For the week of September 17 - 23, 2003

Past and present presidential prevarications

Commentary by DICK DORWORTH

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What does it mean that the leader of the free world, the president of the most powerful nation in the history of nations, the man whose very word and/or integrity or lack of them affects in significant ways the lives (and deaths) of every person and even every creature and species on earth, consistently deceives his constituents?

What does it mean when the majority of the citizens of the most powerful nation in history are, through intention, inattention, ignorance, incomprehension or insanity, complicit in the liar’s lies by not demanding either the truth, or, failing that, resignation or impeachment?

Does it mean that the president and the people he (in theory, if not practice) represents and leads don’t care about the difference between that which is true and that which is false? Or does it take too much mental effort to differentiate between them? Or do they have such a material vested interest in the lie that the truth is too expensive for such cheap tastes? Or is it a lack of courage? Are they afraid of the truth? Or is it all of them?

There are those who, to paraphrase Gertrude Stein, would say that a lie is a lie is a lie.

Or is it?

Is prevarication the way of the world? Do all presidents lie? Are all lies equal, or, to paraphrase, George Orwell (whose prophetic vision seems more and more accurate with each day), are some lies (and liars) more equal than others?

In my lifetime there have been 12 presidents of the United States. All of them are known to have avoided, stretched, obscured, side-stepped, disregarded, stonewalled, finessed, buried, ignored, did not tell and been ignorant of the truth. At least five of the 12 are said to have indulged in extra-marital alliances about which they were less than forthright. A random sampling includes:

Harry Truman lied about dropping the atomic bomb on what he assured America was a major military target, when, in fact, Hiroshima was a civilian town, and some 200,000 of them died as a result of the bomb. He also lied about stopping the spread of communism and protecting democracy in South Korea when, in fact, South Korea was a military dictatorship at the time of the Korean War. Some 50,000 American and some two million Koreans died in that war.

John Kennedy assured the world that the U.S. had no intention of invading Cuba when it was readying itself to do just that, and it did. And he was the first of a series of presidents who lied about U.S. involvement in Vietnam. He was followed by Lyndon Johnson who lied about the Bay of Tonkin and embroiled the U.S. in a quagmire that eventually killed more than 50,000 American soldiers and untold numbers of Vietnamese. Johnson’s lies eventually caught up to him and forced him to not run for a presidency he likely would have won. Richard Nixon lied about so many things, including but by no means limited to Vietnam, Cambodia, Chile, Helen Douglas, pumpkins, Checkers, Watergate and not having him to kick around any more--that toward the end when he famously declared "I am not a crook," it wasn’t even funny.

Ronald Reagan was a special sort of presidential prevaricator, because it was always difficult to tell where fantasy ended and reality began in his thought processes and in his talk. But he surely knew he was lying about not trading arms for hostages and about the money for those arms clandestinely being used by the Contras in Nicaragua where tens of thousands of people died with American support. (Ditto for his VP, George Sr.)

The best known, most titillating, largest source of self-righteous indignation and moral outrage among Puritans and Republicans, though by no stretch of imagination the most egregious instance of presidential prevarication, was Bill Clinton’s slapstick verbal gymnastics in his futile flailings at finessing fellatio in the White House, the most hilarious and telling contortion, of course, being the infamous line, "It depends on what the meaning of ‘is’ is."

Is is is is is is is.

Or is it?

Clinton’s personal/public peccadilloes were a disappointment to those of us who supported him. Despite his fondness for floozies, Clinton was easily the best, the best intentioned, the most articulate, the most intelligent--and partly because of the latter--the most interesting president we’ve had since JFK. Clinton blew the chance to be a great president, so to speak, but the moral and real life consequences of his lies were insignificant alongside those of our current president.

President George Bush Jr. is, for the first time in his life, the very best at something. He is the least articulate president in history and the least coherent public figure since Mike Tyson. Perhaps as a consequence of these infirmities, or maybe for other reasons, he has managed to become the all time champion presidential prevaricator. His liestoo well known and documented to repeat, too numerous to list including but by no means limited to those that led up to and are responsible for the deaths and maiming of tens of thousands of people with the toll rising daily; the preemptive destruction of two already ravaged countries which by no stretch of truth could be viewed as threats to the United States; the unemployment of millions; the collapse of America’s economy as the largest surplus in American history turning into its biggest debt in less than three years; the indebtedness of future generations to pay for that debt, and, of course, the leaving behind of every child who could use an education. After all, though a love or even a respect for truth is a personal quality not dependent on the level, scope or depth of one’s education, the poorly educated are easier to deceive and make complicit in both complicated and simple lies. That’s the truth.

What does it mean that we don’t know what the president of the United States means?

 

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