When the White House knows it’s wrong, but goes for it anyway

February 27, 2008

In his national radio address on Saturday, the president, predictably, went after House Democrats for refusing to give him all the surveillance powers he wants, along with retroactive immunity for telecoms that cooperated with Bush’s illegal warrantless-search program. Not surprisingly, Bush said our security was absolutely dependent on Congress short-circuiting the legal process and clearing telecoms of laws they’d already broken.

“Without protection from lawsuits, private companies will be increasingly unwilling to take the risk of helping us with vital intelligence activities. After the Congress failed to act last week, one telecommunications company executive was asked by the Wall Street Journal how his company would respond to a request for help. He answered that because of the threat of lawsuits, quote, ‘I’m not doing it …I’m not going to do something voluntarily.’ In other words, the House’s refusal to act is undermining our ability to get cooperation from private companies. And that undermines our efforts to protect us from terrorist attack.”

Now, on its face, the president’s logic is inherently sketchy — federal officials could just go to telecoms with a warrant, making cooperation non-optional — but ThinkProgress raises an even more important point this afternoon: when Bush made his claim, he’d already been told it was false.

And the key difference between a lie and a mistake is knowing in advance that you’re wrong.

[O]n Friday night — the day before Bush’s radio address — those companies agreed to temporarily cooperate with the administration’s surveillance. “We learned last night…that new surveillances under existing directives issued pursuant to the Protect America Act will resume, at least for now,” explained DNI Mike McConnell and the Justice Department.

In a hearing today, McConnell reluctantly admitted that White House officials were also notified on “Friday night” about the developments, but Bush went ahead and aired his false attack in the radio address the next day. Watch it:

In a testy exchange with Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI), McConnell tried to defend the White House’s attack on the House, claiming it was a simple issue of “verb tense.” “The radio address is normally taped on Friday morning,” before the companies announced their cooperation, he explained. “I would agree with” the radio address, McConnell added.

Levin concluded, “The White House was notified Friday night. And yet they still played that address on Saturday morning.”

Well, sure. Bush probably wanted to sleep in on Saturday, so why go to the trouble of making him re-record the radio address? Simply to make it accurate for the American people? That’s hardly a good reason — this is, after all, the Bush White House, which isn’t exactly made up of sticklers for accuracy and honesty.

Besides, so they lied on Saturday morning. The White House could simply come clean on Sunday or Monday, explain the truth, and set the record straight, right? After all, the Bush gang surely wants people in the midst of a serious policy debate over national security to have the most reliable information possible, doesn’t it?

Oh wait….

In related news:
former Senior Director for Combating Terrorism at the National Security Council Rand Beers,
former head of counterterrorism at the National Security Council Richard A. Clarke,
former Deputy National Security Advisor Lt. Gen. Don Kerrick and
former assistant general counsel at the CIA Suzanne Spaulding
sent a letter to
Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell.

The letter pretty much says : “You and the President are lying. Please stop.”

h/t The Impolitic

  • Oh heavens, what will we ever do if telecoms don’t volunteer to help the executive do whatever he feels like doing and instead require regular legal proceures?! I don’t know if I can go on living in a country that gives even a marginal headnod toward the rule of law!

  • On the bright side, the Bushist pattern allows the coining of a new term:
    yellowcaking

    as in, “there are lies, damn lies, and yellowcake”

    defined as learning that what you are about to say is a lie, and proceeding despite knowing — and knowing that others know — the lie you are about to tell either for personal gain or personal ease.

  • Likely the White House would not continue to pursue a policy of barefaced lies when dealing with the public, if not for two prevailing conditions – it’s always worked very well, and the public is generally incurious and accepting. B has a direct causal effect on A.

    If Bush can convince the public that the telecoms would NOT respond to a court order directing them to release information under FISA, there’s a good chance he can persuade the Democrats to cave again. I’m hoping he will be unsuccessful, but he’s managed to ram several egregious initiatives through long since his star sank in the East, and he was without political capital.

    Perhaps, in the perverse way the electorate has for ignoring inconvenient truths, it will somehow confuse the fact that the telecoms have already broken the law with the assumption they could do so again with impunity.

    I’m beginning to come around to the theory that there is something so horrible currently hidden from public view by the telecom inmmunity question that the Bush administration will balk at nothing to keep it secret.

  • No, the White House didn’t lie. The Dems just don’t like being called what they are: terribly weak during a time of war, and ready to surrender to terrorists.

  • Whoa, awesome comeback SteveIL! You da man! High five dude!

    Except, as pointed out in detail above, the White House did lie. And your second sentence is a total non-sequitur. Other than that, you showed those dumb libruls! Sweeeeeeet!

