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To: jlallen who wrote (14190)	6/5/2002 2:49:44 PM
From: E	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 21057

You didn't read the article. The point was not that he didn't live up to campaign promises. The point was that he lied after the fact about what his campaign promise had been. Knowingly lying is a character issue, whether it's "I never had sex with that woman," or "I never promised not to dip into the SS surplus." That is the lie. Not the campaign promise, the lie that he had said during his campaign that he WOULD dip into it if he felt it necessary. We could discuss which was worse, a lie about sex or a lie about what he'd told the electorate, but what's the point, really? I suppose you can say that falsifying campaign promises retroactively is okay because he isn't under oath, he is just lying, like "I never had sex with that woman." True, it wasn't under oath. But it's a character issue or an intelligence one, take your pick.

To: jlallen who wrote (14190)	6/5/2002 3:20:19 PM
From: Original Mad Dog	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 21057

I think it depends on the nature of the language used in connection with the promise. Here is the full text of the elder President Bush's 1988 pledge: "The Congress will push me to raise taxes, and I’ll say no, and they’ll push, and I’ll say no, they’ll push again and I’ll say to them, read my lips, no new taxes." He didn't just say "no new taxes" or even just "read my lips, no new taxes." He set it up with a preface which said that he would be the bulwark of resistance against those who would cite circumstances as making new taxes necessary. That is why the electorate punished him. Clinton painted himself into a similar box with his early denials of the Lewinsky affair. It wasn't just "the allegations aren't true", but rather this: ""I want to say one thing to the American people. I'm going to say this again. I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky. I never told anybody to lie. Not a single time. Never. These allegations are false and I need to go back to work for the American people." <accompanied by a wagging finger if I recall correctly> I do not recall the specifics of GWB's statements in the campaign about the SS surplus. I am sure someone will dig them up. It could be that he qualified it at some times but not at other times. I certainly don't remember anything as memorable as the two lines quoted above from his father and his predecessor.