White House tries to redefine ‘truthful’

December 6, 2007

The problem with Bush’s fairly transparent lies about the National Intelligence Estimate on Iran isn’t just that they’re obvious; it’s that they’re clumsy.

Asked when he learned about Iran’s halted nuclear-weapons program, the president said it was “last week.” White House officials then conceded it was actually in August.

Asked about the August briefing, the president said the Director of National Intelligence told him there was “new information,” but “didn’t tell” him what it was. White House officials then conceded Bush was told that the August briefing included a discussion about Iran possibly having suspended its nuclear program four years ago.

Asked about any warnings he may have received in August about toning down his rhetoric on Iran, the president said, “[N]obody ever told me that.” White House officials then conceded Bush was told to “stand down” when it came to Iran, advice the president chose to ignore.

This isn’t complicated. When Bush says one thing, and then White House officials tell us that reality is something different, then necessarily what the president told us wasn’t true. Now, this could qualify as a lie (if he knew the truth at the time), or it could qualify as incompetence (if he just doesn’t know what he’s talking about), but it really has to be one or the other.

Unless, of course, you’re the White House press secretary.

“OK, look. I can see where you could see that the president could have been more precise in that language. But the president was being truthful.”

I can enjoy rhetorical parsing as much as the next guy, but in no way is it possible to characterize obviously-false remarks as “truthful,” unless Dana Perino changed the meaning of the word when no one was looking.

It’s gracious of Perino to concede that Bush could have been “more precise,” but precision isn’t really the problem here. When “last week” is “last August,” Bush is being more than just imprecise. When not being aware of new information becomes being aware of new information, those are opposites, not shades or degrees.

Also from the briefing, CNN’s Ed Henry, building off a report from the New Yorker’s Seymour Hersh, brought a new angle to all of this.

Q: Can you just clarify one more thing? What day was the president actually briefed on the NIE?

PERINO: I don’t know. I don’t know.

Q: Well, because Mr. Hadley left the impression that it was last Wednesday.

PERINO: Oh, on the NIE, specifically?

Q: On the NIE.

PERINO: Yes, last Wednesday.

Q: Last Wednesday? OK. But there have been reports that the president briefed Prime Minister Olmert last week, maybe on Monday.

PERINO: I don’t know.

Q: Did he brief Prime Minister Olmert? And how could he brief Olmert on Monday about a report that he found out about on Wednesday? Can you…

PERINO: I don’t — I will check.

And just for the fun of it, I thought I’d mention that according to the standards Ken Starr established in 1998, if a president is caught lying — even in response to a reporter’s question, whether he’s under oath or not — it’s an impeachable offense. That’s not my standard; it’s Ken Starr’s.

Just sayin’.

I’m glad you reminded us of this. I remember thinking, back in the Clinton days, the danger of impeachment was the precedent it would set. Once the bar for impeachment had become so low, it then set the standard by which the other party could impeach the other party’s President. From then on, any partisan witch hunt could impeach any President for anything.

What I failed to account for at the time was that the MSM and Dem leadership are a bunch of pussies.

  • As long as they haven’t gotten to the point where we’re talking about the definition of “is,” I guess we can go on like this for another year.

    Watching that Think Progress clip, I find it amazing how much time Perino spent talking about what the president meant when he said that McConnell “didn’t tell me what it was.” Are we to believe that in the president’s mind, “information” isn’t “information” until whichever agency is providing it can do so in a final report form?

    I truly don’t know why they ever let the man out of the WH bedroom. At this stage, don’t we have enough evidence to require both Bush and Cheney to step down – one for mental health reasons and the other for physical problems?

    I can’t take much more of this – I may have to get a subscription to People, and become one of those never-reads-a newspaper-never-watches-the-news-never-uses-the-internet-for-anything-but-Facebook types so that I can hang on to the last shred of my sanity. Maybe it would be better to spend the next year worrying about Britney and Lindsey than worrying whether I will have a country left by this time next year.

  • I disagree. The president was being truthful according to his standards for what constitutes the truth; to wit, he shall not personally do any research, ask follow-up questions or anything of that nature to verify that what he is told is “true” according with the standard to which others must adhere. Information presented to him need not agree with that on the same subject in any official or unofficial documentation. Generous leeway shall be in effect when the president is pressed for specifics on exactly when an event occurred, to allow for lapses or inconsistencies of memory. Everything Democrats say is automatically a lie.

    By this standard, the president told the truth. Last week actually was August.

  • Mmm. What a delightful image: the rabid right being sorry they ever thought up that stupid ‘impeach Clinton for lying’ idea in the first place!

    It’s my birthday! It’s my birthday!

