The President misled voters and reporters in a March 20 speech when he claimed that Kerry “voted over 350 times for higher taxes on the American people” during his 20-year Senate career. Bush spoke of “yes” votes for “tax increases.”

But in fact, Kerry has not voted 350 times for tax increases, something Bush campaign officials have falsely accused Kerry of on several occasions. On close examination, the Bush campaign’s list of Kerry’s votes for “higher taxes” is padded. It includes votes Kerry cast to leave taxes unchanged (when Republicans proposed cuts), and even votes in favor of alternative Democratic tax cuts that Bush aides characterized as “watered down.”...

When pressed for a list of Kerry's 350 votes, the Bush campaign quickly supplied FactCheck.org with one document  listing 352 votes and a second listing an additional 27 votes. But a campaign official cautioned: “It is important to note that these are votes for higher taxes, not necessarily tax increases, meaning it includes votes against tax cuts.” (Emphasis added by FactCheck.org). In other words, what the campaign's manager and chief spokesman had been saying was wrong. And even the President's phrasing -- saying Kerry voted for "higher  taxes" 350 times -- is not only misleading but actually misled several news professionals. It's simply untrue that Kerry voted for tax increases 350 times.

The Bush lists of 379 votes is padded with scores of votes Kerry cast against tax decreases (which would leave taxes unchanged, not higher), votes to reduce the size of proposed tax cuts (which would leave taxes lower, though not as much lower as proposed), and “votes for watered-down, Democrat ‘tax cut’ substitutes” (which often proposed to distribute the benefits of tax cuts farther down the income scale than Republican proposals). Thus the Bush campaign counts some votes for tax cuts as votes for "higher taxes."

Among the votes the Bush campaign documents count as votes for “higher taxes” are the following:

• A 1985 vote to offset a proposed increase in Medicare premiums by preventing the tax on cigarettes from dropping to 8 cents a pack from 16 cents, as it was scheduled to do. Taxes would have remained at 16 cents a pack.
• A 1986 vote against a non-binding resolution  to express the “sense of the Senate” that hazardous-waste “superfund” cleanup shouldn’t be paid for by a broad-based tax on manufacturers, but by some unspecified alternative source. Taxes would have remained the same.
• A 1987 vote against repealing a “windfall profits” tax on oil. Taxes would have remained the same.
• A 1989 vote to sustain a Democratic filibuster against a proposed cut in the capital-gains tax. Taxes would have remained the same.

None of these votes would have resulted in a tax increase, and most of the votes on the Bush lists are like that. Whether they would have resulted in "higher taxes" depends: higher than what? Bush campaign officials argue that in each of the votes they list, Kerry was presented with alternatives and chose the higher of the two. Perhaps the President should have said Kerry voted 350 times for "higher taxes than Republicans prefer."

I want to talk this morning about a disturbing pattern of conduct by the people around President Bush. They seem to be willing to do anything for political purposes, regardless of the facts and regardless of what's right.

I don't have the time this morning to talk in detail about all the incidents that come to mind.  Larry Lindsay, for instance, seems to have been fired as the President's Economic Advisor because he spoke honestly about the costs of the Iraq War.  General Shinseki seems to have become a target when he spoke honestly about the number of troops that would be needed in Iraq.

There are many others, who are less well known, who have also faced consequences for speaking out.  U.S. Park Police Chief Teresa Chambers was suspended from her job when she disclosed budget problems that our nation's parks are less safe, and Professor Elizabeth Blackburn was replaced on the Council on Bioethics because of her scientific views on stem-cell research.

Each of these examples deserves examination, but they are not my focus today.

Instead, I want to talk briefly about four other incidents that are deeply troubling.

When former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill stepped forward to criticize the Bush Administration's Iraq policy, he was immediately ridiculed by the people around the President and his credibility was attacked.  Even worse, the Administration launched a government investigation to see if Secretary O'Neill improperly disclosed classified documents.  He was, of course, exonerated, but the message was clear.  If you speak freely, there will be consequences.

