When it comes to lying, no one can touch Ari Fleisher:
tnr.com
THE PECULIAR DUPLICITY OF ARI FLEISCHER.
Defense Secretary
by Jonathan Chait
........Like any skilled craftsman, Fleischer has a variety of techniques at his disposal. The first is the one he used to such great effect at Ways and Means: He cuts off the question with a blunt, factual assertion. Sometimes the assertion is an outright lie; sometimes it's on the edge. But in either case the intent is to deceive--to define a legitimate question as based on false premises and, therefore, illegitimate. Fleischer does this so well, in part because of his breathtaking audacity: Rather than tell a little fib--i.e., attacking the facts most open to interpretation in a reporter's query--he often tells a big one, challenging the question in a way the reporter could not possibly anticipate. Then there's his delivery: Fleischer radiates boundless certainty, recounting even his wildest fibs in the matter-of-fact, slightly patronizing tone you would use to explain, say, the changing of the seasons to a child. He neither under-emotes (which would appear robotic) nor overemotes (which would appear defensive) but seems at all times so natural that one wonders if somehow he has convinced himself of his own untruths. ........
Fleischer declines to answer any question he deems "hypothetical." This, too, is a common press-secretary tactic, but Fleischer has a talent for finding hypotheticals buried in what would seem to be extremely concrete questions. Earlier this year, for example, the administration praised an Arab League resolution supporting the Saudi peace plan, but dismissed as irrelevant a resolution condemning a possible U.S. attack on Iraq. A reporter asked why one Arab League resolution mattered but the other didn't. "I'm not going to speculate about plans that the president has said that he has made no decisions on and have not crossed his desk," Fleischer replied. "That wasn't my question," the reporter retorted. Fleischer insisted: "You're asking about an attack on Iraq, and the president has said repeatedly that he has no plans and nothing has crossed his desk. So that enters into the area of hypothetical." Fleischer redefined a question about something that had happened--the Arab League resolution--into a question about something that hadn't--a U.S. attack on Iraq--and then dismissed the latter as hypothetical.
Perhaps the easiest way for Fleischer to dismiss questions is to suggest that he is not the appropriate person to answer them--something he does with remarkable promiscuity. Do the administration and Pakistan agree on extraditing the killers of Daniel Pearl? "You'd have to ask Pakistan," Fleischer replied on February 25. Did Israel's offensive in the West Bank enhance its security? "That's a judgment for Israel to make," he said on April 16. In short, if a question can be said to pertain to another country, that discharges the White House from having to state an opinion.
Fleischer uses the same technique for discussions of domestic policy. Does the administration want Congress to move ahead with campaign finance reform? "The president does not determine the Senate schedule," Fleischer explained on March 19. "The Senate leadership determines the Senate schedule." (That hasn't stopped the White House from demanding the Senate take up other legislation on numerous occasions.) Does an anti-administration court ruling strengthen the U.S. General Accounting Office's case for demanding energy documents? "That's for the courts to judge, not for me," Fleischer demurred on February 28. What about the recent decision by Stanley Works to relocate to Bermuda, which several members of Congress condemned? "I can't comment on any one individual corporate action." Indeed, Fleischer will even pawn off questions involving other branches of the Bush administration. Asked this spring whether Army Secretary Thomas White has lived up to the standards Bush set out after Enron, Fleischer answered, "Anything particular to Enron, I would refer you to the Department of Justice." What sort of access did GOP donors get to White House officials at a recent fund-raiser? Ask the Republican National Committee, replied Fleischer. Has Colin Powell met with Ariel Sharon? Ask the State Department. Did the administration intervene to allow more pollutants in Alabama? Ask the Environmental Protection Agency. And so on.
