archy

Bush is a liar (well, duh)
Bob Somerby at Daily Howler has begun a week-long series on the culture of lies that the surrounds the leader of the free world. This is information that everyone who wants regime change here at home should have at their fingertips as we go into the election cycle. I’m looking forward to the rest of the series (part one is here, part two is here).

Somerby appears to be at the head of the pack making this one of the big stories this week. So far, E. J. Dionne and Harold Meyerson (both of the Washington Post) also have columns on Bush's lies this week, and, of course, Bob Graham is calling the suppression of the 9/11`report a "cover-up." The granddaddy of all dissectors of the Bush lie machine is Paul Krugman, a first rate economist who has been taking apart Bush's tax cut claims since the campaign and manages to explain it in terms even I can understand (I was a history major; business and grown-up economics remain a mystery to me).

This coverage of the administration's lies is good. I doubt as if we can get the popular wisdom about Bush to completely change from "man of character" to "wouldn't know the truth if it bit him," but we might be seeing a little tarnish applied to his image. At the very least, I hope we are looking at the beginning of a revolt against Ari Fleisher’s insulting and contemptuous treatment of the White House press corps and, by extension, the public. Even the old Nixonian “no comment” and “I do not recall at this point in time” were preferable to Fleisher’s bald faced lies.