Frank Rich shows us how Cheney tips us off that he's lying

[CatWoman]

The untruths are flying so fast that untangling them can be a full-time job. Maybe that’s why I am beginning to find Dick Cheney almost refreshing. As we saw on “Meet the Press” last Sunday, these days he helpfully signals when he’s about to lie. One dead giveaway is the word context, as in “the context in which I made that statement last year.” The vice president invoked “context” to try to explain away both his bogus predictions: that Americans would be greeted as liberators in Iraq and that the insurgency (some 15 months ago) was in its “last throes.”

The other instant tip-off to a Cheney lie is any variation on the phrase “I haven’t read the story.” He told Tim Russert he hadn’t read The Washington Post’s front-page report that the bin Laden trail had gone “stone cold” or the new Senate Intelligence Committee report(PDF) contradicting the White House’s prewar hype about nonexistent links between Al Qaeda and Saddam. Nor had he read a Times front-page article about his declining clout. Or the finding by Mohamed ElBaradei of the International Atomic Energy Agency just before the war that there was “no evidence of resumed nuclear activities” in Iraq. “I haven’t looked at it; I’d have to go back and look at it again,” he said, however nonsensically.

http://wealthyfrenchman.blogspot.com/


Remember during the vice presidential debate when he said he never met John Edwards prior to the debate? Or did he say he "didn't recall meeting Edwards"?

What a douche!!!

[babylonsister]

1. I'm good to go; when Cheney mentions 'context' or he's never

seen/heard/read about whatever the topic might be about, he's lying.
I agree with Rich; I think Cheney, unlike dimson, reads everything he can get his hands on, so his 'excuse' is disingenuous.

[Richard D]

2. The real tip off that Cheney is lying:

. . . His lips are moving and words are coming out.

[Cha]

6. EXACTLY!

The monster's sneering, snarling lips are moving..that's how you tell he's LYING.

[Joe Chi Minh]

3. Alas Mr Cheney, even the most unassailable truths do not wait on

your recognition, nor alas provide you with a personal mnemonic, it seems. But nice try, just the same.

[EFerrari]

4. Cheney Cheney.

lol

[Steven_S]

5. One other thing I noticed...

It's the use of the phrase "In fact", or "As a matter of fact".

It's mostly "as a matter of bullshit".

[CatWoman]

9. Good catch, Steven

:)

[glitch]

14. Bush uses " and by the way " as one of his tells.

He uses it all the time too. What we need is a tell for when they are telling the truth. Probably doesn't exist, since it only happens by accident if at all.

[NMDemDist2]

33. and "let me finish" is another one n/t

[sui generis]

25. per say, if you will, and some igpay atinlay on occasion too

"if you will" is the one that makes me nuts. No I do not will.

[bleever]

7. “I haven’t looked at it; I’d have to go back and look at it again...”

:rofl:

Likewise: "I don't know Joe Wilson. I've never met Joe Wilson." But he sure as shootin' knew who Joe Wilson was, didn't he?

[CatWoman]

8. great point, Bleever

:hi:

[Disturbed]

10. Everytime he says: "If you will."

The lie was before that phrase.

[Botany]

11. Joe Wilson was our ambassador in Iraq after Saddam took over

Kuwait when he was Sec. of Defense under Bush 1.

BTW Joe Wilson told Saddam if he wanted to American hostages
to start w/ him too.

[anarch]

12. what? His lips are moving?

[caledesi]

13. The dick, Cheney lied when he said he never met John Edwards.

Here's the best part, after the debate Elizabeth Edwards walked right up to Cheney smiling and basically saying "You don't remember meeting John? You met him twice, once at a religious breakfast and .... (I forgot, sorry).

There are pix of all these events including Elizabeth walking up to Cheney after the debate.

He is such a LIAR!

[dweller]

15. Cheney's Head: An Explanation

One mystery I've tried to disentangle:
Why Cheney's head is always at an angle.
He tries to come on straight, and yet I can't
Help notice that his head is at a slant.
When Cheney's questioned on the Sunday shows,
The Voice of Reason is his favorite pose.
He drones in monotones. He never smiles--
Explaining why some suspects don't need trials,
Or why right now it simply stands to reason
That criticizing Bush amounts to treason,
Or which important precept it would spoil
To know who wrote our policy on oil,
Or why as CEO he wouldn't know
What Halliburton's books were meant to show.
And as he speaks I've kept a careful check
On when his head's held crooked on his neck.
The code is broken, after years of trying:
He only cocks his head when he is lying.

