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A Lifetime of Lies
By William J. Bennett, co-director of Empower America.
Albert Arnold Gore Jr. is a habitual liar.
I realize that in the political culture in which we live, making such a charge
-- even if it is true -- is considered to be mean-spirited, in bad form,
indecorous. Nevertheless, as the Founders understood, almost nothing
matters more in a chief executive than his public character and
trustworthiness, his truthfulness and integrity. And on these grounds alone,
Mr. Gore should be disqualified from being president.
Mr. Gore's defenders dismiss his reputation as an "embellisher" as
unremarkable. Shading the truth, they say, is what almost all politicians do,
and Al Gore is no different. Let us assume, for the sake of the argument,
that from time to time most politicians do take liberties with the truth and
distort the facts. Still, among major political figures in the past
quarter-century, Al Gore and his boss, Bill Clinton, are in a league of their
own.
Habit of a Lifetime
The vice president lies reflexively, promiscuously, even pathologically. He
lies on matters large and small, significant and trivial, when he "needs" to
and when he doesn't, on matters public and private, about his opponents
and his family. When asked to come up with an explanation for Mr. Gore's
"misstatements," Art Torres, chairman of the California Democratic Party,
said, "I have no idea. I'm not a psychiatrist."
Mr. Gore has told so many lies, over so many years, on such a range of
issues, that to recount them all would require far more space than this page
can allow. But it is useful to recapitulate some of what we know.
Most recently, Mr. Gore lied about traveling to Texas with the head of the
Federal Emergency Management Agency and about whether he'd
questioned George W. Bush's experience to be president. In a speech
during which he received the endorsement of the Teamsters, Mr. Gore
claimed that as a child he was lulled to sleep by the union ballad "Look for
the Union Label" -- even though the tune was written when he was 27
years old. His campaign initially said Mr. Gore meant a different song; a
few days later they said the vice president was telling a joke.
These examples are recent, but the pattern of lies is not a recent
phenomenon. It is, rather, the habit of a political lifetime. Consider the
following:
In 1997, Mr. Gore told investigators that fund-raising calls he made from
the White House were made only in order to raise (legal) soft-money
donations. When a memorandum later surfaced and disclosed that the vice
president had attended meetings in which discussions about (illegal) "hard
money" accounts took place, Mr. Gore told the Federal Bureau of
Investigation that he was sometimes inattentive and that "he drank a lot of
iced tea during meetings, which could have necessitated a restroom break."
Former White House Chief of Staff Leon Panetta said in a deposition that
he remembers Mr. Gore "attentively listening" to the hard-money
conversations, and former White House Deputy Chief of Staff Harold
Ickes testified that whenever the vice president left the room, he, Mr.
Ickes, stopped the meetings. In light of the evidence, FBI General Counsel
Larry Parkinson wrote to the assistant attorney general that there was
"sufficient evidence" to prove that the vice president made a false statement
to investigators on this matter.
In an April 18 deposition conducted by Robert Conrad, the chief of the
Justice Department's campaign-finance task force, Mr. Gore was asked if
he had any recollection of conversations he had with his old friend,
Democratic fund-raiser Maria Hsia, about a 1996 fund-raising breakfast
for Asian-Americans at the Hay-Adams Hotel in Washington. "I have
none," Mr. Gore responded. He was then asked if he recalled being seated
at her table. "No, I don't," he answered. In fact, as photos show, Hsia
(convicted of illegally raising $25,000 for the Democratic National
Committee at the breakfast) was seated right next to Mr. Gore.
During the same April 18 deposition, the vice president denied having a
"concrete recollection" of his attendance at any of the more than 30
fund-raising coffees he hosted or co-hosted between January 1995 and
August 1996 (Mr. Gore later said he misunderstood the question). He
claims that he did not know at the time that a 1996 event at a Buddhist
Temple in Los Angeles was an (illegal) fund-raiser. He says this despite the
fact that the Secret Service, the National Security Council, the White
House deputy chief of staff, staff members, and his own e-mail referred to
it as a fund-raiser before the visit occurred.
In November 1999, Mr. Gore claimed to be a co-sponsor of the
McCain-Feingold campaign-finance reform legislation. But that bill was not
introduced until three years after Mr. Gore left the Senate. And during the
same month the vice president claimed to be the author of the Earned
Income Tax Credit. In fact, the EITC law was enacted in 1975 -- two
years before Mr. Gore entered Congress.
The misleading statements predate Mr. Gore's term as vice president. They
include his claims about his service as an Army journalist in Vietnam; his
work as a reporter at the Nashville Tennessean; his view regarding Senate
hearings on music lyrics; his position on the nuclear test ban treaty; his
assertion (made during the 1988 presidential campaign) that half his staff
were women; and his role in Hubert Humphrey's 1968 convention speech.
These and other incidents led Mr. Gore's own staff to warn him about his
propensity for "exaggeration" and for making claims that "may be
impossible to back up."
One might think that the Gore campaign would be vaguely embarrassed
about his record of deception. But Gore aide Mark Fabiani refuses to
explain it. Rather, he says, "We've never attacked Bush for his numerous
crimes against the English language." This is a revealing statement; the Gore
team views poor syntax as the equivalent of compulsive lying. And Mr.
Gore himself dismisses concerns about his veracity as an "ad hominem
personal attack." We hear this argument made all the time, that "attacking"
an opponent's character is a way to avoid talking about the "real issues." If
Mr. Gore invokes this defense in tonight's debate, how should Mr. Bush
respond?
First, by pointing out that persistent lies by a person in high public office
are not merely "personal"; they have to do with the public interest. Public
office is a public trust, and people who violate it ought to be held
accountable -- particularly if they deceive federal investigators.
Second, if the people can't trust your word, why should they trust your
proposals? Mr. Gore's primary opponent, Sen. Bill Bradley, uttered the
single most devastating line of the 2000 campaign: "Why should we believe
that you will tell the truth as president if you don't tell the truth as a
candidate?"
Third, if an individual is a habitual liar, it will manifest itself in all sorts of
ways. As Mr. Clinton demonstrated, a person who has utter contempt for
the truth is likely to have utter contempt for the law.
Fourth, the American public's loss of trust in government is a vital national
issue. We don't need another president to deepen further the people's
cynicism.
Finally, whether you're talking about a police officer, a teacher, a doctor or
a car mechanic, it matters greatly whether that person's word is good. If it
matters for all these people, then it surely matters in choosing a president.
Enough Is Enough
James Madison famously wrote that men are not angels, and nobody is
insisting that the president be a saint. But with Mr. Gore, one begins to
suspect that his lies are symptomatic of something fundamentally
disquieting, and quite relevant. This is, after all, an individual who has been
warned repeatedly to take care not to lie, embellish, or misstate the facts
and his own history. He is acknowledged to be a master of details. Yet the
problem persists. His lying appears to be incorrigible. And it is a matter of
public record.
If the Clinton years have taught us anything, it is that character matters in a
president. And Al Gore, like Bill Clinton before him, is manifestly lacking in
that regard. As the public considers for whom it will vote on Nov. 7, it
should recall the old adage: Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice,
shame on me. Surely the past eight years of persistent half-truths, lies and
lawlessness have been enough.
Haven't they? |
