson in fact did not see before he gave his report to intelligence officials though Wilson once claimed otherwise to Nick Kristof. ”
You’re assuming the Wilson didn’t see them _before_ they made it to the CIA. [I’m assuming nothing. Wilson admitted this in his letter. Read the post again and follow the link to the letter. — Patterico] This is clearly tin-foil hat territory, because it assumes Joe was _proactively_ committing treason. But ‘Wilson in fact did not see’ still appears to be an overstatement of the case.
The other two pieces of the crazy theory involve the French delegation that was in Niger, and the French forging the documents in the first place.
It is crazy. But it still seems saner than saying “There were overtures” in his CIA debrief, but “There was nothing happening” to the public.
Al (2e2489) — 2/13/2006 @ 9:40 amYou seem to have missed the essential truth of my original point. Joe Wilson called out President Bush on the fraudulence of a statement he made in his SOTU address. This, in part, led to the Bush administration’s withdrawing part of its SOTU address. An event unprecedented in the history of this country.
For you to label this life-long patriot and diplomat as “Lying Joe Wilson” (in your tiresome ’05 harangue of the LAT) was clearly demeaning and dishonest. Given the thoughtfulness of many of your subsequent posts, it also seems beneath you.
I was wrong in saying Wilson had “seen” certain documents upon which the administration based its now-disgraced claim. Maybe he saw them; maybe he had heard about them; maybe their contents were explained to him; maybe he had the documents bronzed. It does not change the essential truth of what resulted. That’s what I’m concerned with.
I was wrong on this minor point. You, however, are distorting the larger truth, and smearing an American patriot. When I point this out, you respond by swearing, calling me a moron, and fabricating and recreating quotes in my blogger name.
I am not a leftist or a rightist or anything in between. I believe in pursuing essential truth. The truth that, as best as I can assay, really matters. Like, when you ask in your measured and thoughtful post, what should we do about abortion? Where does truth lie in that issue? I think you are wrong to relegate it to a states vs. federal issue.
I have had personal experience with abortion (unfortunately). Not a decision I would wish or certainly impose on any other couple. However, I also cannot imagine imposing my views on life – and when it begins – now, at age 46, on a “me” when I was 25. I certainly know that the difficult decision I made could have opened up a life, and a happiness, that I never could have imagined so many years ago.
jmaharry (74c3ec) — 2/14/2006 @ 10:02 pmIn his State of the Union Address of 1-28-2003, Bush said:
“The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.”
Bush did not mention yellowcake, or mention Niger in that statement. Bush also did not retract those famous 16 words from the State of the Union.
It’s true that on 7-11-03, CIA Director George Tenet said:
“These 16 words should never have been included in the text written for the President.”
And that press secretary Ari Fleischer said on 7-7-03:
“Now, we’ve long acknowledged — and this is old news, we’ve said this repeatedly — that the information on yellow cake did, indeed, turn out to be incorrect.”
But later on, the Senate Intelligence Committee report backed up Bush:
“When coordinating the State of the Union, no Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) analysts or officials told the National Security Council (NSC) to remove the “16 words” or that there were concerns about the credibility of the Iraq-Niger uranium reporting.”
Bush had reason to believe what he said, even if British intelligence was mistaken at the time.
Justice Frankfurter (2dcd84) — 2/14/2006 @ 10:45 pmI was wrong on this minor point. You, however, are distorting the larger truth, and smearing an American patriot. When I point this out, you respond by swearing, calling me a moron, and fabricating and recreating quotes in my blogger name.
jmaharry, I think your continually calling me a liar is beneath you. I am not a liar. But when you call me one, and get the facts wrong in the process, it causes me to respond out of anger.
I wish you’d stop it.
As for Joe Wilson’s credibility, I have previously cited to you Kevin Drum’s post citing three specific lies by Wilson. Do you see Kevin Drum as a right-wing hack out to smear our honest patriot lyin’ Joe? Or is it maybe possible that lyin’ Joe is, in fact, a liar?
Patterico (4d4be8) — 2/15/2006 @ 1:14 pm