Lying

Via Kevin Drum, George W. Bush admits to ABC News that he was knowingly lying to the public about conditions in Iraq all throughout 2006. He says he was doing it to keep up morale for the troops in the field. Phil Carter, who was serving in Iraq at the time, is unimpressed by this observing that the troops in the field knew perfectly well what was going on and their morale was undermined by an out of touch leadership.

Both Phil and Kevin seem a bit too delicate to note that the President, even in his admission of past lying, is pretty clearly coming up with a new lie here. He wasn't pretending things were going well in Iraq for the troops, he was doing it for the midterm elections.

Comments

Yeah, it would be funny how Bush's line on how the war was going changed right after the 2006 midterms - if this was just a big game of Risk or Diplomacy.

Unfortunately, people have been losing their lives by the thousands so that Bush can look good.

I can only hope that he and Cheney some day get turned over to the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

Posted by low-tech cyclist | April 16, 2008 2:23 PM

DFroom made the good and obvious point that MRad failed to ask the obvious follow-up question: Since you lied then, why should we believe you now or any other time for that matter? I wonder if anyone will ask that?

Posted by ed | April 16, 2008 2:26 PM

Hell, even if he were lying to make the troops feel better he's still a tool. There was always the option of nutting up and saying that things were going down the tubes and that he accepted all responsibility.

Guess that's the sort of leadership you expect from a MLB owner.

Posted by daveNYC | April 16, 2008 2:29 PM

RADDATZ: But the overall thing -- when you say, "We're winning," you know what the American people hear. You know how that will play.

BUSH: Well, yes. I think we -- and I wanted -- that's as much trying to bolster the spirits of the people in the field as well as -- look, you can't have the commander in chief say to a bunch of kids who are sacrificing either, "It's not worth it," or, "You're losing." I mean, what does that do for morale?

Once a cheerleader, always a cheerleader.

Posted by tinisoli | April 16, 2008 2:29 PM

This exchange backs up Jon Stewart's observation that, regardless of whether the president is, himself, stupid, the crux of the issue is that he thinks we are stupid-- that's why he talks to us like that.

Posted by Tyro | April 16, 2008 2:30 PM

This exchange backs up Jon Stewart's observation that, regardless of whether the president is, himself, stupid, the crux of the issue is that he thinks we are stupid-- that's why he talks to us like that.

Or as someone else speculated, it's because that's the only form of communication Bush hears. That's how his handlers speak to him. He's not Prince Bunnypants for nothin'.

Posted by ed | April 16, 2008 2:47 PM

I think what Bush really feels is not that we are dumb per se, but that we don't really deserve respect or honesty. He's not really a caring person; he just plays one on TV. Even his fondness of troops is superficial and selfish, to the point where he worries more about what he thinks they want, or how he thinks they want to look while fighting a stupid war, instead of worrying about the possibility that he is literally throwing their lives away by forcing them to fight a stupid war. (If he wants to boost troop morale, asking them to fight and die for a lost cause is the exact opposite way of doing this.) Dubya thinks he cares––cuz he gets all choked up and stuff when his press ofmeet the families of the dead––but his kind of empathy is entirely self-centered and as fleeting as a fart in the wind. He was never cut out to actually care for the lives of other people. The most he can stand to do is throw money at this problem or that, talk about how he cried when he saw that footage of the autistic teen sinking those three-pointers to win the game, and get misty up on aircraft carriers.

Posted by tinisoli | April 16, 2008 2:48 PM

No, it's Matthew who is lying.

Bush says "if you look at my remarks, they were balanced. They weren't Pollyannaish."

Which is perfectly accurate.

Posted by Al | April 16, 2008 2:49 PM

People considered to be our greatest Presidents have usually not been honest with the electorate in matters pertaining to war. Why would there be an expectation that this President would be, unless one thought him to be so incompetent that he would actually endeavor to be honest?

Posted by Will Allen | April 16, 2008 2:53 PM

People forget, and history has been rewritten - but it was precisely this sort of lying that turned people off to the Vietnamese War back in the 1960s. Of course we've been labelled as "dirty rotten hippies" and our foreign policy/security views have been scorned as a result in the big right wing universe - but it really does boil down to whether one has to buy into blatant lies in order to support our leadership and spend our money and send our boys and girls off to die.

there's the old line about history repeating itself "the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce" - although, in truth, both times it is tragedy. And could potentially result in aleinating yet another generation of Americans from their government.

Posted by Ethel-To-Tilly | April 16, 2008 2:57 PM

"if you look at my remarks, they were balanced. They weren't Pollyannaish."

Go look at his and his admin's comments throughout the occupation. 98% Pollyannaish

Posted by Judson | April 16, 2008 2:59 PM

"if you look at my remarks, they were balanced."

They contained truth AND lies.

Posted by Hogan | April 16, 2008 3:00 PM

Shorter Will Allen: Commander Bunnypants = Lincoln

Posted by ed | April 16, 2008 3:02 PM

The question isn't whether or not Al is stupid. The question is, just how stupid is he.

