The King of Pointland

Mendacity

Last evening I saw Cat on a Hot Tin Roof at the Screen on the Green, sitting on the National Mall, enjoying the beauty of the illuminated Capitol dome behind Paul Newman's and Elizabeth Taylor's giant heads. Highly recommended, but get there early if you don't want to be reminded that sound travels more slowly than light.

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This morning I read a wonderful article in the Post detailing the evolving contradictions in the Bush administration's defense of the State of the Union claim that Iraq was seeking Uranium from Africa. This sentence in the fourth paragraph almost made me do a spit-take with my coffee:

Defending the broader decision to go to war with Iraq, the president said the decision was made after he gave Saddam Hussein "a chance to allow the inspectors in, and he wouldn't let them in."

Now, it takes only a shallow familiarity with recent events to know that this is simply not true. So is the president lying? It seems to me that in order for a statement to be a lie, there should be at least some plausible hope that it will be believed. Is it a lie if I say the President of the United States is named Spongebob Squarepants?

The other alternative is that our president is mind-blowingly stupid.

And what do you do if you are a reporter writing that story? Something like this, apparently:

The president's assertion that the war began because Iraq did not admit inspectors appeared to contradict the events leading up to war this spring: Hussein had, in fact, admitted the inspectors and Bush had opposed extending their work because he did not believe them effective.

Today's Papers observes:

As legendary WP editor Ben Bradlee once noted, "Even the very best newspapers have never learned how to handle public figures who lie with a straight face." One sentence he says you'll never see on Page One, "'That is a lie.'"

So there you go.

Posted by cradle at July 15, 2003 2:28 PM