Credibility
By Brent Bourgeois
When President Bush declared that Hezbollah had been defeated in the latest Middle Eastern conflict, I had to wonder how many people actually believed him? Outside of fundamentalist Christians and readers of the far-right blogosphere, is there anyone left who believes anything that comes out of the mouths of members of this administration? The Bush administration has become so un-believable as to almost render itself irrelevant. This is a sad and dangerous state of affairs.
Presidential credibility started its long post-WWII slide with the administration of Lyndon Johnson. President Johnson's legacy as a southerner who made great strides in civil rights was tarnished by his obstinacy in Vietnam. The Vietnam War was the first war in which the press told a different story from the one the administration was trying to tell. This intrusion of truth nipped at Johnson's heels until it finally hounded him into retirement.
There is no need to rehash the gory details of Richard Nixon's losing battle with the truth. Nixon's very public war with his real and perceived enemies did incalculable damage to presidential credibility, damage that has been almost incomprehensibly superceded thirty years later by the current Bush administration.
Gerald Ford's cynical pardon of Richard Nixon and Jimmy Carter's hypocritical embrace of the Shah of Iran undermined the credibility of these otherwise seemingly trustworthy men.
To believe in the credibility of Ronald Reagan, especially in regards to the Iran-Contra scandal that occurred during his second term, was to buy into the idea that he was a) on the road to senility ("I don't recall hearing anything about that"), b) out of the loop ("I didn't know anything about what was going on in the basement"), or c) a combination of the two ("What was that? I didn't hear the question"). The first President Bush was tarred with the same brush as Reagan's vice-president when he disingenuously claimed, referring to Iran-Contra, that he, too, was 'out of the loop'. This coming from the former head of the CIA who had just recently visited neighboring Arab states to lobby for support of the scheme.
Bill Clinton's struggle with credibility is almost as infamous as Richard Nixon's. Although White House infidelities certainly did not start with Clinton, the heretofore implicit silence by the press concerning a president's personal dalliances that was observed for over one hundred years was forever shattered by a news world desperate for ratings and steeped in partisan politics. In retrospect, one longs for the days when an affair with an intern was the worst thing one could hang on our president.
Which brings us back to the current administration. Just this past week, we have had statements by Condoleezza Rice ("What we're seeing are the birth pangs of a new Middle East"- more like an abortion, if you ask me), Donald Rumsfeld, whose delusional rambling about civil war may have been a new low even for him ("Does that constitute a civil war? I guess you can decide for your yourself. And we can all go to the dictionary and decide what you want to call something. But it seems to me that it is not a classic civil war at this stage. It certainly isn't like our Civil War. It isn't like the civil war in a number of other countries."), ol' reliable Dick Cheney, who likened Ned Lamont's victory over Joe Lieberman in the Connecticut primary to a victory for al-Qaeda (prompting Democratic candidates all over the country to cry, "Say something bad about me, Dick!! Say something bad about me!"), and then our president's declaration of defeat of Hezbollah. Who does he think he's kidding? Forget the 'liberal' press- here's a sampling of what the conservative pundits are saying:
"Israel engaged in this war not only in self-defense but also for strategic purposes: to destroy Hezbollah and to strengthen Lebanon as a functioning democratic state — and thus transform it from a bellicose enemy into a pacific neutral neighbor. It achieved these objectives in reverse: Israel weakened Lebanon as a functioning democratic state and strengthened Hezbollah."-John O'Sullivan, National Review
"Hezbollah has willingly suffered (temporary) military diminution in exchange for enormous political enlargement. Hitherto Hezbollah in Lebanon was a "state within a state." Henceforth, the Lebanese state may be an appendage of Hezbollah, as the collapsing Palestinian Authority is an appendage of the terrorist organization Hamas. Hezbollah is an army that, having frustrated the regional superpower, suddenly embodies, as no Arab state ever has, Arab valor vindicated in combat with Israel."
-George Will, Washington Post
Check out these four headlines from the just today's Drudge Report: 'Many Israelis Furious at How War Was Run...' 'Israeli army chief sold stocks hours before war... ', 'AMID THE RUBBLE, SIGNS OF A STRENGTHENED HEZBOLLAH...' and, 'Mossad missed Hezbollah threat', this last a column from Bill Gertz in the ultra-conservative Washington Times.
It is sad and scary to me that we have as leaders of our country a group of people so out of touch with reality and a group with an almost uncanny inability to tell the truth at any level. It is sad because my first reaction to the uncovering of the airline bomb plot in London was reflexively to doubt that it was real. It was only when I discovered that it was British law enforcement that busted the plot did I take the matter seriously. I, like many Americans (and certainly a vast majority of citizens around the world) have become constitutionally incapable of receiving anything the Bush administration says as truth. There is no need to rehash all of the examples of blatant lies, obfuscations, deliberate misleading statements, and jingoistic propaganda that have poured from the mouths of the top figures of our government. The only reason most of these people aren't in jail is that the Republican-controlled Congress refuses to investigate anything. The House Ethics Committee hasn't met in years!
It is scary because the people who hold true power in the White House still fervently believe in the righteousness of their cause, all evidence to the contrary notwithstanding. They are nothing if not incredibly stubborn. It should therefore come as no surprise that George W. Bush values the 'life' of a human embryo no larger than the size of the period at the end of this sentence more than he values the lives of Arab civilians of any and all ages. As these evangelists for a New American Century become more irrelevant in the court of world opinion, I believe they will grow more desperate. I believe that as George W. comes within sight of the end of his presidency he is likely to become more fanatical, not less. To someone who believes that violence is the answer to violence, and that the Biblical signs of Armageddon draw nigh, the president and his cohorts will be almost magnetically driven into confrontation with Syria and Iran. This is what they were hoping for in the past month, but unfortunately for them, Israel didn't hold up its end of the bargain.
While it is virtually impossible to believe anything they have to say, it is at our nation's peril to believe that this administration has lost any faith in its own misguided beliefs.
