Who Lied, When, About What?

Who Lied?

I have been considering lately this whole “He Lied!” thing that has going on with Bush. Those on the left have been crying about the lies of George W Bush for a couple of years now, (there is even a fairly decent book about the subject out there), and those on the right have been trying to dismiss these claims as rubbish fabricated by disgruntled former staffers or just political posturing.

Until recently, I thought I had a good grasp of this game. In my mind, the whole “He Lied” game seemed to me to be payback from the left toward the right for the big deal that they made about Bill Clinton lying. I could identify with this very easily.

You see, while I am a Republican according to my voter registration, I could never see what it was that Real Conservatives didn’t like about Bill Clinton. Sure, you expect the Republican Party to not like him, because he is a Democrat, but as for real people like you and me, who happen to be conservative politically, Bill Clinton did a pretty decent job. He managed the finances of the country in a fiscally conservative fashion – coming close to balancing the budget which 12 years of previous Republican administration had failed to even come close to. While he did get us involved in some forms of “nation building” and “nation rescuing” activities, he also managed to work closely with the international community to assure that we weren’t committed alone in countries for the long-term. Sure there were some things that I disagreed with, but overall, he really administered the country in a pretty conservative fashion. He had a problem with his zipper, and while I did not approve of this, I found the media coverage of this problem more disgusting than the problem itself. His private intimate life is between him, his wife, and his personal ethical and spiritual framework – it is not the business of the public. Those on the right were able to convince the media and many in America that it was our business, and they cried disgust at the fact that he would cheat on his wife and then lie about it. I mean, really, most people who cheat on their spouse will then lie about it – what do you expect? And why do I care?

At the time, I had many arguments with those who called themselves conservative, but who don’t seem to understand the difference between conservative values and principles on the one hand, and partisan republicanism on the other hand. They bought into this media-hype hook, line, and sinker. Each time I would have the arguments with people, they would come back to the single fact that he lied about his personal sex life as the thing that made them disgusted. It didn’t seem to bother them that we had spent $50 million investigating the man, and this is all we could come up with – the waste of our tax dollars didn’t bother them. They were convinced by the media that what they really wanted was a “righteous” man in the office. I pointed out to them that the last time we had a relatively “righteous” man in the office was prior to Reagan – when Jimmy Carter held the office. They didn’t want to talk about that. The lies and crimes of the Reagan administration didn’t seem to bother them – ancient history. (Remember Iran-Contra, the convictions, the pardons? Remember the S&L debacle and the quiet “sweeping under the rug”? Remember the October Surprise evidence?) It boiled down to the fact that Clinton had lied – it didn’t matter to them whether the lie was relevant or important – he lied! They wanted to raise the bar they thought – get someone in the office who would always tell the truth!

Well, OK, I thought. That’s a pretty tall order. They all lie – they are politicians – it’s what politicians do – they lie.

So, Bush was elected, and while I didn’t vote for him because I was concerned about his ties to organizations such as Project for the New American Century, his ties to Big Oil and Big Business, and the general impression that I had that he was somewhat of a buffoon, I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt – maybe he would do a good job. I think that many people felt as I did – give the guy a chance.

So here we sit, 5 years later, and those on the left say he lied. Of course he lied – it is what these people do! The question is, what did he lie about? Was it important stuff? If you don’t see the lies that the man has told, then you are either completely ignorant of the facts as a result of ignoring the evidence available but generally ignored by the media, or you are deluded by the powerful right-wing media, led by Fox “news”. Of course he lied – about many things. The one that is most important is the series of lies that he has woven to take us to war and keep us in war, and the collateral lies that he has used to try and maintain support for the war. Here is a quick “off-the-cuff” list of the big ones, as seen through the eyes of a true conservative:
He convinced us that we needed to take the drastic action of going to war against a sovereign nation without the support of most of the developed world because there was an immanent threat of Iraq attacking us with WMD – specifically nukes. He lied by “fixing” and bending the intelligence on Iraq so that it would say what he wanted it to say. He lied by saying later that the intelligence was bad, when in fact the evidence today suggests that the intelligence was the same as it had been in the past, but he ignored it or fixed it to meet his wishes and expectations.
He lied when he told us that he listened to his top military brass to plan and execute the war, when in fact he fired or moved aside the brass who told him that he needed more troops than he had. They were right, and he was wrong. He continues to lie when he says that he listened to them.
He lied when he said that war was his last resort. There is a mountain of strong evidence that he and his staff began planning for a war within days of 9/11, if not before, and that he did everything that he could to assure that war would be the ultimate outcome.
He lied when he called those who were making these accusations liars – starting with Joe Wilson, and moving through respected folks like Richard Clark. Worse among the actions around these lies were the disgusting attacks that he made on the wives of some of these people.
He lied on the deck of the aircraft carrier when he declared “Mission Accomplished”, when he was being advised that the struggle was only beginning.
He lied when he said that if anyone in his administration was involved with leaking the name of a CIA operative would be fired, and now that it is clear that people very high up in his administration did reveal the name of a covert CIA operative, he is lowering the bar to try and protect them. This is treason of the worst sort – people who do this should be treated as traitors, not rewarded with continued employment!

We could make long lists, but these are simply some of the major ones about issues that do matter. These are all factual, objective, history – they are not a matter of “perspective” as one of my closest Republican friends has tried to assert.

So why do those on the right continue to try and deny that Bush lies? Simply because they made such a big deal about “telling the truth” back in 2000, and they want to like “their guy” Bush, so they have no choice but to deny.

This was the picture of the world that I saw, and that I believed. It is, I believe, true. But it leaves something important out. That is, the “he lied” game goes back to 1992, when the Dems assailed Bush senior for the fact that “he lied” when he said “read my lips – no new taxes”. Of course, the R’s were wounded by the fact that this had been such an effective tactic against them, and one could see the Lewinski game as continuation of something that the Dems started.

And of course, they are correct. So what?

More later…