Soapbox

They Just Don’t Get it

Submitted to The Columbus Dispatch Saturday March 27th 2004

Editor:

The Bush administration has been running around “with their hair on fire” over the testimony of Richard Clarke to the 9/11 Commission about a lack of action in the fight against terrorism. In a panic to diffuse this election-year bomb, they are trying every weapon in their arsenal.

Clarke has been called “disgruntled” because he didn’t get the job he wanted. He has been called “clearly partisan” because a good friend works for the Kerry election team. He has been labeled “an opportunist” because of the timing of his book release, and “irresponsible” for speaking out when there’s a war and an election going on.

This is the same smoke-and-mirrors game of character assassination and stonewalling that the administration used after the exposure of Ambassador Joseph Wilson’s wife and the calls to investigate that incident. But let’s suppose for a moment that all the outraged accusations about Clarke are true this time. Let’s suppose, despite evidence to the contrary, that Clarke is a greedy, partisan slime-ball. What does that tell us about his testimony?

Nothing. For all their righteous indignation, no one has produced any meeting notes, transcripts, memos or any actual evidence to prove that Richard Clarke isn’t telling the truth!

One can only assume that they attack his character because they cannot attack his veracity.

Sadly, honesty is something that the Bush administration just doesn’t seem to get. It’s not the failure to show up for a few weekends’ duty in the Alabama National Guard; it’s the refusal to come clean about it. It’s not the failure to find WMD in Iraq; it’s the lies about having absolute proof. It’s not that anyone thinks President Bush deliberately allowed 9/11 to happen; it’s his inability to admit that, in hindsight, he might have done anything differently. On this subject most of all, America needs the truth.

When normal people make a mistake, they apologize and go on. When George Bush makes a mistake, he lies about it, and then lies about having lied, and then lies about having lied about having lied. A president who has never accepted personal responsibility cannot understand how gratifying it was for America to hear Mr. Clarke stand up and simply say, “I failed you…and I’m sorry”.

The Bush administration would do well to realize that, for the American electorate, deliberate dishonesty is much harder to forgive than a simple mistake.