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The President Should Stop Saying Things That Aren't True

The more Bush works at creating his own credibility gap, the harder it becomes to take his word for anything

by Stuart Taylor Jr.

...What are we to make of such hokum? Had it come from Clinton, Republicans would have accused him of deliberately deceiving gullible voters, and so would I. In Bush's case, another hypothesis seems plausible: a disturbing ignorance of and insouciance about critical facts, combined with a reflexive urge to duck accountability. "The characteristic Bush II form of dishonesty," Michael Kinsley wrote more than a year ago, with perhaps a pinch of hyperbole, "is to construct an alternative reality on some topic and to regard anyone who objects to it as a sniveling dweeb obsessed with 'nuance.' "

Whatever Bush's mental process (and I don't think it is captured by the word "lying," now so fashionable among apologists for Clinton's perjuries), the more the president works at creating his own Iraqi-WMD credibility gap, the harder it becomes to take his word for anything. ...