Ambassador Joseph Wilson also learned that lesson.  Ambassador Wilson, who by all accounts served bravely under President Bush in the early 1990s, felt a responsibility to speak out on President Bush's false State of the Union statement on Niger and uranium.  When he did, the people around the President quickly retaliated.  Within weeks of debunking the President's claim, Ambassador Wilson's wife was the target of a despicable act.

Her identity as a deep-cover CIA agent was revealed to Bob Novak, a syndicated columnist, and was printed in newspapers around the country.  That was the first time in our history, I believe, that the identity and safety of a CIA agent was disclosed for purely political purposes.  It was an unconscionable and intolerable act.

Around the same time Bush Administration officials were endangering Ambassador Wilson's wife, they appear to have been threatening another federal employee for trying to do his job.  In recent weeks Richard Foster, an actuary for the Department of Health and Human Services, has revealed that he was told he would be fired if he told Congress and the American people the real costs of last year's Medicare bill.

Mr. Foster, in an e-mail he wrote on June 26 of last year, said the whole episode had been "pretty nightmarish."  He wrote: "I'm no longer in grave danger of being fired, but there remains a strong likelihood that I will have to resign in protest of the withholding of important technical information from key policymakers for political purposes."

Think about those words.  He would lose his job if he did his job.  If he provided the information the Congress and the American people deserved and were entitled to, he would lose his job.  When did this become the standard for our government?  When did we become a government of intimidation?

And now, in today's newspapers, we see the latest example of how the people around the President react when faced with facts they want to avoid.

The White House's former lead counter-terrorism advisor, Richard Clarke, is under fierce attack for questioning the White House's record on combating terrorism. Mr. Clarke has served in four White Houses, beginning with Ronald Reagan's Administration, and earned an impeccable record for his work. 

Now the White House seeks to destroy his reputation.  The people around the President aren't answering his allegations; instead, they are trying to use the same tactics they used with Paul O'Neill.  They are trying to ridicule Mr. Clarke and destroy his credibility, and create any diversion possible to focus attention away from his serious allegations.

The purpose of government isn't to make the President look good.  It isn't to produce propaganda or misleading information.  It is, instead, to do its best for the American people and to be accountable to the American people.   The people around the President don't seem to believe that.  They have crossed a line–perhaps several lines–that no government ought to cross.

We shouldn't fire or demean people for telling the truth.  We shouldn't reveal the names of law enforcement officials for political gain.  And we shouldn't try to destroy people who are out to make country safer.

I think the people around the President have crossed into dangerous territory.  We are seeing abuses of power that cannot be tolerated. 

The President needs to put a stop to it, right now.  We need to get to the truth, and the President needs to help us do that."  

The documentation on the GOP Web site about Kerry's supposed 350 votes to increase taxes actually lists only 67 votes "for higher taxes." Most of these are votes against a tax cut, not in favor of a tax increase. The 67 include nine votes listed twice, three listed three times, and two listed four times. The logic seems to be that if a bill contains more than one item (as almost all bills do), it counts as separate votes for or against each item. The Bush list also includes several series of sequentially numbered votes, which are procedural twists on the same bill. And there are votes on the identical issue in different years. The only actual tax increase on Bush's list (counted twice, but hey … ) is Kerry's support for Clinton's 1993 deficit-reduction plan. That's the one that raised rates in the top bracket and led to a decade of such fabulous prosperity that even its most affluent victims ended up better off.

The best way to see the absurdity of saying that John Kerry voted for higher taxes 350 times is to apply Bush's madcap logic to Bush himself. Every year, in the president's budget, there is a table called "Effect of Proposals on Receipts." It lists the president's proposed changes in the tax rules and how they will affect government revenues for various periods up to 15 years. Most of Bush's proposals will cost revenues, obviously. But in the four fiscal years 2002-2005, Bush has proposed 63 actual "revenue enhancers," as his father used to call them. This doesn't include, as Bush includes for Kerry, his opposition to any tax cuts (and there have been some, such as Democratic proposals to reduce the payroll tax). Nor does the list seem to include any "supply-side" revenue enhancement by magic or growth. These are actual proposals to take more money out of people's pockets and give it to the government.

I have no doubt that Richard Clarke, the former National Security Council official who has launched a broadside against President Bush's counterterrorism policies, is telling the truth about every single charge. There are three reasons for this confidence.