Amusing analysis of polls:
This is important. The 75% who say the WMD doesn’t matter are simply the hardcore Bush supporters and Bush haters. But of that middle 25%, 20% of them say they are less likely to vote for him if the WMD isn’t found. That’s a huge number when you consider that presidential elections are normally decided by only a few percentage points, and my guess is that it’s based as much on questions of Bush’s honesty as it is on the WMD itself.
That growing doubt about Bush’s honesty is what the president’s supporters are really concerned about, and that’s why they pretend to think that Democrats are loons for continuing to press their doubts over George Bush’s trustworthiness. Don’t listen to them.
For the record, I think the Democrats are loons because I don’t think Bush is lying. I am waiting for this to blow up on them- shoujld be really entertaining- and then when they reap what they have sowed, they will blame it all on a Rove plot.
Andrew Lazarus
OK, let’s wait a few more months on the WMD. As far as I’m concerned, we have until 11/2004.
Which of Bush’s economic statements was not a lie?
We will keep the surplus even with the tax cut.
We will run an $80B deficit this year and return to surplus next year.
We will run a $300B deficit.
We will run a $455B deficit, but we will have a surplus in 2008.
As best as I can tell, your approach to Bush’s veracity in Iraq is like trusting a Nigerian 4-1-9 scamster to sell you a used car, since on that he could still be proven right.
I think it’s better for the Dems to gamble ’04 on Iraq than try to pull out some weird victory gluing together Affirmative Action, Prescription Drug Care, Civil Unions, and a few other special issues. What’s more, I think the ’02 election makes it clear that the latter approach is no safer or guaranteed than the former.
John Cole
Again, Andrew, since when is being wrong lying?
Dean
Uh, since a Republican took the White House?
Just guessin’. If I’m wrong, is that a lie, too?
PG
Being wrong may constitute lying when no reasonable person could have access to your information and draw the same conclusion.
If Bush knew what the revenues were likely to be, and knew what the budget was likely to be — and one prays that our government has access to approximations of that information — and he still made pie-in-the-sky claims, then we come down to the so 2000 question: Liar or Stupid?
I prefer to split the difference, be polite, and just figure that Bush is not competent to do his job. Hey, lots of people aren’t competent to do their jobs. It’s not a sin. You just fire them.
Andrew Lazarus
Let’s turn it around, John. If Bush has been wrong with EVERY SINGLE economic pronouncement he has made (we seem to agree), why are you so confident he is correct about everything (or even anything) in Iraq? Especially considering the failure to turn up any shred of evidence: we have no WMD, no Al Qaeda collaborators, no weapons capable of attacking America in 45 minutes (or even 45 hours), and fewer and fewer cheering crowds. I know, for you and Bush it’s always just around the next corner.
Here is my new, improved metaphor: you are betting a baseball game using a tip from a tout every one of whose football tips has lost. It’s not against the law of gravity, but it’s a wise way to go.
[Aside: as it happens, I DO think that Bush made most of his economic claims with reckless disregard to their likelihood. The 2001 tax cut, for example, was the end unto itself; the claim it would generate jobs was not believed by any serious economist, and was strictly a PR maneuver.]
Dean
During the doldrum years of the Carter Administration (this would apply to Nixon and the later LBJ years, too), Jimmy was almost certainly wrong when he predicted that the economy would get better.
Did that make him a liar?
Now, by 1980, he looked pretty bad, and people turned him out. If what y’all say is correct, then Dubya will be turned out in 2004. But to argue that Presidential statements are lies because they’re wrong, well…
And keep in mind, if a President (or a Presidential candidate, for that matter) talks DOWN the economy, he gets criticized for deliberately undermining it.