Watergate journalist's analysis of Bush administration
 

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."

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

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

It's really that hard for you?

What about the levy conspiracy in New Orleans?

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

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

Just pick the first one that pops into your mind.

ooooh oooooOOooh i know i know

WELL?!?!

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...

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

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.

How about oil revenue from Iraq would pay for the war? LINK

LOOK AT US, TEAM GEGGY.

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...

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

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.

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.

Does that satisfy the test of definition? Didn't pretty much everybody actually believe that Saddam had WMD? If he believed it was true when he said it, then it was a mistake, not a lie.

The gravity of that or any of his other mistakes is another discussion, and I think we should wait on Geggy to show up for this one before we move on, if that's Ok with you...

BTW, we did actually find a stockpile of over 500 artillery shells loaded with Sarin or Mustard Gas or something. Might not be a nuke, but I think that qualifies as hidden biological weaponry, don't you?

Here: http://www.google.com/search?source=...=Google+Search

Kev, I'll read your link and get back to you, but off the cuff, I'd venture to say that that was more of an adjustment made to the reality of Iraqis being the ones that own that oil and our having no real say so as to how they spend their money. There's more to it than that, but I think it boils down to that was a stupid thing to say, but it correlated to a stupid thing he actually believed.

Gotta go for now though. I'll read it and respond more fully later...

Well, let's say you have some intel, the veracity of which can only really be expressed in terms of ambiguity, and you fail to mention this in a caveat, you have lied. A Platonic (or Straussian) "noble lie" is still a lie.

Yeah, well, what if you're an idealistic, naive person that trusts consensus and admires action over discussion? Through your rationale, pretty much everyone in our government... well, pretty much everyone in Western government... well, pretty much everyone in any.... everybody! ... Lied about Saddam possessing and working on WMD technology and material. There's no way that would qualify as a global lie for unfair advantage, so what was the point of it?

I mean, I think you're technically correct, as I'd say submission to groupthink is being part and party to lying... but for the purposes of this discussion, don't you think that's a bit of a gray area? Surely, Geggy is gonna knock my socks off with a BLATANT lie real quick like... He has people, y'know...

i guess it would count as biological even though they were used in past wars and that's probably where they came from.

weren't there reports that the yellowcake thing was a lie though?

The sixteen words?

The British Government still says Iraq attempted to buy yellowcake. This was the tie in, by the way, to the Joe Wilson thing.

Not a lie.

I think I'm gonna need a stamp...

Ok, Kevin... I read your link. Y'know, the first thing I realized was that there were no actual quotes from Bush on there. Was that supposed to be Geggy satire?

I don't think you understand the land mass and how many borders you are dealing with when you pull out your guns. Bush is a Cowboy and a Douche and will be replaced and when things settle down and the Environment becomes even the bigger topic and Iraq and those stupid countries are left to build what ever they want and left alone I'm sure they are not building shit to blow up a bunch of idiot redneck Americans :\

I would note that you make no sense at all, but you have already admitted to being Canadian, so I don't want to kick a dead horse when it's already down...

One question though: when we leave them alone, isn't it safe to assume they will most likely build something along the lines of what they built before? Is that what you want, or is something better maybe a bit more desirable for everyone involved?

Ok, since that was already more than one question, let me ask you another: How are you going to feel when, within about 15 years, Canada and Mexico join with the US to form our own EU-like North American Union and we all become family?

What did they build? You already killed a bunch of Japanese twice :rolleyes (again Bush didn't find any "Weapons of Mass distruction")

Are you twelve? There is no such thing as Free trade that is suppose to be happening with the US/Canada/Mexico. American companies have said fuck you to your Unions and sent work abroad. Canada has American temp angencies that provide immigrant workers that will never be hired full time to recieve benefits. Americans keep there wages low and now have embraced Mexicans because they do the work that no one wants to do. The next President (Obama?) will be scrambling to take the Bulleye off of your country and not being gay with Britian trying to find some old World War 2 glory...My County is starting to mirror your countries school shootings and violence, nice job assholes.

rofl...

Yep, you got me. I'm 12. How did you know?