Mission Accomplished
Yesterday at the press conference, President Bush told a cheap, casual lie when he denied that "his people" were responsible for the notorious "Mission Accomplished" banner on the USS Abraham Lincoln. This is the kind of thing that the mother hens of the press, goaded on by RNC talking points, skewered Al Gore about in the 2000 campaign, though most of Gore's "fabrications" turned out to be nothing of the sort. Bush will probably get a free pass because there are bigger and more important lies that need to be sorted out, and this matter of passing the buck for what has become an increasingly embarassing incident on to our men and women in uniform is simply tasteless, not criminal.
However, the always-ascerbic Steve Gilliard offers another interpretation. Since it's hard to link to individual items on Steve's page, let me quote the relevant graph:
But why lie? Because he's a dry drunk and he lies about anything when pressed. His life is a series of lies. He cannot accept responsibility for anything. Any problem is someone else's fault. Never his. So instead of accepting that he did something which didn't work, he'll blame the innocent and expect them to remain silent. Which I seriously doubt will happen in this case. Lies are lies and with Bush, they keep mounting up. [emphasis added]
This is the kind of swipe that, pre-Clinton, would seem like a gratuitous personal attack. But since we had a President impeached due largely to perceived personal character issues, I think the country has a right to analyze Bush's particularly-rigid brand of macho responsibility denial in this way. It may end up explaining a lot.
8:49:19 AM 
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