Watergate journalist's analysis of Bush administration

[Geggy]

Bernstein: Bush administration's disinformation, misinformation 'something I have never witnessed before on this scale' Mike Sheehan
Published: Wednesday February 14, 2007
Link Here.

Veteran reporter Carl Bernstein says the lack of truth and candor from the Bush administration is unprecedented in his experience.


Comparing the Nixon administration's press relations to those of Bush, Bernstein says, "Nixon's relationship to the press was consistent with his relationship to many institutions and people. He saw himself as a victim. We now understand the psyche of Richard Nixon, that his was a self-destructive act and presidency.


"The Bush administration," Bernstein continues, "is a far different matter in which disinformation, misinformation and unwillingness to tell the truth -- a willingness to lie both in the Oval Office, in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, in the office of the vice president, the vice president himself -- is something that I have never witnessed before on this scale."


Bernstein contrasted Nixon's covering up of illegal activities tied to his re-election campaign with the Bush White House's "unwillingness to be truthful, both contextually and in terms of basic facts that ought to be of great concern to people of all ideologies.

"This president has a record of dishonesty and obfuscation that is Nixonian in character in its willingness to manipulate the press, to manipulate the truth," he adds.

"We have gone to war on the basis of misinformation, disinformation and knowing lies from top to bottom."


Bernstein blasts what he describes as "the willingness of the president and the vice president and the people around them to try to undermine people who have effectively opposed them by telling the truth." He cites attacks on Sen. John Kerry (D-MA), former Sen. Max Cleland (D-GA) and even Sen. John McCain (R-AZ).


"That's the real story, and that's the story that [the press] should have been writing," he says.


Bernstein, who gained fame with Bob Woodward for their breakthrough reporting on the Watergate scandal, was interviewed for a PBS Frontline series on the media. In an earlier interview reported on at RAW STORY, the famed journalist said the Bush administration had done "far greater damage" than Nixon.


Excerpts from an Editor and Publisher article with portions of the PBS interview follow...


It's very difficult, as a reporter, to get across that when you say, "This is a presidency of great dishonesty," that this is not a matter of opinion. This is demonstrable fact. If you go back and look at the president's statements, you look at the statements of the vice president, you look at the statements of Condoleezza Rice, you go through the record, you look at what [counterterrorism expert] Richard Clarke has written, you look at what we know -- it's demonstrable.


It's fact. Now, how do you quantify it? That's a different question.

But to me, if there is a great failure by the so-called mainstream press in this presidency, it's the unwillingness to look at the lies and disinformation and misinformation and add them up and say clearly, "Here's what they said; here's what the known facts were," because when that is done, you then see this isn't a partisan matter. This is a matter of the truth, particularly about this war. This is a presidency that is not willing to tell the truth very often if it is contrary to its interests. It's not about ideology from whence I say this.


It's about being a reporter and saying: "That's what the story is. Let's see what they said; let's see what the facts are."

[Preechr]

Please name an example of one lie told by Bush.

LIE
Function: noun Etymology: Middle English lige, lie, from Old English lyge; akin to Old High German lugī, Old English lēogan to lie Date: before 12th century 1 a: an assertion of something known or believed by the speaker to be untrue with intent to deceive

[Geggy]

Haha, very funny...you can stop joking now.

[KevinTheOmnivore]

It's really that hard for you?

What about the levy conspiracy in New Orleans?

[Geggy]

Originally Posted by KevinTheOmnivore

It's really that hard for you?

Yes...I'm having hard times deciding where to begin.

What about the levy conspiracy in New Orleans?

"I don't think anybody antipicated the breach of the levees"?

[Preechr]

Originally Posted by Geggy

Yes...I'm having hard times deciding where to begin.

Just pick the first one that pops into your mind.

[Preechr]

Originally Posted by Preechr

Please name an example of one lie told by Bush.

LIE
Function: noun Etymology: Middle English lige, lie, from Old English lyge; akin to Old High German lugī, Old English lēogan to lie Date: before 12th century 1 a: an assertion of something known or believed by the speaker to be untrue with intent to deceive

That was the question as asked. Geggy says the President has lied to him over and over, and that everybody knows this is true. I'm just asking for an example of his many, many lies. If you want to answer a different question, go right ahead... but maybe you should start a thread on THAT topic rather than trying to hijack this one. Thanks.

[KevinTheOmnivore]

The Press office in the White House serves as the public mouthpiece for the administration. Hell, since Dubya has probably never personally called Geggy on the phone and lied to him, maybe we should lock the thread now!

[derrida]

Originally Posted by Preechr

That was the question as asked. Geggy says the President has lied to him over and over, and that everybody knows this is true. I'm just asking for an example of his many, many lies. If you want to answer a different question, go right ahead... but maybe you should start a thread on THAT topic rather than trying to hijack this one. Thanks.

Actually, this thread is nominally about the Bush administration, not Bush himself.

[Preechr]

You guys are no fun.

[Geggy]

This thread is bullshit.

I'm not clear why or how would joe wilson benefit from lying to the bush administration about iraq's wmd or the lack thereof? Everybody knows about the bush admin's big WMD lie but for what exact purpose did they lie, along with saddam and 9/11 link, to beef up the pretext to invade iraq besides winning the public's support? If they've lied about all of these things then how do you know they're not lying to us about the reason for our presence in iraq?

Bush's approval rating was at 90 percent on september 11 2001 and the opposition to war was somewhere in the 10's of a percent. Over the years, bush, possibly using orwellian doublespeak, had assured us they will stay the course in order to succeed in iraq, assuming that none of us have any idea what's going on. Up until the fall of 2006, right before the mid term election, the presidents approval rating deteriorated to the low 30s/high 20s and the opposition to the wars have turned strong, bush all of a sudden tells us there is no WMD, there is no saddam-alqaeda link and declassified only small fraction of information regarding the cia's method in the fight against terrorism because they knew they were about to lose the house and senate to the democrats.

