Agent 86 Goes To Washington

Agent 86: At this moment we have this entire area surrouned with ...
KAOS Agent: I find that quite hard to believe.
Agent 86: Would you believe ....?
KAOS Agent: No...
Agent 86: How about ...?

-Get Smart-

The Washington Post has the audacity (or is it the sense of humor?) to compare Bill Clinton’s denial that he had sex with “that woman” with George W. Bush’s assertion that Rumsfeld would stay on until the end of his presidential term. As one who loves sophistry the way other people like football, I was delighted to see staff writer Howard Kurtz’s compendium of opinions on the matter.

Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism, tells us that Bush’s tactical lie was "qualitatively different than saying 'I never had sex with that woman,'” yet still "a knowing falsehood. And it's odd because he could have said it many other ways.”

It’s qualitatively different when you take it out of context; keeping or firing Rumsfeld is a matter of worldwide importance upon which lives and fortunes hang. Clinton’s escapade may have made the earth shake for him, for a moment, but that’s all. But indeed, Bush could have approached it with a better story if he had had the mind to. What it reveals to me is that he simply doesn’t care what the proles think enough to bother with a convincing story any more. “So I lied and so what?” seems to be the presidential attitude du jour.

On the day after the election, Bush admitted in a news conference that he lied because it wasn’t convenient to reveal the truth at the time. That may have been a mistake since firing Rumsfeld may have gained votes for the Republicans, but as Joe Lockhart, former press secretary to Clinton said, ‘ It's a stunning admission that when something is politically inconvenient, you don't have to be straightforward."

I’m not stunned. Bush, like Maxwell Smart, always has another “truth” to offer when you don’t believe the first one – or the second or third.

White House press secretary Tony Snow explained that Bush lied because he wasn’t going to be "jerked around into making decisions on the basis of politics," which is a truly staggering bit of footwork considering that the man started a war on the basis of politics, but again, I’m not stunned. I never believed anything he said in the first place.