Matt Yglesias

Rice and Gonzales Lie to Congress About Lying

Back during 2002 and early 2003 it was near-universally understood that there was conflict between the top leadership of the Bush administration and the bulk of the CIA over Iraq and Iraq-related intelligence. After all, before the push for war began the CIA issued a January 2002 tour de horizon of the global proliferation situation and offered a pretty anodyne assessment of the Iraqi nuclear threat: “Iraq has probably continued at least low-level theoretical R&D associated with its nuclear program.” Since back during this period the bulk of Washington was backing the war, the common assumption was that the CIA was deliberately understating the threat thanks to the CIA’s legendary pacifism.

But then of course it turned out that the CIA had actually been somewhat overstating Iraq’s WMD capabilities and the administration has been wildly overstating the intelligence plus doing some exaggerating, distorting, etc. on the side. At which point suddenly poor Bush became the victim of a CIA and it was all their fault. The story never made much sense, but unfortunately enough powerful people had agreed with Bush about invading Iraq that few really wanted to peer too deeply into this. But here comes a new memo from Henry Waxman and the House Government Oversight Committee kicking another brick out of the wall.

This one concerns the bogus Niger “yellowcake” claims. On behalf of Condoleezza Rice, several years back Alberto Gonzales assured congress that the mistaken claims in Bush speeches had been cleared with the CIA, and the CIA signed off. Not so — Matt Corley guides you through the new information:

When White House speechwriters tried to put the uranium claim into Bush’s Sept. 12, 2002 speech to UN, the CIA rejected it because it was “not sufficiently reliable to include it in the speech”:

During an interview with the Committee, John Gibson, who served as Director of Speechwriting for Foreign Policy at the National Security Council (NSC), stated that he tried to insert the uranium claim into this speech at the request of Michael Gerson, chief White House speechwriter, and Robert Joseph, the Senior Director for Proliferation Strategy, Counterproliferation, and Homeland Defense at the NSC. According to Mr. Gibson, the CIA rejected the uranium claim because it was “not sufficiently reliable to include it in the speech.” Mr. Gibson stated that the CIA “didn’t give that blessing,” the “CIA was not willing to clear that language,” and “[a]t the end of the day, they did not clear it.”

When National Security Council staff refused to take the uranium claim out of Bush’s Sept. 26, 2002 speech, Jami Miscik, the Deputy Director of Intelligence at the CIA, called Rice personally to request it be removed:

According to Ms. Miscik, the CIA’s reasons for rejecting the uranium claim “had been conveyed to the NSC counterparts” before the call, and Dr. Rice was “getting on the phone call with that information.” Ms. Miscik told Dr. Rice personally that the CIA was “recommending that it be taken out.” She also said “[i]t turned out to be a relatively short phone call” because “we both knew what the issues were and therefore were able to get to a very easy resolution of it.”

But, you know, democracy whiskey sexy.

Guests of Honor

Dana Perino says we’re not occupiers in Iraq, we’re “guests”:

QUESTION: But he wasn’t a guest. We’re occupiers.

PERINO: No, we’re not. We are absolutely a guest.

This is part of the sick culture of self-deception in which the Iraq War has gotten wrapped up. We invaded Iraq by force, dropping ordnance and firing lethal weapons. And our present there has been deeply unpopular for years. Our forces aren’t subject to Iraqi law. We just concluded a series of negotiations in which the main sticking point was that the Iraqi government wanted us to promise to leave the country and we didn’t want to. That’s an occupation. Perhaps Perino thinks, falsely, that the occupation serves the strategic interests of the United States. But this kind of denial is not helpful to understanding our situation in the world.

Lying About Books

Tyler Cowen notes that “46% of the surveyed men lie about what they have read — to impress partners — and 33% of the surveyed women admit to lying about their reading habits.”

