Ahhhh i mis-spoke

Whatever happened to the phrase "let me put it a different way"?  Maureen Dowd did a nice job recently on a few people, notably the President's crowd and more than a couple of other politico types who don't seem to catch on to the idea that history is made up primarily of facts.

Events happen and while eye-witnesses may have seen the bank robber as wearing a hat or not, wearing tennis shoes or not, the fact is that someone robbed the bank and the reason that some details are unclear is that reasonable people disagree based on what they think they saw happen - but the fact remains that someone robbed the bank either hatless or in tennis shoes or not.  That is what is at question:  An event and if the mind's eye can view an event similarly or not.

What if, as in this case, the event is of your own making. Surely our bank robber knew if he was wearing a hat and tennis shoes. Let's ask him. He could say yes or no or I don't remember. All reasonable responses. What he can't say is I was wearing them and it turns out he wasn't and when confronted he claims that he "mis-spoke". No. Mis-speaking is either an error or a lie.  If it is an error then the answer should have been "I don't remember".  If it wasn't an error, that he knew and picked the wrong response, well then it is a lie.

I just thought I'd get that out of the way first this morning. The dog once picked my side of the bed one night and when asked what the hell he was doing over on my side rather than by my wife's feet he said he didn't know. I was sure he was lying...but maybe he really didn't know.  I told him not to run for office.