When questions cannot be fobbed off on other departments, Fleischer often rephrases them to make them seem so complex and esoteric that he couldn't possibly be expected to answer them. Asked two weeks ago to comment on a blockbuster quote by Bush counterterrorism official Richard Clarke prominently featured in a front-page Washington Post story, he replied, "I do not receive a daily briefing on his verbatim quotes." One year ago Fleischer listed six members of Congress who would appear at an event with Bush. Asked how many were Democrats--this was two months into Bush's tenure, when he was making a big deal of meeting with members of the other party--Fleischer said, "I don't have any breakdown here." (The breakdown was six Republicans, no Democrats.) Last year Fleischer ticked off for the press Bush's legislative priorities. "Where does campaign finance rank in those priorities?" asked one. "I don't do linear rankings," Fleischer replied, as if to suggest that answering the question would require a sophisticated mathematical analysis.
To emphasize his inability to answer these complicated questions, Fleischer occasionally pleads lack of expertise. Last year he touted a drop in oil prices since Bush took office and plugged the president's energy plan. Would the energy plan, which would take effect over the long run, impact short-term prices? "I'm not an economist," he demurred. What does the administration think about an unfavorable court ruling? "I'm not a lawyer." Has Yasir Arafat been elected democratically? "I personally am just not expert enough to be able to answer that question.... That was before I came to this White House."
For any administration, the most damaging information often comes in the form of anonymous quotes from White House staffers. Leaks rarely happen in this administration; but when they do, they are often more damaging for their infrequency. So in order to avoid answering questions arising from such leaks, Fleischer simply denies their veracity. Asked, in the wake of the Venezuelan coup, about a quote in The New York Times attributed to a "Defense Department official," Fleischer went on the attack:
Fleischer: And what's the name of the official?
Q: The official is unnamed. But it is--
Fleischer: Then how do you know he's "top"?
Q: It says, according to The New York Times. So is this official mistaken?
Fleischer: You don't know the person's name?
Q: No, I don't know the--
Fleischer: The person obviously doesn't have enough confidence in what he said to say it on the record.... So I think if you can establish the name of this person who now without a name you're calling "top," we can further that. But I think you're--you need to dig into that.
(Fleischer himself, of course, makes a regular practice of speaking to reporters off the record.)
In the even rarer case that an administration official cuts against the party line on the record, Fleischer still manages to come up with a set of rules that enables him not to acknowledge it. A few weeks ago a reporter asked him if Bush agreed with Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, who had said he "can't find too many Americans who believe that they are overtaxed." Fleischer enthusiastically replied in the affirmative. The reporter, realizing Fleischer must have misunderstood the quote, helpfully repeated it. "Oh, I'm sorry. I thought your question was--I hadn't heard that Secretary O'Neill said that," Fleischer backtracked, proceeding to declare, "I have a long-standing habit in this briefing room, when a reporter describes to me the statements that are made by government officials, I always like to see those statements myself with my own eyes before I comment." Needless to say, that "long-standing habit" had not prevented Fleischer from commenting when he thought the statement concurred with Bush's own view.
Fleischer likewise reserves the right to close off topics because of timing. This applies first to events that have already taken place. Upon taking office, Fleischer wouldn't comment on allegations (fed by White House leaks) of massive vandalism by departing Clintonites because "the president is looking forward and not backwards." He wouldn't discuss the firing of Army Corps of Engineers head Mike Parker because it was "over and dealt with."
But Fleischer also refuses to address events that have yet to take place. When campaign finance reform moved through the Senate last year, he declined to explain Bush's position: "It's too early, yet, to say." After it passed, and went to the House, Fleischer continued to demur because "t hasn't even made its way through the House yet." After it passed the House, he still wouldn't express a view, because "you just don't know what the Senate is going to do.... There's a lot of talk about will the Senate try to amend it, will they be unsuccessful in amending it? Will the Senate basically take the House bill and put it in a photocopier, and, therefore, send it directly to the president?" Well, a reporter asked, what if they do photocopy it? Fleischer retorted--you guessed it--"I don't answer hypotheticals."
The reporter tried, valiantly, to get an answer one more time, with a query that was clear, nonhypothetical, White House-related, and present tense: "Of the two bills that have been passed, is there any reason to veto either one?" Fleischer's answer? "We're going to go around in circles on this." You can't argue with that. |