I have to say that I’m so accustomed to the idea of lying about one’s reading habits that my first thought upon reading this was “what’s wrong with the other 54 percent of men?” Then I wondered if maybe they weren’t just lying about lying. And then I started thinking about how there are plenty of people besides potential hookups who you might want to try to impress by lying about which books you’ve read; indeed, it strikes me as the sort of thing that’s more useful as idle chit-chat than a dating strategy.

I wonder if you see a substantial difference based on educational attainment here. It seems to me that college (at least as we did it at Harvard) largely consists of lessons on how to pretend to have read various books. How many section discussions of British Moralists 1650-1800 (by far the best introduction to the subject!) did I bluff my way through?

The “L” Word

Of course it’s not surprise that Henry Kissinger is a liar, but you rarely see a journalist straight-up use the word “lie” when describing a prominent public figure. Props to Karen Tumulty.

Hyperactive Fact-Checkers

I think it’s probably a good thing that so many media organizations now run these “fact-check” items about political ads and rhetoric (except that it’s going to confuse the next generation of magazine interns about what fact-checking is about) but one thing I’ve noticed is a tendency to get overly vigilant. Just to keep things non-partisan let me, for example, defend John McCain against the inclusion of this claim in a list of “discredited claims” that he’s “blithely carried on with”:

McCain’s down-to-the-wire accusation that Obama “will raise your taxes” contradicts Obama’s tax-cut proposals for all but wealthy Americans.

To me, to consider this an example of “exaggeration and misrepresentation” is, itself, misleading. A more generous interpretation of what McCain is doing here is not that he’s lying about Obama’s plan, but that he’s accusing Obama of lying. He’s saying that Obama’s spending promises are so promiscuous that they could only be paid for through broader tax increases than he’s willing to admit to, and that Obama’s ideological proclivities will lead him to backslide on his tax promises rather than backslide on his budget promises. Now I think the reality is that Obama will probably wind up spending less than he’s promised (hard to get those bills through congress!) and running a bigger deficit than he says, but not backslide on those tax commitments. But McCain has a real argument to offer here, just as Obama has a real argument to make that McCain’s plans would — despite his protestations to the contrary — lead to cuts in Social Security and Medicare.

Palin and Sudan

When I heard Sarah Palin say at the VP debate that she’d had the Alaska Permanent Fund divest from Sudan to protest the Sudanese government’s actions in Darfur, I assumed that she had, in fact, had the Alaska Permanent Fund divest from Sudan. On the one hand, it was a totally plausible story — a lot of publicly controlled funds have divested. And on the other hand, it would be bizarre to tell such a straightforward lie. And yet lie she did:

“The [Palin] administration killed our bill,” said Alaska state representative Les Gara, D-Anchorage. Gara and state Rep. Bob Lynn, R-Anchorage, co-sponsored a resolution early this year to force the Alaska Permanent Fund – a $40 billion investment fund, a portion of whose dividends are distributed annually to state residents – to divest millions of dollars in holdings tied to the Sudanese government.

In an e-mail later, Gara clarified that he believed opposition from the Palin administration helped kill his bill, but was not solely responsible for its death.

Bizarre.

McCain and Eisenhower

During the debates, John McCain told a story that underscored the need for accountability in public officials. Before the Normandy invasion, he said, Dwight Eisenhower wrote two letters. One praising the troops for their success, and the other a letter of resignation from the Army taking responsibility for the failure. In fact, neither of Ike’s letters mentioned resignation. A small error, but a telling one for a campaign that misstates a lot of things. The error was widely noted, and you would think McCain would stop repeating the false story. But no! Here he was this morning on Morning Joe:

Why do this? An accurate recounting of the story still makes the point about responsibility.

McCain Lies About Commerce Committee Jurisdiction

Matt Corley’s got the video of John McCain telling tall tales about his committee’s jurisdiction, arguing “I understand the economy. I was chairman of the Commerce Committee that oversights [sic] every part of our economy.”