  • By this standard, the president told the truth. Last week actually was August.

    For people who believe millions of years can happen in six days, this makes perfect sense.

  • Anne: I’m with you. I can’t take much more of this either. Its as if we are living in some sort of alternate reality here in the US. I keep saying to myself, “What would have happened to this bunch say, 30-40 years ago, when there used to be a spirit of bi-partisanship, compromise? When leaders (not all of course) led with principle? When double dealing, war mongering, lying and cheating, unscrupulous politicians were dealt with accordingly?

    I think its Karma. America has done a lot of bad things to a lot of people and nations, while we the people sat by placated and sedated by our two car garages and picket fences, television, you name it. It’s been talked about for years, Americans’ apathy…

    Payback is a… you know what I mean.

  • I believe Conservapedia defines “Truthful” as 1) “What Bush says,” or 2) “What any conservative says”. Bush obviously said it, ergo it is truthful.

    Now, you may say, sure, Meme, Bush said he found out about the NIE last week, but then the White House said, well, no, actually August. The White House is conservative, so they spoke the truth, too. They can’t both be right, can they?

    Oh, contraire! Of course what the White House said was true. Only a partisan would suggest otherwise. You see, Bush said he got the report last week, so he did. Then today, the White House said he got it in August, so Bush did.

    Neither would ever say anything that wasn’t true, so, what they both said is, by definition, true, otherwise, they wouldn’t have said it.

    When Bush actually got the NIE has nothing to do with it.

  • The Global War On Truth claims another victim.

    The White House can’t seem to get its stories straight on the NIE on Iran.

    Wednesday, Monday, the longs days of the Acting President tend to just run together. I can understand that.

    What I can’t understand is another time when Dick & Bush had to get their stories straight when they insisted on testifying to the 9/11 Commission together, in private, not under oath and without transcript.

    But that’s a “conspiracy theory,” right?

  • What I can’t understand is another time when Dick & Bush had to get their stories straight when they insisted on testifying to the 9/11 Commission together, in private, not under oath and without transcript.

    But that’s a “conspiracy theory,” right?

    Most people just call it “ventriloquism” and see it at circus sideshows.

  • “Ken Starr had standards? Could have fooled me”

    Actually, he doesn’t. He has bright-line rules, not standards requiring judgment calls:

    1) Democratic Presidents should be impeached for saying anything that can be interpreted, even on the flimsiest of grounds, as untrue–note that everything can be so interpreted;

    2) Republican Presidents should not be impeached under any circumstances whatsoever, even if they repeatedly and brazenly tell lies that directly result in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people.

    Rules, not standards.

    Unlike Ken Starr, his arch-nemesis–the Constitution–has standards for impeachment.

  • I wonder if they’ll just pull a FEMA and replace the reporters with staffers next press conference. I think the media is finally engaged, now that we have a bald-faced lie that even they can understand has been told.

    Pass the popcorn.

  • Perhaps Ms. Perino meant to say that the President was being ‘truthy’ instead of ‘truthful’?

  • Sorta reminds me of that episode of “Seinfield” where Jerry’s dating a cop who threatens to put him on a lie detector to prove he, in fact, watches Melrose Place. George’s advice was something along the lines of “It’s not a lie…if YOU believe it.” All Jerry had to do was believe he was telling the truth, and the detector wouldn’t fluctuate one iota.

    For all the gallows humor we have talking about the Bush Administration spinning their own reality, it is the sad truth. Once the Decider says something IS the way it is, that’s it. It’s really why, wherever he goes and whatever he does, there needs to be a Greek Chorus chanting “liar.” it’s why, when he’s caught lying, a reporter HAS to say “hey, isn’t that a lie?” Don’t be afraid to call a liar a liar. Let him have toi explain how he’s not a liar, then hold those statements up for accuracy. When they fail – and they will – call him a liar again. Point out every lie and inconsistency like he’s Juror Number 3 in 12 Angry Men until he finally collapses under the weightr of his lies and prejudice.

    I mean, it IS possible that he’s telling the truth, and he should want to defend his besmirched name. After all, as we heard so often when our civil liberties were being trashed in the name of national security, if he has nothing to hide, he has nothing to fear.

  • Part of Bush’s problem is that he is incapable of admitting error, so in order to make the first lie go away, more lies have to be told. I put that in the passive voice because after the first lie is exposed, the job of making it all go away is handed off to people like Perino and Fratto, whose use a combination of additional lies and just plain confusion to muddle things to the point where all parties leave the room shaking their heads.

    Somewhere, Abbott and Costello are bursting with pride.

