Wednesday, July 21, 2004

Martha Stewart: pipsqueak liar

Opinion by Pat Murphy

---

When Judge Miriam Cedarbaum scolded the doyenne of decor, Martha Stewart, that "lying to government investigators is a very serious matter," I thought of Thomas Scully and his whopper.

Stewart lied about cashing in stock. But Scully lied to 535 members of Congress and the entire nation and got away with it.

As President Bush’s head of Medicare, Scully ordered office actuary Richard Foster to chop $100 billion--billion!--off cost estimates. Refuse and you’re fired, Scully told Foster.

So, instead of the $500 billion to $600 billion Medicare will cost over 10 years, the White House told Congress it would cost $400 billion.

Congress believed the White House, just as it took Bush’s word about weapons of mass destruction when approving the attack on Iraq.

When Scully’s duplicity was unmasked, Bush quickly hurried him out the back door--and into a cushy six-figure lobbying job with the health care industry that Scully policed.

If anyone expected a $100 billion lie to Congress to be punishable, surprise. The Bush administration, which surely okayed a $100 billion falsehood, says Scully may have been, well, unethical (!) but not "illegal" in strong-arming a subordinate to cook the books.

Of course, that’s a crime elsewhere. Auditing firm executives have been criminally charged for withholding financial data. Enron brass and other executives face prison for forging books to create false profits.

Deception has become a virtue in a White House that promotes "values" as its theme. How delicious this irony: the Pentagon was burned by an ex-Marine, Gary Lakis, who was awarded a $66 million security training contract because he claimed to have "combat decorations and experience." Alas, he lied: no combat and no decorations.

Truth around the Bush administration is punishable. U.S. Parks Police Chief Teresa Chambers was fired by the Interior department for publicly acknowledging she was under funded. Treasury secretary Paul O’Neill was booted for the truth about the reckless tax cuts.

Which raises the question: Where are self-righteous congressional crusaders who unleashed investigators on Bill Clinton for lies about oral sex and were so quick to impeach him?

Is there nothing wrong about a $100 billion lie distorting the budget? Or going to war because of false information? Or a White House memo breaching the Geneva Conventions for humane treatment of prisoners? Or ladling out multi-billion dollar no-bid contracts to cronies? Or hiding enemy detainees from the International Red Cross?

Repeatedly lying to Congress and skirting the law could be misfeasance, malfeasance or nonfeasance. But no Republican apparently has the stomach to investigate a president who invokes God’s name, controls the executive and legislative branches with an iron hand and owes his incumbency to the third, the judiciary.

The Idaho Mountain Express is distributed free to residents and guests throughout the Sun Valley, Idaho resort area community. Subscribers to the Idaho Mountain Express will read these stories and others in this week's issue.