[Mb-civic] NYTimes.com Article: The Falling Scales

[swiggard at comcast.net]

The article below from NYTimes.com 
has been sent to you by swiggard at comcast.net.


Excellent Krugman piece on the debates. Here's hoping #2m between the VP candidates tonight, goes still further in exposing the lying neocons for what they are to most of America.
Peace,
Bill

swiggard at comcast.net


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The Falling Scales

October 5, 2004
 By PAUL KRUGMAN 



 

Last week President Bush found himself defending his record
on national security without his usual protective cocoon of
loyalty-tested audiences and cowed reporters. And the sound
you heard was the scales' falling from millions of eyes. 

Trying to undo the damage, Mr. Bush is now telling those
loyalty-tested audiences that Senator John Kerry's use of
the phrase "global test" means that he "would give foreign
governments veto power over our national security
decisions." He's lying, of course, as anyone can confirm by
looking at what Mr. Kerry actually said. But it may still
work - Mr. Bush's pre-debate rise in the polls is testimony
to the effectiveness of smear tactics. 

Still, something important happened on Thursday. Style
probably mattered most: viewers were shocked by the
contrast between Mr. Bush's manufactured image as a strong,
resolute leader and his whiny, petulant behavior in the
debate. But Mr. Bush would have lost even more badly if
post-debate coverage had focused on substance. 

Here's one underreported example: So far, Mr. Bush has paid
no political price for his shameful penny-pinching on
domestic security and his refusal to provide effective
protection for America's ports and chemical plants. As
Jonathan Chait wrote in The New Republic: "Bush's record on
homeland security ought to be considered a scandal. Yet,
not only is it not a scandal, it's not even a story." 

But Mr. Kerry raised the issue, describing how the
administration has failed to protect us against terrorist
attacks. Mr. Bush's response? "I don't think we want to get
to how he's going to pay for all these promises." 

Oh, yes we do. According to Congressional Budget Office
estimates, Mr. Bush's tax cuts, with their strong tilt
toward the wealthy, are responsible for more than $270
billion of the 2004 budget deficit. Increased spending on
homeland security accounts for only $20 billion. That shows
the true priorities of the self-proclaimed "war president."
Later, Mr. Bush, perhaps realizing his mistake, asserted,
"Of course we're doing everything we can to protect
America." But he had already conceded that he isn't. 

It's also not clear whether voters have noticed the
collapse of Mr. Bush's cover story for the disastrous
decision to invade Iraq. In Coral Gables, Mr. Bush asserted
that when Mr. Kerry voted to authorize the use of force
against Saddam, he "looked at the same intelligence I
looked at." But as The Times confirmed last weekend, the
Bush administration suppressed intelligence that might have
raised doubts in Congress. 

The case for war rested crucially on one piece of evidence:
Saddam's purchase of aluminum tubes that, according to
Condoleezza Rice, were "only really suited for nuclear
weapons programs." But the truth, never revealed to
Congress, was that most of the government's experts
considered the tubes unsuited for a nuclear program and
identical to the tubes used by Iraq for other purposes.
Yes, Virginia, we were misled into war. 

Now it's Dick Cheney's turn. 

Mr. Cheney's manufactured
image is as much at odds with reality as Mr. Bush's. The
vice president is portrayed as a hardheaded realist,
someone you can trust with difficult decisions. But his
actual record is one of irresponsibility and incompetence. 

Case in point: Mr. Cheney completely misread the nature of
the 2001 California energy crisis. Although he has
stonewalled investigations into what went on in his task
force, there's no real question that he placed his trust in
the very companies whose market-rigging caused that crisis.


In tonight's debate, John Edwards will surely confront Mr.
Cheney over that task force, over domestic policies and, of
course, over Halliburton. But he can also use the occasion
to ask more hard questions about national security. 

After all, Mr. Cheney didn't just promise Americans that
"we will, in fact, be welcomed as liberators" by the
grateful Iraqis. He also played a central role in leading
us to war on false pretenses. 

No, that's not an overstatement. In August 2002, when Mr.
Cheney declared "we now know Saddam has resumed his efforts
to acquire nuclear weapons," he was being dishonest: the
administration knew no such thing. He was also being
irresponsible: his speech pre-empted an intelligence review
that might have given dissenting experts a chance to make
their case. 

So here's Mr. Edwards's mission: to expose the real Dick
Cheney, just as Mr. Kerry exposed the real George Bush. 

E-mail: krugman at nytimes.com


http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/05/opinion/05krugman.html?ex=1097974897&ei=1&en=125f6e4fadf2c0a4


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