G.I. Guarantee Watch: Please, Mr. Postman, part 4

by David Safier

Still nothing in the mail from Starlee Rhoades at the Goldwater Institute answering my simple question: What does "many" mean in her sentence:

"We believe the term bureaucrat accurately describes many of the employees in question and is a fair use of the term."

J.D. and G.I. share a trait with others in today's conservative movement. They don't let facts get in the way of a useful lie.

As AZ Blue Meanie wrote, Rachel Maddow showed J.D. Hayworth he pulled a quote out of some nether region of his anatomy. J.D. smiled and said they had a "disagreement."

No, J.D., it's not a disagreement when you get your facts wrong. There are facts and there are opinions. You're entitled to your own opinions. You're not entitled to your own facts.

The Goldwater Institute's Matthew Ladner says bus drivers are bureaucrats. No, Matthew, bus drivers are not bureaucrats. You can blindfold the English language, fly it to a black site somewhere, throw it in a cell, deprive it of sleep, starve it and have Dick Cheney waterboard it within an inch of its life, and you still can't get it to say, "Yes, I admit it, a bus driver is a bureaucrat! Yes! Yes! Now please make him stop!"

Torture the language though Ladner might, the language survives intact, and bus drivers still are not bureaucrats. Never have been. Never will be. That's a fact.

It looks like G.I.'s Darcy Olsen and Byron Schlomach have hitched a ride with Ladner and left the fact-based community as well. A one cent sales tax increase will not cost the average Arizona family $600 a year, no matter how many times Olsen and Scholmach repeat it. You have to make more than $100,000 a year to spend $60,000 on taxable items, and in the real, fact-based world, the average Arizona family does not make more than $100,000 a year.

And no, we don't have a disagreement here. Your facts are wrong, plain and simple.

G.I.'s paid henchmen and henchwomen spread these lies in the newspapers, on the airwaves and on the internet without a peep from the mainstream media.

Here's a suggestion to journalists. If you find out after the fact that one of these people has made an obvious factual error on your watch, give that person a call the next day and see if he or she can defend the statement. If not, let your audience know that you were lied to. That's your journalistic responsibility.

Oh, and, Ms. Rhoades? I'm still waiting to find an answer from you in my mailbox.

"Please Mr. Postman. C'mon, deliver the letter, the sooner the better."