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Tuesday, August 17, 2004

Why Oh Why Are We Ruled by These Liars? Dan Froomkin writes: washingtonpost.com – White House Briefing: Now Scott Lindlaw of the Associated Press weighs in on one aspect of the Bush campaign's crowd-control tactics that some readers felt I didn't pay enough attention to. "President Bush's team exerts close control over admission to his campaign events. Dissenters and would-be hecklers are turned away, campaign officials say. On several occasions in recent weeks, Democrats who have gotten in have been ejected because they wore pro-Kerry T-shirts." Lindlaw writes: "Bush's admission policy can leave the impression that the president has strong support wherever he goes." Lindlaw also solves the mystery of how Bush seemed to get such a warm reception from union members in Las Vegas last week: He didn't. It turns out that just because he spoke at a union hall doesn't mean he was speaking to union members. "Labor unions traditionally align with Democrats and have not been particularly friendly to Bush. So when Bush spoke at a Las Vegas union hall Thursday, the campaign used its usual ticket distribution policy to pack the hall with backers. The crowd roared its approval throughout the speech. Some tickets were also given to union members. A few of them sat silently in the back rows." Here's the text of that speech, which the White House press office headlined: "President Speaks to Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners." They do lie about everything, don't they? [Brad DeLong's Semi-Daily Journal (2004)] 4:26:15 PM  Permalink  comment []

The Behavior Without A Name Back in September 2003, conservative pundit Tucker Carlson told Salon about an experience he had with the Bush campaign back in 1999. He saw then-Governor Bush swear, his communications director saw Bush swear, so Carlson wrote an piece that noted Bush swore. Karen Hughes responded by calling Carlson a liar. so I called Karen and asked her why she was saying this, and she had this almost Orwellian rap that she laid on me about how things she’d heard — that I watched her hear — she in fact had never heard, and she’d never heard Bush use profanity ever. It was insane. I’ve obviously been lied to a lot by campaign operatives, but the striking thing about the way she lied was she knew I knew she was lying, and she did it anyway. There is no word in English that captures that. It almost crosses over from bravado into mental illness. It’s now four years later, with another presidential campaign and new campaign staff, but the behavior remains the same. The other night on Hardball with Chris Matthews, Matthews showed a clip from his show. In it, he asks Kerry if he’s one of the anti-war candidates like Clark or Dean (as opposed to Lieberman or Gephardt). Kerry responds: KERRY: I am—yes, in the sense that I don’t believe the president took us to war as he should have Mathews showed an RNC promotional clip which edited the conversation down to this: MATTHEWS:  Are you one of the anti-war candidates? KERRY:  I am.  Yes. Then he showed a clip from a campaign speech where Bush said: BUSH:  And now almost two years after he voted for the war in Iraq, about 220 days after switching positions to declare himself the anti-war candidate, my opponent has found a new nuance. The audience knew the Bush campaign was lying. Mathews knew the Bush campaign was lying. And Mathew Dowd, the Bush campaign representative on the show, knew he was lying. What was his response? To just keep on lying: DOWD:  Yes.  Senator Kerry said, yes, absolutely, he was the anti-war candidate.  So yes, of course it‘s fair. … MATTHEWS:  [I]s the president going to keep saying that something that was said on this show wasn‘t said? DOWD:  Of course he is.  Why wouldn‘t he, it‘s what Senator Kerry said? It’s downright scary. I think it’s time we got a name for this “mental illness”. (Submit your suggestions.) [Aaron Swartz] 3:31:29 PM  Permalink  comment []

© Copyright 2004 Steve Michel.