“2014 was the year when truth was optional,” Kyle Smith writes at the New York Post. “2014 was the year when convenient fabrication was the weapon of choice for celebrities, activists, big business and politicians. 2014 was the Year of the Lie,” including, but not limited to:
Bowe Bergdahl. The IRS’s missing e-mails. Lena Dunham. “Hands up, don’t shoot.” Jonathan Gruber. GM and that faulty ignition switch. Andrew Cuomo and that anti-corruption commission. The Secret Service and that White House intruder. Rachel Noerdlinger and her “disabled” son. Rolling Stone and gang rape.
As Kyle notes:
“Even if you don’t find that it’s true, it’s a valid rallying cry,” Ferguson protester Taylor Gruenloh told The Associated Press. If a few black-owned businesses get destroyed, and others are forced out of business by rising insurance costs, who cares? At least the protesters feel righteous.
Similarly, we all know rape is a rampant problem in elite-college fraternities, even if the smoking gun turned out to be a toy pistol. After Rolling Stone’s UVA rape story led to protests, vandalism and cancelled donations, the magazine appended a shrug of a disclaimer to the story and continued to publish the 8,000 word opus on its website.
Feminists keep saying that there is a “larger truth” here — that we are suddenly living in a “rape culture” in which this hideous crime is widely condoned, even though the rate of forcible rate is at its lowest level in 40 years. When such data don’t bear out the narrative, activists rely heavily on anecdotal evidence like the Rolling Stone story — then say false anecdotes don’t matter either.
“We have a society where rapists are given the benefit of the doubt, often despite overwhelming evidence,” wrote Sally Kohn of CNN, adding that “[Feminists] cannot apologize for erring on the side of a fair, compassionate and credulous hearing of a woman’s account.”
Except being “credulous” with a liar means you aren’t being fair to those she is lying about.
The stage was set for 2014 over many years, as an increasing number of journalists decided that not only was lying OK, admitting in public that you’re a liar is perfectly fine as well. But then, those journalists are merely Democrat operatives bylines. As Smith writes, “Where on earth could all of these people have gotten the idea that lying is acceptable? Maybe they’re all just marching to the cadence of the Liar in Chief.”
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Of course, as Jonah Goldberg wrote this week, “What seems like staggering hypocrisy is actually remarkably consistent from liberals’ perspective.” As Charles Krauthammer famously observed, “To understand the workings of American politics, you have to understand this fundamental law: Conservatives think liberals are stupid. Liberals think conservatives are evil.” And base on their actions, the left clearly believes that about not just their fellow politicians and talking heads, but the American public as well.
Related: “Liberals Can’t Argue, They Can Only Bully,” John Hinderaker writes at Power Line. Well, it’s not like the first “Progressives” went around publicly stating such things as “I am asking for a Liberal Fascisti, for enlightened Nazis,” except when they did.
More: “When the Nazca lines fiasco broke, Greenpeace’s response was to assure the world it worked with an archaeologist, taking every possible precaution.”
Plus, “Gavin McInnes: 2014 – The year the liberal narrative exploded.”
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