Why do candidates ever use absolute terms like 100%?
OBAMA: And 100 percent, John, of your ads — 100 percent of them have been negative.
MCCAIN: It’s not true.
OBAMA: It absolutely is true.
A quick search yielded this ad, which does not mention Obama, and focuses on McCain’s strengths. CNN and MarketWatch (part of the Wall Street Journal digital network) have also called the claim by Biden and by Obama false.
Perhaps Obama referred to a study by the Wisconsin Advertising Project mentioned on MarketWatch:
Sen. John McCain did go “100% negative” for at least one week during his current campaign for the presidency, a study finds….the Wisconsin Advertising Project says the GOP candidate aired only negative ads for the week of Sept. 28 to Oct. 4…Throughout the entire campaign from June 4 to Oct. 4, 47% of McCain’s ads have been negative, 26% were positive and 27% were a mix. For Obama, the mix has been 35% negative, 39% positive and 25% mixed.
It may be true for 1 week, but without that qualification to say 100% of McCain’s ads have been negative is a lie.
Tags: Obama
October 17th, 2008 at 1:46 pm
So it was just 100% of the ads in a week just before the debate? This is pretty nitpicky.
October 17th, 2008 at 5:09 pm
I don’t think this is nitpicky at all. Using a term like 100% leaves no wiggle room. If he’d said something like “almost all” then we could have called it an exaggeration, but “100%” is just false.
October 26th, 2008 at 3:16 pm
I agree with Canumbler, I read the “100% negative” report from the Wisconsin Advertising Project in our local paper days before the debate. Seems many of the lies on the blue side are of the “I didn’t eat the cupcake!” variety while on the red side they’re more along the lines of “The baby is yours”.
October 27th, 2008 at 12:05 am
The problem with getting all upset over a candidate saying “100%” instead of “almost all” is that getting upset over it is the reason that candidates have to weasel their words all the time and speak in the tortuous way they do.
If someone said this to you in normal conversation would you believe them to be a “liar”? Or would you dismiss it as exaggeration.
October 27th, 2008 at 2:52 am
I think your normal conversation example is actually a really good one for this in context.
In my conversations, I absolutely would call someone out for making a absolute or untrue-sounding statement like this. I’d give them an opportunity to correct or clarify, and if they don’t, and it’s still not true, and they knew it was untrue, I’d consider them a liar.
This is exactly what happened in the town hall format - Obama made a statement, McCain called him out on it, and Obama insisted.
April 13th, 2009 at 2:49 pm
Things that i tell you are useful and truthful. Yet they are complete lies.
How can this be? Well, you learn something new everyday.
Something that is a lie can be true at the same time.
the event could happen, but it didn’t.
the info couldn’t not be true-
so there.
see my blog post Complete rubbish