Lies and the lying liars who tell them.

[Craig234]

Originally posted by: shira

Originally posted by: techs
In his time, president John F. Kennedy boasted he could read 1,200 words a minute. President Lyndon Johnson claimed that he had an ancestor who died at the Alamo -- a heroic battle in Johnson's home state of Texas. In fact, Johnson great uncle took part -- but didn't die -- in another battle with Mexico, at San Jacinto.

I'm confused by these statements about Kennedy and Johnson. Reading 1200 words a minute is pretty fast, but not impossible. I knew an L.A. Times book critic who read 1400 words a minute.


And Johnson's statement is demonstrably true: Suppose Johnson said, "I have an ancestor who died at the Alamo." You can parse that sentence at least three ways:

I have an ancestor who was at the Battle of the Alamo when he died

Translation: The ancestor died at the Battle of the Alamo.

I have an ancestor who died who was at the Battle of the Alamo.

Translation: My ancestor, who was at the Battle of the Alamo would be the oldest living human if he hadn't died at some point in the 171 years since the battle occurred (in 1836).

I have an ancestor who had a fatal heart attack when he visited The Alamo in 1925.

Translation: Even today, people occasionally die at historic sites.

JFK did have a reputation as a very fast reader, and given the fluid definition of 'read', his statement doesn't seem like agood example of a lie.

Your defense of LBJ is atrocious, though. The second and third are not reasonable at all, and the second has an even bigger problem considering everyone there was killed, IIRC.

There are a lot better examples of presidential lies thant Kennedy's there, though - for him, consider his misleading about his health, in order to keep power.

He did the same thing, in a way, to get in to WWII combat, when his health prevented him from joining.

Many would excuse those lies, as well-intended to overcome unreasonable obstacles, much as FDR hid his polio, but is rarely called a terrible liar for doing so.