The White House in Non-Denial
Just one minute blog
As various (lefty) commentators attempt to keep hope alive with the CBS forgery story, a key talking point seems to be, <font color=blue>"If these are false, why doesn't the White House deny them? Doesn't silence give consent, at least to the facts alleged in the docs?"<font color=black>
Nice try. I will offer three rebuttals:
(1) It is impolite to interrupt when your opponent is humiliating himself; a White House denial can trigger the media reflex honed over the last thirty years - what is the Administration hiding, and why are they lying? Stay out!
(2) Press secretaries routinely refuse to answer questions based on hypotheticals. I suspect the press secretary rulebook includes a rarely invoked sub-category under which they refuse to answer questions based on forged documents.
(3) Why does anyone think Bush has even looked at these document and formed an opinion about them? If I were Andy Card or Karl Rove, I might have adopted the very plausible strategy of ignoring this story and hoping it would blow over.
In which case, I would make it very clear that, in order to buy at least a few days, the President was *not* to see the 60 Minutes II show or review the memos. If asked, his answer would be, "I have a war on terror to win, and an economy to grow. I don't have time for this back-and-forth from thirty years ago, and frankly, I am surprised you do. If you want to talk about Vietnam, go talk to my opponent."
That answer should have held for a few days while they waited to see see how the story developed. And in the event, the story collapsed within the day, so rules (1) and (2) became available.
Now, do I *know* that they adopted this "Shelter Bush, wait and see" strategy? Of course not. Do you *know* that Bush saw these docs and was unwilling to deny them? No, you don't.
In this instance, only by assuming guilty behavior can we infer guilt. Highly plausible alternative explanations abound. |
