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Matthew Rothschild | Bush and Cheney and Their Disdain for Democracy    [

    An Ideology of Lying
    By Glenn Greenwald
    Crooks and Liars

    Monday 06 November 2006

    It is not news to anybody that Bush followers lie repeatedly and aggressively. But what does continues to amaze is that there is literally no limit on their willingness to do so even when - especially when - it requires them to ignore and contradict even the most glaring facts which everyone can see, as clear as day, right in front of our faces.

    In this superb post, Digby uses two examples from this past week - the John Kerry "controversy" and the publication by the Bush administration of how-to nuclear documents - to describe precisely how this process works.

    And the Editors provides the illustrated cartoon version of what Digby is describing - a cartoon which would be hilarious if it didn't so accurately convey the process which has destroyed our nation's political dialogue and enabled the most radical and destructive policies imaginable.

    This is why I spent the last couple of days focused so heavily on Michael Ledeen's weekend lie in National Review that he "opposed the military invasion of Iraq before it took place" even though he repeatedly wrote and said the exact opposite. It's not because Ledeen himself matters per se, but because this straightforward incident illustrates the dynamic so perfectly.

    Ledeen has no compunction at all about blatantly lying even in the face of a literal wave of conclusive evidence showing that he is lying - and his National Review editors such as Rich Lowry are content to remain silent about it because it's not news to them that their magazine is printing demonstrable falsehoods. It doesn't even warrant a response, let alone a correction, retraction or apology. That's because lying has become not only a perfectly acceptable tactic, but one that is central to their movement. Lying is not something they do sometimes It is who they are. Lying is a central and consciously adopted part of their ideology.

    The grandfather of neoconservatism, Irving Kristol, long ago explained the "justification" for lying in an interview with Reason's Ronald Bailey (h/t Mona):

There are different kinds of truths for different kinds of people ... There are truths appropriate for children; truths that are appropriate for students; truths that are appropriate for educated adults; and truths that are appropriate for highly educated adults, and the notion that there should be one set of truths available to everyone is a modern democratic fallacy. It doesn't work.

    It is from that rotted Stalinist root that the right-wing Ideology of Lying emerged, as embodied by the now-infamous warning issued to Ron Suskind by a Bush "senior advisor" after Suskind wrote an article about Karen Hughes which displeased the Leader: "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality - judiciously, as you will - we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out."

    The authoritarian Bush movement is so Wise (in the case of neoconservatives) and so Good (in the case of the religious fundamentalists who are their loyal comrades) that everything, including the most blatant lies, is not only justifiable, but necessary. Reality can and must be fundamentally distorted for our own good. As Mona put it - and as the two posts linked above illustrate - "for neoconservatives [which has subsumed the so-called "conservative" movement itself], falsehood is a feature, not a bug."

    Go to Original

    Bush and Cheney and Their Disdain for Democracy
    By Matthew Rothschild
    The Progressive

    Saturday 04 November 2006

    Dick Cheney and George Bush could not be more dismissive of the American people when it comes to Iraq.

    Cheney revealed the full length of his arrogance in his interview with George Stephanopoulos.

    "It may not be popular with the public-it doesn't matter in the sense that we have to continue the mission and do what we think is right. And that's what we're doing," he said.
Bush and Cheney view the United States almost as a dictatorship that is authorized by a quadrennial plebiscite.

    Amazingly, just days before an election in which the uppermost issue in the voters' minds is Iraq, Cheney displayed uttered disdain.

    "We're not running for office," he said, a line that is sure to make Republican House and Senate candidates gasp. "We're doing what we think is right."

    Never one to be troubled by self-doubt, Cheney expressed no alarm at the house of horrors in Baghdad. "We've got the basic strategy right," he said, and pledged "full speed ahead."

    That is not exactly the message that most Americans want to hear, and I'm sure many parents of soldiers in Iraq aren't delighted by it, either.

    But more than Cheney's willful denial of reality, more than his insistence on a headlong rush right over the cliff of disaster, it his - and Bush's - disregard for the wishes of the American people that is so disturbing.

    This is not new for this power couple.

    Right after the Supreme Court gave Bush the White House in 2000, he and Cheney threw out the advice from the pundit class and from the public at large that they should repair the rift in the nation and govern from the middle. Instead, they set out to ram their agenda down our throats. High on that agenda was the Iraq War.

    Then Bush and Cheney took the 2004 election not only as an endorsement of their decision to go to war but the final word on it.

    "We had an accountability moment, and that's called the 2004 elections," Bush told The Washington Post in an article on January 16, 2005. "The American people listened to different assessments made about what was taking place in Iraq, and they looked at the two candidates, and chose me."

    Bush echoed that comment as recently as two weeks ago. At his October 25 press conference, Bush was asked about Donald Rumsfeld. Bush responded: "You're asking about accountability. That rests right here. It's what the 2004 campaign was about."

    Bush and Cheney view the United States almost as a dictatorship that is authorized by a quadrennial plebiscite.

    Their rhetoric and their actions flow from this profoundly anti-democratic belief.