October 11, 2004
Webs of Illusion
By BOB HERBERT
It's understood that incumbents campaigning for
re-election will spotlight the good news and downplay the
bad. The problem for
President Bush, with the election just three weeks away, is
that the bad news keeps cascading in and there is very
little good news to tout.
So the president and his chief supporters have resorted
to the odd tactic of claiming that the bad news is good.
The double talk reached a fever pitch last week after the
release of two devastating reports - the comprehensive
report by Charles Duelfer, the chief U.S. weapons inspector,
which destroyed any remaining doubts that Iraq had weapons
of mass destruction; and the Labor Department's dismal
employment report for September, which heightened concerns
about the strength of the economic recovery and left Mr.
Bush with the dubious distinction of being the first
president since Herbert Hoover to stand for re-election with
fewer people working than at the beginning of his term.
Mr. Bush turned the findings of the Duelfer report upside
down and inside out, telling crowds at campaign rallies that
it proved Saddam Hussein had been "a gathering
threat." It didn't matter that the report, ordered by
the president himself, showed just the opposite. The truth
would not have been helpful to the president. So with a
brazenness and sleight of hand usually associated with
three-card-monte players, he pulled a fast one on his
cheering listeners.
Vice President Cheney had an equally peculiar response to
the report, which said Iraq had destroyed its illicit
weapons stockpiles in the early 1990's. Referring to the
president's decision to launch the war, Mr. Cheney said,
"To delay, defer, wait wasn't an option."
The September jobs report, released on the same day as
Mr. Bush's second debate with
Senator John Kerry, was deeply disappointing to the White
House. Just 96,000 jobs were created, not even enough to
keep up with the monthly expansion of the working-age
population.
The somber findings forced the president's spin machine
into overdrive. Reality, once again, was shoved aside. The
administration's upbeat public response to the Labor
Department report was described in The Times as follows:
"The White House hailed it as evidence of continued
employment expansion, saying that it validated Mr. Bush's
strategy of pursuing tax cuts to support a recovery from the
2001 economic downturn."
In the president's parallel universe, things are always
fine.
Mr. Bush sold his tax cuts as a mighty force for job
creation. They weren't. The Times article that reported the
sunny White House response to the disappointing job creation
figures also said: "In September, an estimated 62.3
percent of the working-age population was employed, two full
percentage points below the level at the beginning of the
recession in March 2001. That difference represents over 4.5
million people without work."
Hyperbole is part of every politician's portfolio. But on
the most serious matters facing the country, Mr. Bush's
administration has often gone beyond hyperbole to deliberate
misrepresentations that undermine the very idea of an
informed electorate. If unpleasant realities are not
acknowledged by the officials occupying the highest offices
in the land, there is no chance that the full resources of
the government and the people will be marshaled to meet
those challenges.
The president continues to behave as if he's in denial
about the war. Iraq remains a tragic mess and the electorate
needs to know that.
In yesterday's Week in Review section, The Times's Dexter
Filkins wrote movingly from Baghdad about the reporters
trying to cover the war. There's been a relentless
expansion, he said, of areas that reporters dare not venture
into because they are too dangerous. Most European reporters
have left the country, and there are far fewer Americans
than just a few months ago.
Forty-six reporters have been killed and Mr. Filkins
himself has been attacked by a mob, shot at and detained by
the Mahdi Army.
If Mr. Bush has a plan to clean up the mess in Iraq, he
should say so. If he has a strategy - besides more tax cuts
- to bolster employment in the U.S., he should tell us. If
he's in touch with the real world in which these and other
very serious problems exist, he might consider letting us
know.
Spinning gets old after a while. A president who spends
too much time spinning webs of illusion can find himself
trapped in them.
E-mail: bobherb@nytimes.com
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