Posted by Bill | April 16, 2008 3:10 PM

Ah, yes. It's the old "Now that we've got proof that he lied, after denying for years that we was a liar, we'll just say that lying is a president's job!" defense.

Posted by tinisoli | April 16, 2008 3:12 PM

He says he was doing it to keep up morale for the troops in the field.

Hey, to be fair, he said "kids in the field". Are we sure he wasn't talking about campaign staff and volunteers, not to mention the 101st fighting keyboarders?

But if he did mean the troops, then yeah, he's lying, stupid, or both. Like your morales is going to improve based on some dumb platitudes when bullets are whizzing by your head and dudes are getting blown up.

Posted by Seitz | April 16, 2008 3:27 PM

While I think that Bush might have especially tried to talk more about the war during midterm elections, and certainly has timed almost everything he does based on political calculations, I don't think he was just lying about the status of the war in 2006 for elections.

Rather, I think it's clear that there is no point where Bush will not say the country is doing well under his policies. The war will always be going well. The economy will always be robust. The state of our union will always be strong. He's basically saying that he cares so much about being Cheerleader-In-Chief, that he really can't be relied upon to ever give an honest assessment of where we stand on anything.

Posted by Will Hutchinson | April 16, 2008 3:33 PM

Ah, no, tinisoli, I never have denied Bush is a liar. Denying that any President is liar, especially in matters pertaining to war, would be silly. Lying is what Presidents, and politicians generally, do.

Ed, I suspect Lincoln lied quite a bit, but I was referring more to FDR, actually. Go look at his 1940 campaign speeches, go look at what policies he was pursuing at the time, and be horrfied at the notion of a President lying in matters pertaining to war, for electoral advantage.

Now, if your point is that you thought this President might be so incompetent as to try to be honest, and are thus surprised that he lied, well at least there is some connection to reality in that thinking. You really must have fallen off the turnip wagon, after having been born this morning, however, to be surprised that a President has lied in the conduct of war.

Posted by Will Allen | April 16, 2008 3:33 PM

he's lying, stupid, or both

I vote both.

Posted by LFC | April 16, 2008 3:34 PM

You can't parse Bush into telling the truth. If he admits to lying it's irrelevant whether his remarks were "balanced". "Balance" or mood-enhancement or whatever is irrelevant to the whole true/false thing.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | April 16, 2008 4:25 PM

Tyro has it right: "the crux of the issue is that he thinks we are stupid-- that's why he talks to us like that."

I've said this for the last five years. Bush isn't as stupid as people think. What he is is arrogant. He doesn't give a shit what you think or care about. He's "The Decider". So he says any old shit that comes to his mouth and doesn't give a damn what anybody thinks about it. "What are you gonna do about it?", is his attitude.

You see this behavior a lot in Federal prison. "I hope you don't like it. Now what are you going to do about it?"

Al, OTOH, truly is stupid.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | April 16, 2008 5:22 PM

In a sane world, this would make more headlines. But since Bush didn't bowl a really bad game or refuse coffee at a diner, the Powers that Be in the media will probably let this one slip. IOKIAR, I guess.

Posted by John | April 16, 2008 5:36 PM

In a sane world, this would make more headlines. But since Bush didn't bowl a really bad game or refuse coffee at a diner, the Powers that Be in the media will probably let this one slip. IOKIAR, I guess.

Posted by John | April 16, 2008 5:37 PM

DFroom made the good and obvious point that MRad failed to ask the obvious follow-up question: Since you lied then, why should we believe you now or any other time for that matter? I wonder if anyone will ask that?

Let me rephrase that in the form of a statement: you shouldn't believe what Mr. Bush says today, because he has lied in the past, which he has also now admitted.

Posted by Bengt Larsson | April 16, 2008 6:58 PM

Remember that episode of the Simpsons where Homer fell asleep while smoking a cigar going "everyone in the world is stupid but me"? That's Bush. Actually, Homer is a better father than Bush and in the end actually does the right thing and care about people. He's just a fat idiot who is too stupid most of the time to know he's fucking up until a tree limb slaps him in the face. Bush isn't lovable like that. He's more of a cross between a monkey that got its hands on a gun and a corporate lawyer at a cigar bar grabbing waitresses' asses.

"But if he did mean the troops, then yeah, he's lying, stupid, or both. Like your morales is going to improve based on some dumb platitudes when bullets are whizzing by your head and dudes are getting blown up.

Posted by Seitz | April 16, 2008 3:27 PM"

You have to wonder what Bush thinks goes through a soldier's head. "This piece of shrapnel in my side hurts like a motherfucker and our translator's old neighbor just shot him in the head, but Bush says we're winning, so I must not be hurt and the whole in the translator's head is just a flesh wound." I bet when he watches Office Space, he doesn't realize Lumberg is the villain and that Steve Carrell's speeches on The Office aren't inspiring.

Posted by Reality Man | April 17, 2008 4:06 PM