Since McCain really did chair the Commerce Committee he presumably has some familiarity with its actual jurisdiction, namely:

1. Coast Guard.
2. Coastal zone management.
3. Communications.
4. Highway safety.
5. Inland waterways, except construction.
6. Interstate commerce.
7. Marine and ocean navigation, safety, and transportation, including navigational aspects of deepwater ports.
8. Marine fisheries.
9. Merchant marine and navigation.
10. Nonmilitary aeronautical and space sciences.
11. Oceans, weather, and atmospheric activities.
12. Panama Canal and interoceanic canals generally, except as provided in subparagraph (c).
13. Regulation of consumer products and services, including testing related to toxic substances, other than pesticides, and except for credit, financial services, and housing.
14. Regulation of interstate common carriers, including railroads, buses, trucks, vessels, pipelines, and civil aviation.
15. Science, engineering, and technology research and development and policy.
16. Sports.
17. Standards and measurement.
18. Transportation.
19. Transportation and commerce aspects of Outer Continental Shelf lands.

The Commerce Committee does play an important role in economic regulation, particularly through its jurisdiction over “interstate common carriers.” But as Corley observes, it’s the Banking Committee that oversees the financial institutions we’re currently worried about. And then of course the Finance Committee has authority over important aspects of the economy, including the crucial health care sector and there’s an Energy and Natural Resources Committee that also oversees substantial economic functions. It’s pretty unworthy of a veteran senator to be engaged in this kind of silly resume puffing. The Commerce Committee is important, but it doesn’t come close to overseeing the entire economy.

DHE: No McCain, No BlackBerry

Hm . . . it seems Doug Holtz-Eakin thinks John McCain invented the BlackBerry:

Asked what work John McCain did as Chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee that helped him understand the financial markets, the candidate’s top economic adviser wielded visual evidence: his BlackBerry.

“He did this,” Douglas Holtz-Eakin told reporters this morning, holding up his BlackBerry. “Telecommunications of the United States is a premier innovation in the past 15 years, comes right through the Commerce committee so you’re looking at the miracle John McCain helped create and that’s what he did.”

I guess I only sort of feel that the media owes it to us to deliberately misconstrue this remark the way they deliberately misconstrued Al Gore’s talk about taking the lead on the legislation that led to the creation of the Internet. But on the other hand, there’s enough legitimate McCain material out there so who needs it.

Meanwhile, all such cracks aside, what on earth is Holtz-Eakin talking about here? I’m sure McCain’s work on the Commerce Committee has had impact on the course of our telecom-related gadgets, but he’s hardly been doing this stuff all alone, and the device in question was developed by a Canadian company so it’s hard to see how it hinged crucially on any particular aspect of US telecom policy. More to the point — how would John McCain’s putative expertise in telecom regulation help him understand the turmoil in the financial markets?

And even on the very narrow point at issue, perhaps Holtz-Eakin isn’t aware that McCain was voted against the 1996 Telecommunication Act. I think he was the only Republican to do so. It was some kind of crazy McCain stunt where there was a giant, complicated bill with tons of provisions that was, on the whole, a substantial improvement over the status quo but where the nature of the beast was that everyone had some complaints with the text. So McCain took the opportunity to point out some perceived flaws and cast a cranky “no” vote against a critical piece of bipartisan legislation.

All I Know Is That I Don’t Know Nothing

WP Factchecker has an interesting item. Let’s put things a bit more starkly.

During a September 11 interview with ABC News, John McCain said that Sarah Palin “knows more about energy than probably anyone in the United States of America.”

Sarah Palin, during her interview with Charlie Gibson said that Akaska producers “nearly 20 percent of the U.S. domestic supply of energy.”

