On Sunday morning, in an interview with Tim Russert on
NBC’s “Meet the Press,” President Bush attempted
to reestablish his credibility. He failed.
Russert focused on questions regarding U.S. pre-war intelligence
on Iraq and the U.S. economy ““ two areas where Bush’s
credibility has recently taken a beating. In late January, U.S.
Weapons Inspector David Kay admitted to Congress that, “we
were all wrong.” Basically, there are no stockpiles of
weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, the alleged existence of which
provided the justification for Bush’s march to war last year.
Meanwhile, the U.S. economy has flagged for most of Bush’s
tenure in office and Americans are beginning to doubt his
policies.
On both issues, Bush either evaded answering Russert’s
questions directly, made ambiguous or half-true statements, or just
made things up. Sometimes his remarks seemed disingenuous ““
other times they were downright alarming. But I’ll let him
speak for himself.
Russert and Bush began by talking about a commission set up last
Friday to investigate intelligence failures regarding the Iraq war.
Russert asked Bush if he will testify before the commission. Bush
replied: “This commission? You know, I don’t testify?
I’ll be glad to visit with them.”
I’m sorry, what?
It’s an ambiguous and somewhat confusing answer. Why the
interrogative tone? Is he unsure if presidents or Bush family
members can testify?
In any event, I think the idea Bush is trying to relate is that
he will not be officially testifying. He will be glad to chat with
the commission over tea and crumpets, but he will not testify. This
is a strange position to take if Bush is trying to reestablish
credibility. By not agreeing to testify to the commission, is he
not half-admitting that he has something to hide? Perhaps
he’s afraid of the definition of “is.”
Russert then proceeded to question Bush about his pre-war
statements regarding the justification for launching the attack.
Bush said last March, “Intelligence gathered by this and
other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to
possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever
devised.” In light of Kay’s recent admission, Bush was
forced to concede Sunday that his earlier statements were
wrong.
But Bush justified his decision to enter Iraq by saying that he
had, not unreasonably in his opinion, relied on the intelligence
available to him at the time. Thus, in context, his decision was
correct. When Russert continued to probe, suggesting the
information was not as strong as Bush had led the country to
believe, Bush backpedalled somewhat, saying, “But David Kay
did report “¦ that Saddam had the capacity to make
weapons.”
At the very least, Bush’s reasoning is questionable. The
ability to make weapons and actually possessing them are very
different things. Yet Bush conflates the two ““ thereby
allowing weapons that only exist in the potential to be used as a
justification for war.
Even if you concede that possessing weapons of mass destruction
is a good reason for warfare, the capability to create them is not.
If we convicted on the basis of potential, we could justify war
with just about any country.
Later, Bush’s comments leaned toward the surreal. At one
point, he said, “See, free societies are societies that
don’t develop weapons of mass terror and don’t
blackmail the world.”
I’m sorry, but what free society is Bush living in? Did he
forget about our own involvement in the Cold War?
Assuming Bush is talking about weapons like nuclear bombs or
chemical arms, his statement is absurd. It was, of course, this
free society that developed all those weapons.
Russert asked, “When you proposed your first tax cut in
2001, you said this was going to generate 800,000 new jobs. Your
tax cut of 2003, create a million new jobs. That has not
happened.” Bush replied: “Well, it’s happening.
It’s happening.”
Is it, really?
According to Jobwatch.org, Bush and his White House Council of
Economic Advisors’ “jobs and growth” package
promised 5.5 million new jobs would be created by the end of 2004,
and 1.8 million new jobs would be created by the end of last year.
Since the latest tax cut, the economy has created only 221,000 new
jobs ““ which is to say that Bush’s program is so far
behind by 1,615,000 jobs. I don’t know if one can fairly
blame or credit a president when jobs are lost or created, but I do
think it borders on ridiculous to say that the job growth he
promised is “happening” in light of these facts.
Basically, Bush played politics as usual. His answers were
intentionally vague, which is typical of politicians. But this
wasn’t a typical interview ““ he was trying to
reestablish credibility.
Good luck.
Not surprisingly, the absurd, misleading and surreal nature of
some of Bush’s responses leave little doubt that he is
literally incredible ““ you can’t believe him.
Raimundo is a fifth-year economics and political science
student. E-mail him at araimundo@media.ucla.edu. Send general
comments to viewpoint@media.ucla.edu.