---

Distrust feeds a lethal national habit
Four years after the end of the Age of Clinton, we are back at this dispiriting pass. The public has ceased believing George W. Bush on matters involving Iraq. Period....

... "Bush's believability by and large has been one of his strong suits," said Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Center for the People and the Press. Things began changing in January, Kohut said, when no weapons of mass destruction turned up in Iraq and the president's own weapons inspector cast doubt on whether they'd existed before the invasion. By February, when a Pew poll asked respondents to use a single word to describe the president, "honest" still topped the list - but "liar" turned up close behind for the first time.

New surveys by The New York Times and the Washington Post reveal a perilous plunge in the commander-in-chief's credibility. The Times found that 79 percent of the public thinks Bush either is hiding something about Iraq, or worse, is "mostly lying" about it. The Post asked whether Bush or Kerry is "honest and trustworthy," and the president was judged to be honest by 39 percent....