    The problem is that it should matter that the president is telling lies. It should matter that he is instructing others to lie for him. It doesn’t seem to matter much to the media, who still, for the most part, think that saying, “the administration said,” or “the president said,” is always the end of the story. For them, the last word always seems to go to whatever administration flunky is in charge of responding. I wish I knew why.

    The day that Martha Raddatz or David Gregory or someone calls out, “Are you fucking kidding me?” in response to whatever is being said from the podium, will be the day I know things are going in the right direction.

  • Thank you for bringing Kenny Starr back to the fold on this issue. It was his dogged insistence to walk down the path of political destruction that has directly led to this craven political moment we find ourselves in. Ol’Kenny Starr, what a twit! To bring the president of the opposition to the mat for the good ol”GOP was quite a feat back then, but to his credit, Kenny Starr is responsible more than anyone else for today’s lack of substance and personal attack politics we are, and have been, witnessing since his “investigation” produced such infamy. -Kevo

  • Commander Codpiece just came out of an alcohol & cocaine fueled stupor, so August seems like last week to him.
    So of course they can’t tell the truth.
    Oh, they are Republicans too, so of course they can’t tell the truth.

  • Somewhere George W. Bush is lying to someone. Somewhere Ken Starr is at a stoplight singning Onward Christian Soldiers. Somewhere Dick Cheney is plotting evil deeds.

    And then there’s a heap of great stuff going on in Iraq, America is on the rise, morale is sky high and carpet’s are cheap!

    Dana said it wrong, the president is being Truthy!

  • I agree so much with the others in saying that I can’t take much more from these incompetent sociopaths.
    Its like watching a movie where every character is an evil twin but there are no good guy twins fighting for right.

    Why Oh Why do the Republicans continue to support these people??
    Why Oh Why do all the Republican candidates run on the Bushie ticket, when Bushie has such a terrible public and world wide rating.

    Why Oh Why do the Democrats keep cutting their own balls off in public? Their self mutilation is also getting hard to watch as well.

    Congress and the leadership of both parties have become a chorus of Castrati with the Commander-in-Cheep as their chosen Chorus Master.
    And the whole damn lot of them are tone deaf!

  • The bottom line is that it doesn’t matter, and the proof is in the lying, fraudulent lead-up to the invasion of Iraq. Nothing could be more transparently impeachable and illegal under both international and national law, and nobody in the establishment who counts is even thinking about prosecuting these guys for anything.

    If that didn’t do it, nothing will. This is fiddle sticks compared to that.

    And how does the media, and how do the Democrats refer to the lead-up to Iraq now? As some kind of intelligence failure. Bush has been completely absolved of any wrong doing. Impeachment is off the table. And it’s really not just off the table. It simply doesn’t exist.

    Relax. Don’t get excited. Bush has blundered so egregiously here that some of the journalists are actually going through the paces, asking some questions, and posting stories. But that will be that, the story will be over and nobody will care what Bush has done until the next little scandal comes along, and then they’ll act as if he’s never done anything like it before. Galloping amnesia is what we suffer from. It’s always right behind us. Winston Smith couldn’t get a job in this administration. Who needs him?

    So why would we expect there to be consequences, accountablity, reason and logic and investigations now?

    Ironically, the right wingers are looking good here. They’ve managed to con the left into declaring the Iraq fiasco as due to faulty intelligence, so they can now use that to discredit the NIE report on Iran.

    Those guys know how to win. That’s what it’s all about. Facts, logic, truth – they don’t mean anything in this game.

  • Boffo comment, hark, and depressingly insightful. It’s like senior Democrats are afraid they will be turned into a pillar of salt if they say the word, “Liar” out loud. You’re also right that winning has become not everything, but the only thing. It was always an inconvenient fact in politics that you have to win in order to make your influence and ideas felt, since nobody ever let the loser make policy. It’s true that this fostered a culture of win, if you possibly can. But there was always a line that few would cross, and those who did were held up as disgraceful to all honest people. Bush crossed that line so many times he made it look like a zipper. As the great Italian-American philosopher Joey Tribiani once said, “you’re so far past the line, the line is a dot to you”.

    I honestly don’t know why the Democrats went along with that “intelligence failures” hogwash. Was it for peace in the political family? If so, it was a failure, as Republicans remain openly contemptuous and obstructionist. Was it some sort of backroom deal, an “owesies” for later? If so, it’d have to be some deal if it meant giving the Texas Turnip a free pass. What I absolutely refuse to believe is that they bought it – that the Democrats accept that it was never naked ambition and contempt for the electorate that drove the decision, and that it was largely an honest mistake.

    Not even Senators James Inhofe, so stupid that stupid people notice, or Ted “Internet Tubes” Stevens are that stupid.

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