Calvin Trillin
June 6, 2002
http://app.thenation.com/doc/20020624/trillin


dp

[elehhhhna]

31. THAT should be its own OP. Please? DO IT!

[civildisoBDence]

34. Ditto elehhhhna

Dr. Seuss meets The Smirk.

His head slants in the opposite direction of his smirk, like a counterweight.

Newsprism

[Kolesar]

16. Heavy sarcasm & a loaded premise. This is really clever phrasing

"Maybe that’s why I am beginning to find Dick Cheney almost refreshing. "

[sakabatou]

17. You don't need any tips to see if Dick is lying

Whenever he opens his mouth, he is.

[Zambero]

18. Cheney did mutter one indisputable truth however

He said that given what we know now about the absence of WMD's in Iraq, and given what the results of that war have been to date, that the Administration would still have gone ahead and initiated a pre-emptive war. Cheney's honest enough to admit that the lies that were used as a premise 4 years ago are just as good today as they were back then. Too bad for him and his party that 2/3 of voters tend not to agree with him. Sound bytes anyone?

[Stephanie]

19. When Condi is lying she shakes her head back and forth "no"

She's a terrible liar.

[EFerrari]

20. If you watch tape of her insisting that Katrina wasn't about race

but about Americans, her whole body is shaking back and forth.

[Rosemary2205]

28. She's another one, if lips are moving she's lying.

Pretty much Rummy, Cheney, Bush, Rice and Snow - talking equals lying for them.

[JPZenger]

21. Rice's Face Goes Rigid When She Lies

I read comments from an expert in body language. He said that Rice's face "goes rigid" whenever she is lying.

[sui generis]

22. two other things he does

he touches his chin, cheek or lips briefly, and when he's making an effort to keep his fingers away from his face he faces the camera askance and tilts his head to one side, as if to signal that he's literally not shooting straight.

[brg5001]

23. How they lie by lecturing

One of W's favorite tricks is to just talk down to everyone. When confronted with any inconvenient truth, he goes into lecture mode, usually by raising some kind of canard that he can point to and argue against. By doing this, he can appear sincere and trustworthy without ever addressing the issue. Bush and all of Bushco is adept at this con game. No matter what the question, Bushco answers by turning our attention away from the question at hand and back to the lecture at hand. These people are like sorcerers, literally conjuring up whatever scenario is needed to combat the nettlesome questions coming from the reality-based community.

Examples:

Q: Mr. President, isn't it true that al-Quaeda had no active role in Iraq until we got there?
A: Well let me just set the record straight: I never claimed that they had an active role, just that Saddam had contacts with al-Quaeda. But what's important now is that al-Quaeda's own leaders are saying that Iraq is the central front in their war on freedom. Any action short of victory would be a victory for the terrorists. You see, we're fighting them over there so we don't have to face them here. That's the job of a President, to protect the American people.


Q: Mr. President, isn't it true that the Iraq is clearly ungovernable as a 'democracy' in the sense that we understand it -- that the bigger threat is not from outside insurgents but actually from the various factions fighting each other and refusing to share power in any meaningful way? Isn't the real danger not from al-Quaeda terrorists but from "homegrown" terror being employed as a tactic in a multi-party civil war, and from various insurgencies that have infiltrated the legitimate authority in Iraq?

A: That's a fair question. What I cannot understand is why some people who should know better believe that just because people are Arab or Islamic, that they don't yearn for freedom. You see, freedom is the great hope of all mankind. What I can tell you is that on my watch, we will not leave Iraq until the job is done, and it's worth doing, because if we were to leave before the Iraqi people can defend themselves then Iraq would become a victory for the terrorists, and it would become a safe haven for al-Quaeda to launch attacks on the United States.

etc etc etc blah blah blah

[LuckyLib]

35. The Chimpster also inserts the first names of folks, which, when

you are responding in a group setting, is almost always a patronizing, belitting, and very subtle passive-aggressive way of putting the questioner in his/her place. By the time he's inserted "David" multiple times into a long disjointed response to a David Gregory question, he's trying to grind DG down with his heel. Of course if questioned, * would respond, "Heh-heh, that's just the way we do it in Texas."

