Lying -- a Bush Family Value

In most cases, it wouldn’t matter much that a 40-year-old long-time heavy drinker refused to admit to his alcoholism, nor that years later, he continued to play word games when asked about his cocaine use. Doctors might say that denial isn’t good for a person’s recovery, but that wouldn’t affect the rest of us.

The difference in this case is that the substance abuser somehow became president of the United States. And by hiding his earlier problems, George W. Bush learned what is becoming a dangerous lesson – that his family and political connections can protect him from the truth.

The discrepancy between the Bush as presented by the news media and the Bush who seems so ready to deceive has created confusion among many Middle Americans, who only now are beginning to question Bush’s honesty.

"I’d like to know whether there was any deliberate attempt to deceive," said Jim Stock, a 70-year-old retired school administrator who voted for Bush in 2000. "My feeling is there was not. But there was an eagerness in the administration to pursue the battle and to believe information that wasn’t quite good. … It’s painful to say, but I don’t like where this is coming down." [NYT, July 17, 2003]

So how did this national denial about Bush’s apparent dishonesty develop? Why does the U.S. press corps fail to hold the Bushes to the same standard of honesty demanded of other politicians? How do the Bushes maintain a reputation for honesty when the facts don’t square with that image?

Part of the answer, of course, lies in the power of the Bush defenders to trash anyone who questions that image of integrity. Already, Bush’s defenders are heaping ridicule on those who challenge Bush over his Iraqi deceptions. "The flap over who baked the yellowcake uranium story is so transparently political that it is tempting to ignore," sniffed a Wall Street Journal editorial. [July 14, 2003]

And if past history is any guide, one must assume that Bush may well wriggle away from this latest attention to his half-truths and lies. Nevertheless, Americans will still have a chance in November 2004 to enforce some accountability on this Bush. With the U.S. deficit soaring to record heights, with the U.S. economy shedding more than two million jobs and with American troops dying in Iraq, the voters may be less and less tolerant about Bush’s casual relationship with the truth.

Perhaps, finally, the American people will demand that the Bushes no longer be treated like a protected royal family, but rather like the rest of us who pay a price when our words and the facts don't fit.