That's one of the problems I have with Bush: He rarely means anything literally. When he said during the 2000 elections that he was against "nation-building," he didn't mean it literally. When he pledged money to rebuild Manhattan after 9/11 or New Orleans after Katrina, he didn't mean it literally. Not long ago, when he said that wiretaps require a warrant, he didn't mean it literally and when he signed a bill that outlawed torture, he immediately issued a "signing statement" that asserted his right not to follow the bill he'd just signed. He even hides behind the tactic. At one point, he and his administration very much wanted us all to believe, as they apparently did, that there was a provable link between Saddam Hussein and the guys who hit us on 9/11. When this turned not to be provable, the administration fallback was that they really didn't mean it.
Here's where the "virtually" comes in. Nowhere in any of his "rant" does Mark mention the word liar. It's not just Mark, of course, and I hope this post doesn't come across as an expression of pique at him. As David Mamet wrote in that terrific op-ed last September,
The press, quiescent during five years of aggressive behavior by the White House, has, perhaps, begun to recover its pride. In speaking of Karl Rove, Scott McClellan and the White House's Valerie Plame disgrace, they have begun to use words such as "other than true," "fabricated." The word that they circle, still, is "lie."
It's true of Mark's post, but more importantly, it's even more true of the press and (god help us) our Democratic "leaders." For some reason, the traditonal or mainstream voices are dominated by those who would rather cut their throats than say what would be clear to an innocent child:
Bush is a liar. That's what he is, that's what he does, and to expect anything else from him, ever, is to mark yourself a credulous fool. To coin a phrase, the emperor is strutting around butt-ass nekkid and is lying to us about how well-dressed he is.
I may well be wrong (and probably am). But there remains a part of me that will always believe that if John Kerry, in one (or pereferably all) of the debates, had pointed at Bush and said in a loud, clear, ringing voice, "Liar"...he'd be president today.
ETA: In a semi-related post, a fella named Bob Burnett has a good reply to the Democrats' "response" to the SotU. As a side note, I hope you saw The Daily Show's coverage of them (both the response and the speech itself) last night. It was one of those "thank god for TDS" moments.
Here's Mr. Burnett on the first rule of Being a Democratic Speaker:
Never, never reveal what the Democratic Party stands for. Apparently, since the end of the Clinton Administration, Party insiders have decided that speakers should under no circumstance say what the Dems stand for. They believe that it is sufficient to state, "We're not Republicans."
And, later:
Bush also strongly defended his eavesdropping initiative, "To prevent another attack -- based on authority given to me by the Constitution and by statute -- I have authorized a terrorist surveillance program to aggressively pursue the international communications of suspected al Qaeda operatives and affiliates to and from America. Previous Presidents have used the same constitutional authority I have, and federal courts have approved the use of that authority. Appropriate members of Congress have been kept informed. The terrorist surveillance program has helped prevent terrorist attacks. It remains essential to the security of America." Dems might have pushed back by saying "None of this is true: the President doesn't have the authority and the courts haven't approved it. Congress hasn't been informed and the program hasn't helped prevent attacks." Governor Kaine chose not to respond at all.
Emphasis mine.
ETA, again: Before the Dems decided to send out "Eyebrow" Kaine (if you saw any of it, you know why I call him that) to respond to the president, one or two of the bloggers had a fine and interesting idea.
Send John Murtha instead. I don't know why they thought this would do any good, I mean CNN had him on one of their programs to rebut Bush, and all he said were things like
“There’s only 750 to 1,000 al Qaeda in Iraq. Now for him to mischaracterize what’s going on in Iraq – and he continues to do this – the fight in Iraq is a civil war. The terrorism is in Afghanistan, it’s a worldwide fight. My argument is that we have to redivert our funds. We’ve been spending $234 billion in Iraq during the civil war where our troops are the targets.
“I admire the people who are serving. They’re doing a tremendous service for this great country. But I personally would not enlist now. What is damaging to the morale of the troops, what’s damaging to recruiting is when they’ve being deployed four times… When they go into a battle without the battle armor. When they don’t have the upper-armored Humvees… When they’re misled and don’t have a clear mission and don’t have an exit strategy – that’s what’s demoralizing. They had a recruitment problem long before I said this.”
Yeah, I can see why Democrats thought "Eyebrow" Kaine was their best bet.
Quotes via Bob Geiger, who adds,
Now, if we could only get Congressman Murtha to quit being polite and using terms like “mischaracterizing” for Bush’s statements and call them what they are – lies.
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