Thursday, March 25, 2004

Lies and Truth

Virtually everything George Bush has told us for the last 4 years has been a lie. He didn’t tell us the truth about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, about how many jobs would be created by his massive tax cuts, instead of the nearly 3 million jobs lost, about the economy, and the deficits after the tax cuts, about the true cost of his Medicare prescription drug plan, about Social Security.

So can you believe a word of anything else he’s said?

Like the attempted character assassination of person after person who’s come forward to tell the truth about what’s really going on. They can only pull that one out of their bag of tricks so many times before it loses it’s effectiveness. You can only cry wolf so many times before no one believes you anymore. You can only tell the world so many blatant lies before your former allies write you off as irrelevant or worse, a rogue president leading a rogue nation.

In the last few days, Teflon George has finally lost the trust of much of the American public. Richard Clarke has finally put paid to about the only thing Bush had left to run on - the “war on terrorism”. He doesn’t dare run on the economy, or job creation, about how well the war in Iraq was going, or any number of social issues. He only could wrap himself in the flag and “act Presidential”, but it was just that - an act.

Richard Clarke is the latest of several former officials who have come forward to tell what happened when Bush took office. First order of business? Iraq. When the subject of terrorism was brought up, they brushed it aside, right up until 9/11. When it happened, who did they want to attack first? Iraq. Even when all evidence pointed to the contrary they still planned, deceived the Congress and public, and carried out this obsession with attacking Iraq. Triumph of The Will, and all that.

Clarke merely corroborated what Bush’s former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill and several others have said. The blinders were on at the White House, and they only would look at information that agreed with their pre-determined goals. The attack dogs were unleashed on Clarke, but his bona fides are impressive - he is a Republican and served in both Reagan and Bush’s father’s administrations in the role of counter-terrorism adviser. They can’t dismiss him as not being “in the loop” or knowing what he’s talking about, nor accuse him of doing this for partisan purposes. I don’t think they can make these attacks stick, not after using the same tactics again and again.

Clarke had the guts to do what nobody in this sorry excuse for an administration would. He had the simple humanity and humility to apologize to the families of those who were killed on 9/11. Bush and Rice “couldn’t spare the time” and “didn’t want to set a precedent” by testifying under oath, despite repeated requests by both the committee and the families. This is after 2 1/2 years of stonewalling and opposing this investigation at every turn.

The thing that impressed me the most about his testimony wasn’t the bombshell that Clarke dropped into Bush’s campaign, welcome though that was. It was his heartfelt sorrow at having failed, despite years of trying. And the response of the families - after his testimony, they crowded around him, hugging him, shaking his hand and thanking him for trying and his testimony. Because he had the decency to do what no one in the White House would do.

To tell the truth.

- Bob Woods