Bush a Liar?

Glenn Greenwald comments at Crooks and Liars about the president’s casual admission of lying at a press conference yesterday.

At his Press Conference today, President Bush expressly admitted that he lied last week when he said that Donald Rumsfeld would remain Defense Secretary for the next two years (only to announce today that Rumsfeld is being replaced). When the President was asked about this discrepency, he simply admitted that “the reason why is I didn’t want to inject a major decision about this war in the final days of a campaign. And so the only way to answer that question and to get you on to another question was to give you that answer.”

That the President would so brazenly lie is not, of course, surprising (although the lie was so glaring that even conservatives James Joyner and Byron York objected to it).

Well, sure he lied. He lies all the time. There’s a war going on. Remember how that got started?

If people want to call Bush on this particular lie because he so clearly copped to it, that’s fine, but let’s think about the consequences had he told the truth when he was asked about whether Rummy was going to keep his job.

Had Bush said something like, “Well, the Vahs Prizzidint is a-gonna be stayin on the job. Ah gots complete faith in Dick. But ahm the decider, and ah done decided that it’s tahm we got us a new secerturry a’ deefense. Rummy’s done a fahn job, but he and ah agrees that we needs us some new ahs on our War agin’ them thar Evil dooers,” the following would most likely have taken place:

• The Left would have gone apeshit over this, saying he’d held off on making the announcement until just before the election in order to get a boost in the election. No doubt Rove knew that the basiest of the base was a bit less zealous this time around, and they needed to draw a little more of the middle of the road vote. This would have been viewed as an attempt to do that.
• The Right would have, with very few exceptions, grudgingly admitted that the time had come and this was the right thing to do.
• Two or three moderate Republican senators who got tossed out in this election would have squeaked by, and they would have retained control of the Senate.

Would that really have been preferable? We all saw how Bush was jumped on when he announced that Rummy and Cheney were definitely staying on. It helped Democrats and hurt Republicans. It was a stupid thing for him to do. Look how angry the campaign staffs of numerous losing Repugs were, both when they first heard that Bush gave Rummy a big thumbs up, and again when he admitted it was a lie. Poor poor Lincoln Chafee was completely screwed.

This is the best lie Bush has ever told.

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