From: hallam@zeus02.desy.de (Phill Hallam-Baker)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.elections,alt.politics.bush,alt.politics.clinton,alt.politics.perot,talk.politics.misc
Subject: Re: WHAT GORE REALLY SAYS in his book
Date: 16 Oct 92 17:42:09 GMT
Reply-To: Hallam@zeus02.desy.de
Organization: Deutsches Elektronen Synchrotron, Experiment ZEUS bei HERA

In article <1992Oct15.130015.16321@cbnews.cb.att.com>, nrc@cbnews.cb.att.com (N.
Richard Caldwell) writes:

|>From article <1bi965INNmk4@fido.asd.sgi.com>, by aschaffe@holodeck.csd.sgi.com
|>(Allan Schaffer):
|>> 
|>> Here's what Brooks Jackson of CNN said:
|>> 
|>> 	"Nowhere in the book does Gore propose $100 billion of foreign
|>> 	aid for environmental projects." "Gore writes that the money the
|>> 	United States spent on the Marshall Plan to rescue post-World War II
|>> 	Europe would equal $100 billion a year today, but he does not urge
|>> 	spending that much now."
|>
|>That is not the statement that I heard on CNN immediately after the 
|>debate.  Immediately after the debate they made a statement that there 
|>was nothing at all about what Quayle was talking about on page 304.  That
|>was simply not correct.  Even though Quayle clearly misrepresented the
|>specifics, there absolutely is something about what Quayle was refering
|>to on page 304.

I watched the CNN coverage and I remember that the words used in the fact check
were

"Gore did vote against the Caribean initiative in the Senate and as for the plan
to spend $100 billion on cleaning up other countries environmental problems,
well we've looked at page 304 in Gore's book [waves book] and it's simply not
there." That's more or less from memory and not verbatim transcript but the gist
is right.

CNN were quite right to say that Gore at no time *proposed* such a scheme. I
think that Quayle was a fool for raising the subject because he was attempting
to say that $100 billion spent on cleaning up other countries ecconomies was
part of the Clinton/Gore program, it clearly is not.

Besides this when a politician writes a book it must always be accepted that
statements made must be taken fairly from the context of the discussion.
Selectively editing out the extreem proposals "We have to spend $100 billion on
the environment" and then ignoring the section afterwards saying "but
unfortunately we just simply cannot afford it" and then using it as "proof" that
Gore has no idea about what the country can afford is lying. 

It is very obvious that what Gore wanted us to beleive about Gore's proposal is
not true. It is important to take this asside from the technical semantics of
the debate. Quayle may have made statements on the book and Gore's voting record
that are not actualy untrue. However he used them to support a hypothesis that
he knew was untrue. It was the same thing in the Bush speech when he tried to
insinuate that Clinton went of to organise Anti American demos in Moscow.

I think that the reason why Clinton is not responding to the mudslinging is
quite clear now. If he did so he would be dragged down to the Bush/Quayle level,
it is mainly because Clinton and Gore look and act like presidents that they are
so far ahead. Bush has nothing positive to say about his own record and his
attacks on Clinton look like desperation.

What is really worrying about the mud slinging is that if there was a truly
important fact about either candidates past it would be ignored as just another
smear.

--

Phill Hallam-Baker