Webs of Illusion

[Guest guest]

We have become inured to lying. We now accept and call bald faced

lying such nicer sounding names like spinning, illusion, etc.

 

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/11/opinion/11herbert.html?oref=login & th

 

October 11, 2004

OP-ED COLUMNIST

 

 

Webs of Illusion

By BOB HERBERT

 

It's understood that incumbents campaigning for re-election will

spotlight the good news and downplay the bad. The problem for

President Bush, with the election just three weeks away, is that the

bad news keeps cascading in and there is very little good news to tout.

 

So the president and his chief supporters have resorted to the odd

tactic of claiming that the bad news is good.

 

The double talk reached a fever pitch last week after the release of

two devastating reports - the comprehensive report by Charles Duelfer,

the chief U.S. weapons inspector, which destroyed any remaining doubts

that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction; and the Labor Department's

dismal employment report for September, which heightened concerns

about the strength of the economic recovery and left Mr. Bush with the

dubious distinction of being the first president since Herbert Hoover

to stand for re-election with fewer people working than at the

beginning of his term.

 

Mr. Bush turned the findings of the Duelfer report upside down and

inside out, telling crowds at campaign rallies that it proved Saddam

Hussein had been " a gathering threat. " It didn't matter that the

report, ordered by the president himself, showed just the opposite.

The truth would not have been helpful to the president. So with a

brazenness and sleight of hand usually associated with

three-card-monte players, he pulled a fast one on his cheering listeners.

 

Vice President Cheney had an equally peculiar response to the report,

which said Iraq had destroyed its illicit weapons stockpiles in the

early 1990's. Referring to the president's decision to launch the war,

Mr. Cheney said, " To delay, defer, wait wasn't an option. "

 

The September jobs report, released on the same day as Mr. Bush's

second debate with Senator John Kerry, was deeply disappointing to the

White House. Just 96,000 jobs were created, not even enough to keep up

with the monthly expansion of the working-age population.

 

The somber findings forced the president's spin machine into

overdrive. Reality, once again, was shoved aside. The administration's

upbeat public response to the Labor Department report was described in

The Times as follows: " The White House hailed it as evidence of

continued employment expansion, saying that it validated Mr. Bush's

strategy of pursuing tax cuts to support a recovery from the 2001

economic downturn. "

 

In the president's parallel universe, things are always fine.

 

Mr. Bush sold his tax cuts as a mighty force for job creation. They

weren't. The Times article that reported the sunny White House

response to the disappointing job creation figures also said: " In

September, an estimated 62.3 percent of the working-age population was

employed, two full percentage points below the level at the beginning

of the recession in March 2001. That difference represents over 4.5

million people without work. "

 

Hyperbole is part of every politician's portfolio. But on the most

serious matters facing the country, Mr. Bush's administration has

often gone beyond hyperbole to deliberate misrepresentations that

undermine the very idea of an informed electorate. If unpleasant

realities are not acknowledged by the officials occupying the highest

offices in the land, there is no chance that the full resources of the

government and the people will be marshaled to meet those challenges.

 

The president continues to behave as if he's in denial about the war.

Iraq remains a tragic mess and the electorate needs to know that.

 

In yesterday's Week in Review section, The Times's Dexter Filkins

wrote movingly from Baghdad about the reporters trying to cover the

war. There's been a relentless expansion, he said, of areas that

reporters dare not venture into because they are too dangerous. Most

European reporters have left the country, and there are far fewer

Americans than just a few months ago.

 

Forty-six reporters have been killed and Mr. Filkins himself has been

attacked by a mob, shot at and detained by the Mahdi Army.

 

If Mr. Bush has a plan to clean up the mess in Iraq, he should say so.

If he has a strategy - besides more tax cuts - to bolster employment

in the U.S., he should tell us. If he's in touch with the real world

in which these and other very serious problems exist, he might

consider letting us know.

 

Spinning gets old after a while. A president who spends too much time

spinning webs of illusion can find himself trapped in them.

 

E-mail: bobherb

 

Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company