Saul Friedman: Lies, Lies and Damned Lies
Posted at 11:06 am, August 22nd, 2007
I think I understand at least one reason why so many readers now look to media critics and blogs, like this one, to provide the rest of the story, and maybe some truth. For it seems to me that too many straight reporters have been unable or unwilling to confront and challenge official lies. And that may be why this administration has found it so easy to lie and get away with it. Indeed there have been so many lies from top to bottom that congressional committees of both houses seem unable to keep up with them.
I will dwell on one set of lies on a subject I know well because I write about it for Newsday, my day job. The issue is Social Security and the lies came from outgoing White House maven, Karl Rove, who seems unable to tell–or recognize–the truth. The occasion was one of a series of coming-out interviews, this one on Fox News Sunday, Aug. 19, with Chris Wallace, who did a fair job. But he was nothing like his father, Mike, who invented the technique of catching an interview subject in a lie and focusing the camera in a closeup to watch the subject squirm.
During the lengthy interview, Wallace asked Rove about a couple of his failures, immigration reform and the 2005 attempt to begin the privatization of Social Security by converting the 70-year-old program from pension insurance to an investment plan. Wallace pointed out, correctly, “There was tremendous opposition from your own party on immigration reform and, frankly, not much support on Social Security reform.”
Indeed, many Republicans had misgivings when Bush, under Rove’s guidance, launched his effort during his 2005 State of the Union to privatize Social Security. But Rove told Wallace the effort failed because of “inexplicable opposition from Democrats.” Inexplicable? That was a lie. Democrats were almost unanimous in their opposition to turning Social Security over to the stock market.
But, said, Rove, “Senator Moynihan…came up with a wonderful idea” to convert part of Social Security into an investment plan, “that we’ve got the tax money to pay for.” Another lie. Moynihan, who died in 2003, was on a commission in 2000 that considered the future of Social Security. He proposed a huge tax increase to enable workers to set aside some payroll money to invest in a private account. Rove and Bush rejected that idea, or any idea that meant raising taxes. And the president, speaking through Rove, repeatedly ridiculed Social Security as going bankrupt and denied its huge surplus was real money.
Finally, Rove told Wallace that Democrats told him, face to face, “We’d love to work with you on Social Security, but our leadership won’t let me…my leaders are afraid of giving the president a political victory.” A flat lie. Democrats and every Social Security advocacy group, including AARP (which worked with the president on the Medicare Part D drug legislation), were united as never before in their opposition to killing of Social Security as we’ve known it. And Rove, who’s smart enough to know this, seems to forget that both houses of congress were controlled by rubber stamp Republicans. Wallace could have called him on these lies (if he knew the truth himself), but he moved on to other subjects.
I recount these example of systemic lying because Rove and his fellow right-wing Republicans won’t let go of this issue if they get another crack at it. I assume that every Democrat running for president would oppose the privatization of Social Security, but I hope reporters will ask all the candidates running for federal office if they favor converting all or part of it into an investment plan.
August 23rd, 2007 at 12:24 am |
Well, no. Not at all. If I were less charitable, I’d say you were a liar. But there’s no need for that, just correction:
–Moynihan co-chaired Bush’s commission on social security in 2001, not in 2000.
–The commission did not, and Moynihan did not, propose any tax increases. (In fact, Moynihan had a few years earlier actually proposed a significant cut in payroll taxes.)
–Moynihan said, for years and years, accurately, that Social Security is fiscally unsustainable.
I recount these examples of systemic lying–oops, I wasn’t going to call them that. Let’s call them “misstatements”. I recount these misstatemens because so many people writing about social security don’t know what they’re talking about. I do hope that reporters will ask all the candidates about their plans for social security, including whether they favor increased payroll taxes on working people or whether they favor simply ignoring the problem.
August 24th, 2007 at 11:36 am |
I stand corrected. In 1998, Sen. Moynihan suggested raising Social Security taxes to pay for private acciunts. When he cochaired Bush’s commission, one of the proposals was for pricate accounts. Vurtuall every Democrat, plus AARP and most senior groups opposed changing the nature of Social Security.
November 2nd, 2007 at 11:36 am |
think I understand at least one reason why so many readers now look to media critics and blogs, like this one, to provide the rest of the story, and maybe some truth. For it seems to me that too many straight reporters have been unable or unwilling to confront and challenge official lies. And
Answer to your blog…For me I love to read every one’s thoughts on every subject for intance..You seem like a thinker, you know. You seem to always be deep in thought.
What are you thinking right now? I was thinking I might wanna take some
of these potatoes home with me.
How about before that? Let me think. Before that, I was thinking…
I could use me six or eight cans of that potted meat…if you got any extree.
November 2nd, 2007 at 1:35 pm |
Real plots or false confessions?
President Bush has listed four terrorist attacks he says his administration prevented thanks to the CIA’s harsh interrogations.
I personally do not believe anything Baby bush says. Baby bush has been a serial killer since day one in politics. I think of a person who is said to be slow of mind but big of heart during these times of hate greed and killings. I speak of Karl Childers, a simple man hospitalized since his childhood murder of his mother and her lover, is released to start a new life in a small town.
I don’t reckon you have to go with
women to be a daddy to a boy.
(pause)
You’ve been real square dealin’ with
me. The Bible says two men ort not
lay together. But I’ll bet you the
Good Lord wouldn’t send nobody like
you to Hades. Some folks calls it
Hell, I call it Hades.(Karl starts away)
That boy lives inside of his own
heart. Hits an awful big place. You
take care of that boy.
If Baby bush would just stop lying and killing for his OIL$$$$$maybe we could be LIKE Karl Childers, and have a clear conscious and have a beautiful morning and hear love birds singing thier songs and have a sunshine day. There would be children with sunshine and flowers having a beautiful day. Is that what we all want and care about taking care of the children and not wanting to kill them as BABY BUSH does. Baby bush is a serial killer and his thirst for blood is real, for he is now wanting Iran’s blood…scary future for our children..