Robertson Misremembers

CNN.com - No casualties? White House disputes Robertson comment - Oct 20, 2004: " 
Law

 

No casualties? White House disputes Robertson comment

'The president never made such a comment'


The best admonition in evaluating this story is from California Civil Jury Instruction Number 107 (These are standard jury instructions which California Courts must give to jurors in guiding them how to decide civil cases in California)

Sometimes a witness may say something that is not consistent
with something else he or she said. Sometimes different witnesses
will give different versions of what happened. People often forget
things or make mistakes in what they remember. Also, two
people may see the same event but remember it differently. You
may consider these differences, but do not decide that testimony
is untrue just because it differs from other testimony.

Seizing on this remark is part and parcel of the MSM campaign against Bush. If we go back and remember WHAT WAS BEING ARGUED before the war in Iraq started, the number of casualties actually suffered to date is very small even at 1000. Pessimists were predicting many thousands of casualties before our troops even made it to Baghdad. The war went immeasurably better than anyone expected and the number of casualties to date is still very small compared to almost any other war that U. S. troops have conducted.

Taking heed to the Jury Instructions we should remember that it is entirely possible that President Bush told Mr. Robertson that there would not be massive casualties in taking Iraq and that Mr. Robertson remembers it as there not being any.

This whole thing is being magnified to be a wedge between one group of Bush supporters and another, nothing more.

Also, there is either a deliberate or ignorant understanding of how evangelicals discuss their faith life. When they say that God wants this or that they are saying what someone less evangelical would express as, " I have meditated deeply on this issue and feel certain in my heart that this is the way things should be." It does not mean that Mr. Robertson hallucinates, which is what is implied in the news stories.