A Liar - Liar Two-fer

Glenn Greenwald has a couple of good posts up today about liars and lying. The first is about the guy so many call Instahack for good reason.

One of the most destructive attributes in our political dialogue is the mindless embrace of notions of conventional wisdom, which just get repeated over and over by those who are too lazy to think critically about anything. And there are few places where conventional talking points thrive with as much vibrancy as they do on Instapundit's blog.

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So the truth is, as is so often the case, the precise opposite of Instapundit's statements. Kos himself supported the winning candidate. So did the "leftist fringe" national political figures like John Kerry. And Webb's defeated opponent, far from being some sort of Hero of the Left, was a run-of-the-mill corporate lobbyist who positioned himself as a moderate to conservative on almost every issue. And yet those unfortunate souls who trust Instapundit's "analysis" and believe what he says are walking around today laboring under the standard fantasy that Webb's victory was a repudiation of the "the Howard Dean-Kos-fringe" even though that "fringe" supported Webb.

This is just one more misleading Instapundit post about a relatively obscure primary race, so why does this matter? Because this same fiction is repeated over and over in all corners and, despite its glaring falsity, has the status of conventional wisdom among the national media. Anti-Bush bloggers are leftist ideologues.

His other post is a follow-up on one I referenced earlier about Arlen Specter's proposed bill. Specter denied reports that described the bill as one "which included blanket amnesty for anyone who has violated FISA" so adamantly that Glenn wrote:

As I wrote on that day, the absoluteness of Specter's denial made it seem likely that the Post had simply erred in its reporting. Although both the Post and the ACLU reported that his legislation contained such a provision, Specter so categorically denied on national television that he had done any such thing, something he seemed unlikely to do if his proposed legislation really did contain such amnesty. This conflict could not be resolved over the weekend -- or until today -- because Specter's marked-up legislation referenced by the Post was not publicly available and, therefore, could not be reviewed to determine whether Specter was telling the truth.

However, Glenn finally saw the proposed legislation and... guess what?

In sum, Specter's legislation amends the provision of FISA which provides for criminal penalties, and then, astonishingly, makes those revisions retroactive all the way back to 1978 (when FISA was enacted). The effect and almost certainly the intent of those revisions is to immunize the President and anyone acting under his authority from criminal liability for violating FISA -- just as the Post and the ACLU correctly reported, and just as Specter falsely denied.

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But what is extremely noteworthy -- and worth emphasizing -- is that Arlen Specter amended his legislation to include the most extremist provision imaginable (retroactive amnesty for criminal behavior), all in order to please the President's allies on the Judiciary Committee (led by Sen. Kyl) -- who, as always, are marching to the dictates of the White House, which obviously is willing to accept new FISA legislation only if it provides them with immunity from criminal prosecution for their lawbreaking.

But even more notable still is the fact that after engaging in this behavior, Specter went on national television and dishonestly denied that he was doing that. I suppose it's theoretically possible (although highly unlikely, to put it mildly) that Specter, a lawyer and former prosecutor, does not realize that his legislation contains an amnesty provision.