Re: Family Security Matters – 2/19/2009 – “Bush Lied, People Died – But Did Bush Really Lie?” – Herbert London

The answer in short is yes, Bush lied, but not about what London says liberals say he lied about. What London says that liberals said was a lie was not an illustration of lying but of a general incompetence that characterized the Bush administration. Incompetence is not a very good trait for a President, but it is probably better than being a liar and having the lie come back and bite him.

Where Bush lied was when, in order to get legislative approval for an authorization of the administration’s discretion in using force in Iraq, he promised to use that force only if all peaceful means were exhausted and only if the danger of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction to the US was imminent. In fact, he hardly tried any peaceful means, rejecting, for example, further weapons inspections that Iraq had already agreed to, under the pretence of an immediacy which he and his administration knew did not exist.

I see an unfortunate trend in conservative columnists to ascribe any disagreement with their position as prejudice arising from hatred, which is neither better nor more justified than the liberal’s predilection to ascribe disagreement with them to conservative’s stupidity and/or ignorance. The left did not personally hate Bush and was not prejudiced against him because of hatred; rather the left hates many of the things that Bush did or did not do, and if they hate him at all its only after-the-fact for the results of those things. Personally, Bush seems to me like a nice guy with reasonable values (although not always in line with my own), and a traditional American concept of ethical conduct based on his “gut” feeling. But being a nice guy with a basically ethical gut does not alone qualify one for the Presidency. Hatred of what happened under Bush’s tenure and blaming him for those things hardly constitutes what I would call the personal hatred of Bush, but I must admit that because of his attitude of accepting little blame or showing little remorse for what happened under his watch, Bush himself makes a very good symbol for the hatred of what happened under his watch.

The issue of Bush’s lying demonstrates that for many, ideology trumps facts; for liberals some of the facts of Bush’s performance and for conservatives, other facts of Bush’s performance.

In the end, Bush will be remembered for the same kind of things all Presidents are remembered for. They all set objectives (partly on their own and partly dictated by the situations that occur during their tenure) and use whatever means are available to achieve their objectives (including lying) but they are remembered mainly for the change of the state of the union under their tenure. If under their tenure great problems were solved and/or great impending problems were obviously avoided, they are remembered favorably. If little good was accomplished or problems appeared under their tenure, they are remembered unfavorably. Bush will be remembered on the positive mainly for his managing public distress following 911 and his administration’s handling of the early part of the Afghanistan and Iraq military involvement, and remembered on the negative for his administration’s failures in responding to the Gulf Coast weather disaster, loosing focus on Afghanistan while pursuing Iraq, incompetence in reconstructing Iraq, the legacy of a huge national debt, and most of all for the contracting economy under his tenure.

Whether Bush did or did not lie, and what any lie he might have made was all about will not long be part of the American memory.