The key to being presidential, according to the right wing, is if you lie, never admit you lied. Never admit to making a mistake either, because that would be another mistake. To minimize damage pretend that everything is great.
If you can get away with a head fake...it's better than a lie.
"We found em" was a good one.
This is one of my favorites:
The Texas Two-Step
by Paul Waldman
As President Bush endlessly told us during his 2000 campaign, he is a man of honesty and integrity. He takes responsibility. He does what's right. He sets an example for our children. He tells the truth.
So when the Enron scandal began to break and Bush was asked by reporters about his relationship with Enron chairman Ken Lay, one would have been forgiven for expecting Bush to admit that his ties to Enron are substantial. For the record, Lay is an old Bush family supporter, both of our current president and his father. Lay raised and contributed money for the senior Bush, who made him chairman of the organizing committee for the 1992 Republican convention in Houston. No company has given George W. more money over the course of his political career than Enron; Lay's first contributions to Bush were during his unsuccessful run for Congress in 1978. Lay donated $100,000 to Bush's gubernatorial campaigns (there are no contribution limits in Texas). During the 2000 presidential campaign, Bush flew around the country on a corporate jet provided by Enron. Enron contributed $100,000 to Bush's inaugural committee; Lay and Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling each added $100,000 of their own. During the Florida recount, the Bush campaign set up a recount fund, limiting contributions to $5000. Both Lay and his wife gave the full amount. Add it all up, and since 1993 Enron and its employees have given Bush a grand total of $736,800. Oh, and the company gave the Republican party $1,138,990 in 2000; Lay himself has given the GOP $333,910 in soft money donations since 1998.
So let's just say the financial ties are pretty strong and go back a ways. But when Bush answered the reporters' questions about Ken Lay and Enron, you would have thought he was talking about somebody he barely knew. "He was a supporter of Ann Richards in my run in 1994," Bush said. "And she named him the head of the Governor's Business Council. And I decided to leave him in place, just for the sake of continuity. And that's when I first got to know Ken, and worked with Ken, and he supported my candidacy."
A number of commentators have pointed out that Bush's statement was the functional equivalent of "I did not have political relations with that company." This is certainly true of part of Bush's statement, that Lay "was a supporter of Ann Richards in my run in 1994." Like Clinton's denial of his relationship with Monica Lewinsky, Bush's statement is "true" under a tortured interpretation of the term "supporter." Yes, Lay contributed money to Richards' 1994 campaign, but he and his wife contributed three times as much to Bush during that race. And there was little question, particularly given the support Lay and Enron had given Bush's father and the Republican party, whom Lay really "supported." Bush wanted his listeners to believe that Lay favored Richards over Bush in that race, which is plainly not the case. Consequently, the statement is a lie under the most useful definition of the term, which is whether the speaker intends that the listener will come to a false conclusion.
As Bush continued, he said one thing that was simply ridiculous, then another that appears to be an outright lie. He said accurately that Richards appointed Lay to the Governor's Business Council, then claimed that "I decided to leave him in place, just for the sake of continuity." At this sentence, the reporters in the room must have had to stifle their giggles. Bush kept Lay on the commission for any number of reasons - to reward a contributor, loyal Bush family friend and supporter, and powerful Texas businessman, perhaps, but for the most part probably because he and Lay shared a common perspective on the role of government regulation of business (i.e. there shouldn't be any). When they have the power to change the makeup of commissions, governors don't keep people around "for the sake of continuity."
Bush then spoke what was almost certainly a lie, that after he took office in 1994, "that was when I first got to know him." Although details of their personal relationship have yet to emerge, the fact that Lay contributed to Bush in 1978, combined with the Enron chairman's support of his father (particularly in the 1992 campaign, in which George W. was actively involved), suggest that Bush probably "got to know" Lay much before he took office as governor. Once again, one could argue that Bush "first got to know" Lay after the 1994 campaign ended if we interpret the phrase to refer only to their becoming intimate friends, but that is neither the interpretation most people would make nor the one Bush wanted people to make.
Bush's denials of a relationship with Lay are hardly the most egregious lies a politician has ever uttered. But we should recall how Bill Clinton's one big lie was so similar to Bush's evasions. When Clinton said "I did not have sexual relations with that woman," he meant the term to refer only to sexual intercourse; however, he knew and hoped that most people would hear him to mean that he had never had any intimate contact with Lewinsky whatsoever. Clinton was then branded, not only by Republicans but by reporters as well, as the worst liar in the history of American politics. Bush's Enron denials, in contrast, have yet to lead any of the chattering class to reevaluate their judgment of Bush's fundamental integrity.
As the Enron scandal began to balloon, Bush aide Mary Matalin complained that the Democrats were just making too much of things. "They act like there's some billing records or some cattle scam or some fired travel aides or some blue dress," Matalin said. Had someone gotten some nookie on the side, now that would have been something awful. But thousands of people losing their jobs and their life savings? Stockholders defrauded? Documents destroyed in an apparent attempt to avoid detection by government authorities? A company that now appears to be little short of a criminal enterprise sitting in the White House making energy policy and determining who will regulate its activities? How could anyone think that something like that was important?
Lie or head fake? Does it matter? |