That was a lie. And people in the press pointed out that it was a lie. So Palin changed her line. And she told a rally in Colorado yesterday that “My job has been to oversee nearly 20 percent of the U.S. domestic supply of oil and gas.” But this is also a lie! Here’s what I found on the Energy Information Administration’s Alaska page:

Alaska produces much less than 20 percent of the nation’s oil and much, much less than 20 percent of the nation’s gas. And yet this is the person John McCain regards as the country’s foremost expert on energy issues — someone who doesn’t know how much energy her own state produces, someone who’s too arrogant and lazy to look it up, and someone with such a casual disregard for the truth that even after getting called on getting her facts wrong and changing her line she doesn’t bother changing it to something true:

But here’s a hint. According to the EIA, Alaska does have 18.5 percent of the country’s estimated oil reserves. So maybe she wants to say she oversaw almost twenty percent of that.

McCain’s Hard-Working Flip-Flop

I basically did this yesterday, but here’s a splice of John McCain praising the hard work of the American people in contrast with his earlier contention that Americans are too lazy to pick lettuce even for a $50 an hour wage:

Just Can’t Stop

Sarah Palin lies and claims she didn’t use a teleprompter while delivering her convention speech.

Thanks But No Thanks

I somehow find this more shocking than the initial lie:

McCain cut off a question about the “Bridge to Nowhere,” which Palin claims to have killed in Alaska even though Washington pulled back money for the project before she turned against it.

“The important thing is she’s vetoed a half a billion dollars in earmark projects–far, far in excess of her predecessor and she’s given money back to the taxpayers and she’s cut their taxes, so I’m happy with her record,” McCain said.

I mean, come on! Palin was introduced to the public, quite specifically, as the governor who said “thanks but no thanks on that Bridge to Nowhere.” Among other things, there’s a huge difference between what you’d think of a governor who actually turned down federal pork and a governor who just trimmed some local projects. I assume all governors equipped with a line-item veto find themselves vetoing some stuff. Few governors, including Sarah Palin, turn down major federal dollars. But John McCain wanted us to believe that Palin did turn down federal dollars! But she didn’t! And now he says it’s no biggie. Even as he has her running around the country bragging about this!

McCain: I’ll Pretend to Reign In CEO Pay

John McCain lies yet again today, saying in Orlando: “We will stop multimillion dollar payouts to CEOs who have broken the public trust.”

But as Doug Holtz-Eakin has previously admitted by “stop” McCain means “do nothing”

Republican presidential candidate John McCain has spoken out about lavish pay packages for corporate chiefs, but his top adviser said on Monday the senator wants to shine a light on the issue and is not offering specific new proposals to rein it in.

Back two or three months ago when McCain was regularly making statements about his policies that were at odds with the actual content of his policies, it was possible to see that habit as a form of carelessness or confusion, but after the recent turn in his campaign’s tactics and their admission that they see lying to the American people as an effective campaign strategy, it’s hard to see this kind of thing as anything put an extension of the general “let’s lie all the time” approach.

Can McCain Say Anything Accurate?

According to John McCain you can tell that the fundamentals of our economy are strong because we’re “the most innovative, the most productive, the greatest exporter, the greatest importer.”

But as Paul Krugman points out it’s not true Germany exports more than does the United States even though the USA is a considerably larger country. That’s okay — economic policy isn’t a game whereby the goal is to win the “biggest exporter” prize — but if McCain wants to talk about this stuff, he should say something that’s true.

Even Fox News

All of us at the office were agape at this Fox News segment this morning. McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds was on, one-on-one, with host Megyn Kelly for what looked like it ought to be a softball. But it seems that McCain’s habit of constantly lying about everything under the sun has gotten so out of control that even Fox News can’t entirely ignore it. Check it out — Kelly gives Bounds the sort of grilling you thought you’d never see on Fox:

Wheels Coming Off

NBC News’ Mark Murray says the wheels are coming off the Straight Talk Express.

McCain spokesman Brian Rogers issues the following defense of lying as a campaign strategy: “We’re running a campaign to win. And we’re not too concerned about what the media filter tries to say about it.”

Jeffrey Goldberg explains that McCain needs to lie because McCain’s core crazy policy idea is unpopular:

The point is that McCain knows that preemption isn’t the easiest sell these days: “It’s very hard to run for president on this idea right now,” he told me. So, what do you do when one of your core ideas is out of sync with the predispositions of the American public? You spend your days talking about lipstick on pigs. This might win him the election, but I’d rather see him debate preemption.

