[Mb-civic] NYTimes.com Article: Webs of Illusion

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Webs of Illusion

October 11, 2004
 By BOB HERBERT 



 

It's understood that incumbents campaigning for re-election
will spotlight the good news and downplay the bad. The
problem for President Bush, with the election just three
weeks away, is that the bad news keeps cascading in and
there is very little good news to tout. 

So the president and his chief supporters have resorted to
the odd tactic of claiming that the bad news is good. 

The double talk reached a fever pitch last week after the
release of two devastating reports - the comprehensive
report by Charles Duelfer, the chief U.S. weapons
inspector, which destroyed any remaining doubts that Iraq
had weapons of mass destruction; and the Labor Department's
dismal employment report for September, which heightened
concerns about the strength of the economic recovery and
left Mr. Bush with the dubious distinction of being the
first president since Herbert Hoover to stand for
re-election with fewer people working than at the beginning
of his term. 

Mr. Bush turned the findings of the Duelfer report upside
down and inside out, telling crowds at campaign rallies
that it proved Saddam Hussein had been "a gathering
threat." It didn't matter that the report, ordered by the
president himself, showed just the opposite. The truth
would not have been helpful to the president. So with a
brazenness and sleight of hand usually associated with
three-card-monte players, he pulled a fast one on his
cheering listeners. 

Vice President Cheney had an equally peculiar response to
the report, which said Iraq had destroyed its illicit
weapons stockpiles in the early 1990's. Referring to the
president's decision to launch the war, Mr. Cheney said,
"To delay, defer, wait wasn't an option." 

The September jobs report, released on the same day as Mr.
Bush's second debate with Senator John Kerry, was deeply
disappointing to the White House. Just 96,000 jobs were
created, not even enough to keep up with the monthly
expansion of the working-age population. 

The somber findings forced the president's spin machine
into overdrive. Reality, once again, was shoved aside. The
administration's upbeat public response to the Labor
Department report was described in The Times as follows:
"The White House hailed it as evidence of continued
employment expansion, saying that it validated Mr. Bush's
strategy of pursuing tax cuts to support a recovery from
the 2001 economic downturn." 

In the president's parallel universe, things are always
fine. 

Mr. Bush sold his tax cuts as a mighty force for job
creation. They weren't. The Times article that reported the
sunny White House response to the disappointing job
creation figures also said: "In September, an estimated
62.3 percent of the working-age population was employed,
two full percentage points below the level at the beginning
of the recession in March 2001. That difference represents
over 4.5 million people without work." 

Hyperbole is part of every politician's portfolio. But on
the most serious matters facing the country, Mr. Bush's
administration has often gone beyond hyperbole to
deliberate misrepresentations that undermine the very idea
of an informed electorate. If unpleasant realities are not
acknowledged by the officials occupying the highest offices
in the land, there is no chance that the full resources of
the government and the people will be marshaled to meet
those challenges. 

The president continues to behave as if he's in denial
about the war. Iraq remains a tragic mess and the
electorate needs to know that. 

In yesterday's Week in Review section, The Times's Dexter
Filkins wrote movingly from Baghdad about the reporters
trying to cover the war. There's been a relentless
expansion, he said, of areas that reporters dare not
venture into because they are too dangerous. Most European
reporters have left the country, and there are far fewer
Americans than just a few months ago. 

Forty-six reporters have been killed and Mr. Filkins
himself has been attacked by a mob, shot at and detained by
the Mahdi Army. 

If Mr. Bush has a plan to clean up the mess in Iraq, he
should say so. If he has a strategy - besides more tax cuts
- to bolster employment in the U.S., he should tell us. If
he's in touch with the real world in which these and other
very serious problems exist, he might consider letting us
know. 

Spinning gets old after a while. A president who spends too
much time spinning webs of illusion can find himself
trapped in them. 

E-mail: bobherb at nytimes.com 

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/11/opinion/11herbert.html?ex=1098513620&ei=1&en=2f4e9ef8d9cb3007


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