[brg5001]

37. CLW, you are correct! Chucklenuts does not show proper respect

I have noticed that, too. That "pseudo-familiar" way of addressing people is indeed "how they do it in Texas"...how OBNOXIOUS JERKS do it in Texas! As Lloyd Bensen might have said, "I'm from Texas. And George W. Bush is no Texan." The President has an obligation to maintain a level of formality in his discourse, and that is sorely lacking whether Chucklenuts is at a news conference, in a one-on-one interview (did you see his behavior with Brian Williams and Matt Lauer?), or an invited guest at an international conference. Most ordinary working people like waitresses and truck drivers have better social skills than this pugnacious prick. Chucklenuts repeatedly comes off as snide, dismissive, didactic and intolerant.

His "forced informality" is actually a form of oppression! Because he's the person with the highest social status in the room, when he jumps to a familiar form of address, no one can challenge that and it is indeed an assault on individuals' dignity. Bush's informality isn't genuine, because if it were, he would save it for private chats and not put it on display like a badge. By doing so, he betrays a kind of pompousity that borders on arrogance.

[LuckyLib]

38. Very well said. I get the sense that his brain is racing so frantically

to process the question (vaguely, since he never actually responds to one) and pull together some stumbling response that the disrespectful informality serves also as a delay tactic. I always get the feeling that he really wants to say to the WH Press Corpse, "Guys, do we really have to have these high-faluting conversations? Let's just go have a brewski!" The whole damned "Being President" taxes his brain.

[Blackhatjack]

24. A Real Journalist Would Ask"Why Have You Not Seen/Read it??"

These so-called investigative journalists, like Timmey, never follow up with the next logical query when they get such an ingenuous response as "I haven't seen it, haven't looked at it."

You ask "Why have you not seen it? read or looked at it? Is it not important? Don't you have staff that read these things and bring it to your attention?"

Really, journalism is the art of asking the next logical question and not accepting ignorance as a legitimate excuse for failing to respond to an important question.

[Supersedeas]

26. haven't looked at it but have to look at it again - Russert lets it FLY!!!

[Rosemary2205]

27. Simple - Cheney is lying when his lips are moving.

I appreciate the sentiment that when he uses this phrase or that phrase he's about to lie - but all he ever does is lie - so I figure if Cheney is talking he's lying.

[GETPLANING]

29. Cheney can't stop lying

When Dick Cheney lies in an interview, he starts looking at his hands. He looks down, around, and finally at the interviewer as he finishes his statements. His daughter does the same thing. Compare that to someone like Ned Lamont, Wesley Clark, or ( I'm trying to think of an honest Republican, but Chuck Hagel is the best I can do ) Howard Dean.
These war profiteers have got to go before they kill us all.

[doctor_garth]

30. FR is the only one

I have the patience to read in its entirety, he's so focused. I read the whole article in 90 seconds and I was sorry when it was over.

[McCamy Taylor]

32. Watch Cheney's eyebrows. They give away his lies. It's why poker

players wear the big sunglasses or the baseball caps pulled down low.

Condie cant lie for shit. Her face gives her away in so many ways. Part of this is ethnic. Watch people with African-american features sometime and you will see that the muscles that control the eyebrows are more mobile (probably because they dont have the bulging brow ridges that lots of whites do), giving them clearer facial expressions. This makes it a bit easier for them to act on TV---but also makes it harder to lie.

Tony Snow is the only one of the three who is a good liar.

Does anyone else remember the spooky scene Rove choreographed on election night 2004? The entire Bush clan in the White House had been instructed to act like they BELIEVED that W. had won the election even though the exit polls said different? I have never seen a room of so many people who are such bad liars trying to lie at the same time. It was really creepy.

[Opusnone]

36. If you watch the replay you'll notice his TELL is

Hands up to the chin, fingers out in front of the lips. My wife caught that one.