Once again registering my rote objection to describing the Bush/McCain Doctrine of preventive war as “preemption” (the point of the doctrine is to eliminate the normal standard of preemption) this is why I think it’s important to go beyond mocking Sarah Palin for not knowing what the Bush Doctrine is to pointing out that John McCain is very much a believer in the Bush Doctrine and the Bush Doctrine is incredibly dangerous for the country.

McCain: I’ll Cut Taxes for Everybody

John McCain said yesterday that he’d go beyond promising to avoid raising taxes on anyone making less than $250,000: “Not only that, I’m going to cut taxes for literally everybody.”

It’s too bad John McCain doesn’t seem to be familiar with John McCain’s health care proposals which involve a large tax increase on everyone who gets health insurance through an employer. For the rich, this will be offset by some of McCain’s other tax cuts, but for middle class families it’ll be an increase. McCain also might want to check out the views of John McCain’s top economic adviser Doug Holtz-Eakin since he seems to think McCain will raise taxes.

New Things McCain Has Lied About

It’s getting difficult to provide a separate blog post for each McCain Lie that winds up getting exposed. But:

• It appears their crowd estimates are made up and massively inflated.
• Also they lied and said Sarah Palin’s been to Iraq when in fact she hasn’t.

That second McCain Lie is a reminder of a vintage McCain Lie that I don’t think I’ve previously discussed wherein they tried to say Palin has been to Ireland when, in fact, she was on a plane that stopped in Ireland to refuel before taking off again. By the same token, I can tell you some time about my visit to the Memphis Airport and the new appreciation of Tennessee culture I acquired there.

UPDATE: You know, to be honest, I did gain something of an appreciation for Tennessee culture during my Memphis layover. The barbecue I had was far from the best barbecue I’ve ever had, but it was definitely the best airport food I’d ever had and definitely made me want to come back to Memphis sometime to try some not-in-the-airport eats.

Pants (and books!) on Fire

It’s not clear to me that banning books from your small town library is a political loser in the United States, so when Sarah Palin denied accusations of trying to get some books banned when she was mayor of Wasilia, I figured, hey, maybe we’ve found something she hasn’t lied about. But no. Steve Benen points out that it’s pretty clear she was lying about this, too.

Positive Reenforcement

Good story from the Associated Press:

Republican presidential candidate John McCain said Friday running mate Sarah Palin has never asked for money for lawmakers’ pet projects as Alaska governor when in fact she has sought nearly $200 million in earmarks this year.

As I’ve said before, though, the big question isn’t about whether the press writes some good individual stories. The big question is about whether the press creates a narrative. John McCain keeps saying things that aren’t true. So does his running mate. So do his campaign ads. So do his surrogates on television. When does that become a narrative? When do we get stories about how the McCain campaign has been “dogged by questions about its honesty?”

Needless to say, ThinkProgress’ coverage of this very same incident is even better than the AP. Plus, Matt Corley’s got the tell-tale video:

It just keeps on happening.

VP Meetings

This blog doesn’t comment on the character of candidates for office, but maybe folks in comments can remember the term you use for a group of people who constantly say things that aren’t true. For example, last night answering a very obvious question about her qualifications for office, Sarah Palin said that “many” VP contenders had never met with a foreign head of state:

“Have you ever met a foreign head of state?” Gibson asked Palin Thursday.

“I have not,” Palin said, “and I think if you go back in history and if you ask that question of many vice presidents, they may have the same answer that I just gave you.”

However Palin, who obtained her first passport two years ago, would in fact be the first vice president in 32 years who hadn’t met a foreign head of state, if she were elected.

Presumably, she was given talking points on these experience issues so it’s not just her who’s saying stuff that’s not true, she’s repeating a false line coming from the top of the campaign operation.