So was the iraq intel report lead by jim baker who has ties to the saudi royals, a hoax to trick us into thinking they're concerned about the disaster in iraq as long as they continue to occupy Iraq and "stay the course", wahtever the course is?

Imagine if bush is still using the "stay the course" line to this day, there would be a rising suspicion, as I've suspected, that the distaster in Iraq, as it was predicted in a 1999 wargame, is the course they are pursuing for the benefit of the global elites and the defense contractors as long as the terrorist (or freedom fighter) network continue to grow to cause the prolonging of the war and the downward spiral of the middle east.

[kahljorn]

ooooh oooooOOooh i know i know

[Preechr]

WELL?!?!

[Geggy]

Preechr

I'm trrying to grasp better understanding of your world view because it appears to me that you are delusional and out of touch since you are denying that fact that we've been constantly lied to by the bush administration, it scary. I know how much you love to bash liberals because it's an "in" thing to do as much as it is to become one without even forming his own opinion. Well, guess what, i'm not interested in other people's opinion. I'm interested in facts which is why i focus so much on the bush administrations constant parroting of lies through contadictions and excesssive secrecy because it is a clear and undeniable fact and it's the only fact that we know. Because of their coverups and the continued cover ups with more lies, we can only guess and we cannot dismiss anyone's guess as delusional because the reality is that we just don't know.


In the past three years, Bush have been telling us this...

BUSH: We will stay the course.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea...060830-10.html

BUSH: We will stay the course, we will complete the job in Iraq.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea...0050804-2.html

BUSH: We will stay the course until the job is done, Steve. And the temptation is to try to get the President or somebody to put a timetable on the definition of getting the job done. We’re just going to stay the course.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea...0031215-3.html

BUSH: And my message today to those in Iraq is: We’ll stay the course.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea...040413-20.html

BUSH: And that’s why we’re going to stay the course in Iraq. And that’s why when we say something in Iraq, we’re going to do it.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea...0040416-4.html

BUSH: And so we’ve got tough action in Iraq. But we will stay the course.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea...0040405-3.html

All of a sudden, during an October 22, 2006 interview on ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos ..

STEPHANOPOULOS: James Baker says that he’s looking for something between “cut and run” and “stay the course.”

BUSH: Well, hey, listen, we’ve never been “stay the course,” George. We have been - we will complete the mission, we will do our job, and help achieve the goal, but we’re constantly adjusting to tactics. Constantly.

http://thinkprogress.org/2006/10/22/...ay-the-course/

Preechr, I'm would like to hear your take on this, amuse me some...

[KevinTheOmnivore]

Of all the things you could've at least made an attempt at, THAT'S what you choose...!?

[kahljorn]

Well, kevin, the reason he did that is obvious. He has one of those brains that gets stuck on certain issues he hears about rather than remembering all the issues. If you picture a dog dashing around occasionally chasing it's tail you'd get the right picture.

I probably would've picked the lying about wmds/uranium/intelligence reports thing.

[Preechr]

First off, I gotta agree with Kevin on this one. That's the best you could come up with? You are saying that Dubya, according to the definition of the word LIE I provided for you, KNEW we would not be "staying the course" when he CONSTANTLY repeated that phrase for three and a half years every time someone asked him what he planned to do in Iraq?

So, let me get this right: I must have missed the news briefing where he announced we would be withdrawing from Iraq. Is that what happened? Last I checked, someone in his administration finally convinced him to simply stop throwing out that phrase as the be all, end all of his end of any Iraq discussion. He may have changed his rhetoric, but he sure as hell doesn't seem to have significantly reversed his position on finishing what he started in Iraq.

Try again...

Originally Posted by Geggy

I'm trrying to grasp better understanding of your world view because it appears to me that you are delusional and out of touch since you are denying that fact that we've been constantly lied to by the bush administration, it scary.

Maybe I am delusional and out of touch. Maybe that's why I am reaching out you: My Rock of Reason and Lucidity. All I need from you right now is just one, single example of an actual, verifiable lie told to us by George W. Bush. I need that life line to drag myself back into reality, Geggy.

HELP ME

Originally Posted by Geggy

I know how much you love to bash liberals because it's an "in" thing to do as much as it is to become one without even forming his own opinion.

Huh? Are you confusing me with someone else? Sometimes I post articles written by those that bash liberals, but over the past couple of years I've tried my best to draw a very dark line between true liberalism and progressivism. I bash Democrats and I bash Neo-Socialists just about as much as I bash Theocrats and pretty much every other type of idiot that currently makes up our government.

In case you haven't noticed, I've generally referred to myself as a Libertarian, but I've also started to identify myself AS a liberal in the classical and true sense of the word. When you see me "bashing" those that call themselves liberals... and maybe I do that moreso than I bash conservatives... it's because I resent them for straying so far from the expectation their assumed identity requires of them.

If I have "become one," then I have done so through the careful formation of my own opinions.

Originally Posted by Geggy

Well, guess what, i'm not interested in other people's opinion. I'm interested in facts which is why i focus so much on the bush administrations constant parroting of lies through contadictions and excesssive secrecy because it is a clear and undeniable fact and it's the only fact that we know. Because of their coverups and the continued cover ups with more lies, we can only guess and we cannot dismiss anyone's guess as delusional because the reality is that we just don't know.

Well then, Mr. Interested In Facts, please cough one up.

Show me one of those lies you are so fond of talking about, but please remember that I'm not looking for anything other than a factual, proveable lie.