The Morning After: Still Lying

The “thumping” that George W. Bush just admitted the Republicans received isn’t stopping him from continuing to lie to the American people.

I’m watching his press conference as I write.  Here’s one of the first pieces of disingenuousness I’ve heard: Bush boldly declared to our enemies, “Do not confuse the workings of our democracy with a lack of will.”  This is exactly what Bush has been confusing as he has stumped for Republicans on the campaign trail.  The whole a-vote-for-the-Democrats-is-a-vote-for-the-terrorists thing was the cornerstone of the Republican effort.  After repeating such garbage ad nauseum for weeks he is now asking our enemies to forget all that.

Next lie.   Bush just admitted to lying to the press when they asked him last week whether Rumsfeld would stay on in the administration and he told them yes.  The reason he lied?  He didn’t want to inject the issue into the late stages of the campaign.  In other words — but with zero change in meaning — Bush lied to the public to help his party’s political fortunes.

A few minutes later, Bush adjusts the above lie by claiming he hadn’t yet made the decision about Rumsfeld when he was asked last week.  Does anyone really think that the planning for Rumsfeld’s removal hadn’t been largely completed as of a single week ago?  After all, the administration already has a replacement.  Presumably, the process of choosing such a replacement takes weeks, if not months, given the enormous amount of vetting that would need to happen. 

Yet another adjustment.  Bush says he hid the truth about Rumsfeld during the campaign because he didn’t want to send the message to the troops that military strategy is determined by politics.  So…how, exactly, does Rumsfeld resigning the very next day not send the same message?

The lying just doesn’t stop.

Next: Bush is asked about the heavy criticism of the faith-based initiatives program.  He says it’s important that “the program stays strong.”  This assumes that the program is strong in the first place, which of course is the issue in dispute.  Bush won’t engage it; he just resorts to the usual pablum about why faith-based initiatives are important, which is true enough but irrelevant to the issue at hand.

On energy independence, Bush is saying bipartisanship is required to create an effective approach.  Yet he’s spent the last six years shutting Democrats out of having any input on energy, including refusing to reveal who Dick Cheney met with from the energy industry when he created an energy plan during the first term.

The one positive I heard was a willingness to push again on immigration reform, which may be easier now that Democrats run Congress.  That’s a hopeful sign; we’ll see how it pans out.