:: Has the whole world gone mad or is it just me. ::

:: Tuesday, May 13, 2003 ::

The White House's laxity with truth
E.J. DIONNE JR.
THE WASHINGTON POST
The White House's laxity with truth


May 13, 2003


"Bill Clinton lies about big things and does it very well; Al Gore lies about little things and does it very badly. None of his fibs really amount to much, but they remind voters of what they don't like about Clinton. With Bush, voters see a decent, likable and truthful candidate, but they're not sure he's up to the job."

?Charlie Cook, National Journal
Oct. 28, 2000
As this quotation from one of America's best nonpartisan political analysts demonstrates, George W. Bush's 2000 campaign for the presidency was based in large part on the idea that Bush was honest while Clinton and Gore were liars. The phrase "little lies" stuck to Gore early, and he never shook it.

All of which makes it surprising that the media do not pay more attention to the ways in which Bush and his White House say whatever is necessary, even if they have to admit later that what they said the first time wasn't exactly true.

Consider this paragraph from The New York Times? on May 7 about that already legendary Bush-in-a-flight-suit moment. "The White House said today that President Bush traveled to the carrier Abraham Lincoln last week on a small plane because he wanted to experience a landing the way carrier pilots do, not because the ship would be too far out to sea for Mr. Bush to arrive by helicopter, as his spokesman had originally maintained."

Now that's very interesting. You can be absolutely sure that if an Al Gore White House had comparably misled citizens about the reason for a presidential made-for-television visit to an aircraft carrier, Gore would have been pilloried for engaging in yet another "little lie."

Yet Bush's defenders have done a good job selling the idea that it's churlish and petty to raise any questions about the victorious president's moment of glory with our troops, even if the White House was not exactly honest about the circumstances of the flight.

What this suggests is one or all of the following: (A) The Bush spin machine is much better than Clinton's or Gore's and it can brush off absolutely anything; (B) the mainstream media are petrified that they'll be accused of being unpatriotic or ? much worse ? French, so they report these things and then let them slip away without much comment or investigation; (C) Bush can get away with things few other politicians can because the view that he's "decent, likable and truthful" is now so deeply embedded in public opinion.

If a campaign-style visit to an aircraft carrier were the only issue, maybe you could write off all of the above as churlish. But the tendency of the administration to say anything that's convenient extends to the most important questions of policy.

In the run-up to the Iraq war, for example, the administration made us very afraid that Saddam Hussein had nuclear weapons. In March, Vice President Dick Cheney asserted that Saddam "has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons." In the same appearance on "Meet the Press," Cheney later contradicted himself on Saddam by saying "it was only a matter of time before he acquires nuclear weapons."

So did Saddam have the nukes or not? What was the threat? Shouldn't we want to know what the administration knew when it said these things?

Then there's the president's claim that his dividend tax cut is about creating jobs in a sluggish American economy.

Even supporters of the dividend tax cut acknowledge it will do little in the short term to create jobs. As John Cassidy noted recently in The New Yorker,? if you take the president's statements at face value, each new job created by his tax cut would cost the government $550,000 in lost revenues. That, Cassidy noted dryly, is "about 17 times the salary of the average American worker."

Since there have to be cheaper ways to create jobs, should we really believe that the president really believes that his latest tax cut is about employment? Isn't it clear by now that he'll say anything to win support for a new tax cut? That suspicion seems especially fair in light of the report by Dana Milbank and Dan Balz published in The Washington Post? Sunday that Bush plans to offer new tax cuts every year he's in office.

It's a documentable fact that Bill Clinton lied about his affair. It's now also documentable that President Bush and his lieutenants have a rather flexible definition of what it means to level with the American people. You can believe that and still acknowledge that the president looked great in his flight suit.

Dionne can be reached via e-mail at postchat@aol.com.

Copyright 2003 Union-Tribune Publishing Co.
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:: Beauxbeaux's Daddy 4:54 AM [+] ::
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J Geils Band - Love Stinks
:: Beauxbeaux's Daddy 6:23 AM [+] ::
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BAGHDAD, Iraq, May 12 — The top American in charge of rebuilding Iraq arrived here today and began his work of trying to control the violence and breakdown of civil order that are paralyzing the American effort to stabilize the country.

...President Bush appointed Mr. Bremer last week as the top administrator here, taking over from Jay Garner, the retired lieutenant general who came to Baghdad on April 21 to oversee the American effort to restore services as fast as possible, promising that the Americans would not overstay their welcome.

...Bush administration officials said over the weekend that Mr. Garner would leave Baghdad within a week or two and that other senior officials here would also be replaced.

...Bodine, who has been in charge of reconstruction for the Baghdad region, was abruptly given notice and will be leaving within the next day or two, American officials said.

...Others expected to leave soon include Margaret Tutwiler, who had been in charge of overall communications under General Garner; Tim Carney, a former ambassador who had been overseeing Iraq's Ministry of Industry and Minerals; David Dunford, a senior Foreign Service specialist on the Middle East, and John Limbert, the ambassador to Mauritania.

...On the other side of the city, hundreds of looters, who now range through the city every day, poured into a former palace of Saddam Hussein after American military units decided to vacate it.

...From the outset, the task of quickly re-establishing order and civil administration in Iraq was far more daunting that American officials had planned for, they now acknowledge.

...But colleagues of Ms. Bodine said she recognized many of the problems early on and clashed repeatedly with military commanders over drastic steps she thought were needed to restore order.

"They recognized that public order had broken down in a far more serious way than they had expected," one official said of General Garner's team.

...One example given was Ms. Bodine's early insistence on hiring at least 50 top-flight interpreters for General Garner's staff so they could interact and communicate effortlessly with Iraqis.

...The upshot was that security concerns, which prevented General Garner from arriving in Iraq as quickly as he wanted, also kept him on the sidelines as the looting and shooting in Baghdad continued.

...In Washington, an administration official said General Garner would leave in the next week or two after a transition with Mr. Bremer.

...One official said Mr. Bremer had long had misgivings about Ms. Bodine's appointment, although he added that it was not clear whether those misgivings stemmed from her tenure as ambassador to Yemen or from other issues.

...Administration officials said they hoped Mr. Bremer would project a more visible and accessible image, but still act within the bounds of "prudent security."

One possibility is that the Office of Humanitarian and Reconstruction Assistance would move outside the heavily-walled Republican Palace and into a place that is less regal, one official said.

..."You need a 24-hour operations center that is taking in intelligence from Iraqis — the Iraqi police, of course, but also the Iraqi political parties and the Shia clerics, who have played an important role in law and order.
:: Beauxbeaux's Daddy 6:14 AM [+] ::
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