Just Say It

E.J. Dionne is moving in the right direction today, pointing out that the Bush administration routinely lies to the American public about almost everything. Then he expresses his suprise that the media doesn't pay more attention to this phenomenon, given that reporters pilloried Clinton and Gore for their dissembling.

Perhaps Dionne should read his own column once more, take his own advice, and then rewrite it. If he can't bring himself to call the President a liar, how can he blame others for not doing the same? Instead, Dionne uses a series of euphamisms to talk about those lying liars' lies:

• wasn't exactly true
• misled
• not exactly honest
• say anything
• a rather flexible definition of what it means to level with the American people

To be fair, Dionne does use the L-word a total of five times in his column: twice about Clinton, and three times about Gore. It is extremely unfortunate that Dionne feels the need to bring out the big guns for statements by Clinton and Gore that were either lies about personal matters or not lies at all, when he gives a rhetorical pass to statements by Bush & Co. that truly are lies about the most important public policy issues of the day.