Issue #43
Last Update December 24, 2005
Commentary The President who cried wolf! Like the boy in the story, President Bush is now dealing with the consequences of the false alarm he issued prior to starting a war with Iraq, a war that was questioned by all of our allies except the UK and many domesic experts, including members of his father's brain trust. His new stance, that removing Saddam Hussein was the right thing to do even if Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction misses the point. By screaming Wolf! at the top of his voice when there was no wolf, the President destroyed his own credibility.
No statement of fact made by the President, whether of domestic or foreign policy issues, will henceforth go unquestioned. Having proven that his most firmly advanced statements are untrustworthy, his statements on the economy, the environment and foreign policy will be carefully scrutinized by the press, (not previously noted, in the main, for confronting the President with his own "misstatements") and hopefully by the general public, a large segment of which has heretofore taken his pronouncements at face value. It being an election year, you can bet that the Democratic nominee will hammer Bush at every new misstatement, and will attempt to bring before the people the lengthy record of prior falsehoods.
Truth has never been Bush's strong point, nor has it been the strong point of anyone in his administration. This most ideological of presidencies has consistently distorted the truth where it did not fit their viewpoint, and hid from the public those facts and actions it could not spin.
Unfortunately for America, President Bush is viewed in this light by most of the rest of the world as well. This means that statements by our head of state are largely discounted for their literal content; an international industry exists to guess his intentions, and in what way his actions will contravene his words. This pretty much makes international cooperation (not something that Bush was interested in anyway) with the US impossible, whether it be in the economic, environmental, anti-terrorism or military spheres.
Even if the next election results in domestic regime change, the kind of trust once enjoyed by American Presidents will take a long time to rebuild.
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