  • You tell them, SteveL!

    Who needs “Free” and “Brave”?

    Give me the “land of the constantly monitored and the home of the perpetually terrified” any day of the week. Hey, maybe we can pass an amendment to correct the priorities in our national anthem as well.

  • Time to again trot out Stephen Colbert’s well-worn maxim that “truth has a well-known liberal bias.” (Colbert really has become the Mark Twain of our times.)

  • Thanks #6 I now know the WH didn’t lie , your facts are well presented , precise , with well documented sources .

  • I hate to say it, but I think I liked things better when conservatives were afraid of government. But as was the case with Nixon, perhaps they’re just afraid because they assume we’d do the same kind of things that they do with it. I guess once Obama takes the Whitehouse next January, they’ll start being afraid of it again.

  • Don’t like my analysis? Poor thing. Well, let me offer some.

    Not surprisingly, Bush said our security was absolutely dependent on Congress short-circuiting the legal process and clearing telecoms of laws they’d already broken. Uh-huh. Which laws? Which judicial ruling says they broke the law? Oh, that’s right, none. Yeah, lawsuits are pending. Fine. However, there actually has been a judicial ruling. ACLU v. NSA. Plaintiffs had no standing because they couldn’t prove the government was explicitly monitoring them (yes, the government threw the state secrets provision, a valid defense, and the judges allowed it), nor could they show harm done to their livelihoods (communicating with the enemy is usually against the law anyway, but no plaintiffs have been jailed for it). So we actually have a ruling that could be used to dismiss those lawsuits. But why have them go to court anyway if the telecom companies will be exonerated anyway? That is unless lawmakers are providing ambulance-chasing shysters with windfall financial gain in return for campaign contributions from the shysters.

    One other thing; I keep hearing how “liberals” keep saying telecoms broke the law, as if their guilt is already established. I thought “liberals” were all for the rule of law. The rule of law in this country is that everyone, including U.S. telecom companies, is innocent until proven guilty. I don’t know what “liberals” believe is the rule of law, but it isn’t the rule of law in the United States. “Liberals” should be ashamed of themselves.

    Again, where did Bush lie? From ThinkProgress, …on Friday night — the day before Bush’s radio address — those companies agreed to temporarily cooperate with the administration’s surveillance. That’s right. The companies agreed to temporarily cooperate. Temporarily. Meaning not permanent. Meaning they can voluntarily change their minds and no longer cooperate voluntarily. I’m guessing here, but this temporary voluntary cooperation will probably last as long as the wrangling on the FISA updates continues. If the FISA Amendments Act passes (the one with immunity; S. 2248, the Senate version of H.R. 3773), then the voluntary cooperation will become permanent (well, at least until December 31, 2013). If the RESTORE Act passes (the one without immunity, the House version of H.R. 3773), then the voluntary cooperation ends. And then the White House will have to get a court order, which they will more than likely get. However, that will be at the whim of an unelected judge. Remember, it was a ruling from a FISA judge that caused the Protect America Act (the one that just expired) to be passed in the first place (a detailed debate between myself and others about this is in this thread; I don’t need to repeat them here).

    So I ask again, where did Bush lie?

  • SteveIl asks:
    “So I ask again, where did Bush lie?”

    Just about evey time he moves his lips.
    Unless he’s reading something that’s true.

    Now, go change your diaper, SteveIL. I know that you have pissed yourself a few times thinking about those “Terrerists” and maybe shit yourself thinking about how all of us libruls are traitors ’cause we believe in the 4th Ammendment to the Constitution.
    After all, if your Dear Father President George By God W. Bush has to follow the rule of law, the terrorists win! Right?

  • Using inappropriat language certainly takes away from one’s opinion. It’s not necessary. I think what is sad, is so many people who seem unable to face the facts about these last 71/2 years. Our rights are what have made us the country we are. We are fighting a war supposedly based on just that. Yet, this administration has blatanly, with no shame whatsoever, abused our Constitution in the name of “TERROR”. The entire premise since 911 has been to instill fear in us and it obviously works for many. The powers that be are who I’m afraid of. We can’t even protect our own borders, yet were thousands of miles away losing fine men and women in a war built on lies. Stand by this government if you choose. How fortunate you are to be able to do just that. The insidious erosion of our rights has been being chipped away ever so slowly. Not to recognize this is a sign of ignorance.

  • Always hopeful? Why do you believe they are guilty and have to prove themselves innocent? Did you study the American legal system at the McCarthy Institute, run from a flyer in a box of cereal?

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