To Tell the Truth
EDITORIAL To Tell the Truth Nine months have now gone by, and we, like most Americans, find much to praise in the conduct of George W. Bush's presidency—especially his recent assumption of wartime...
...But we are a bit concerned by one aspect of the administration's performance these past couple of weeks: In the much-noted fumblings of its recent public statements on terrorism, the Bush executive branch has exhibited a pronounced weakness for spin...
...Americans are not a nation of children...
...The next day, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer announced that "people should feel safe opening their mail...
...Thompson coolly—and irresponsibly—speculated that Florida tabloid photo editor Robert Stevens might have innocently contracted a fatal case of anthrax by drinking contaminated water from the stream where he fished...
...So we will tolerate the long haul...
...And the very next day, worried, apparently, that such a downbeat assessment might weaken public support for the war, Rumsfeld walked back his words higgledy-piggledy, as if it were the most natural thing on Earth to do: We "fully intend to find [the al Qaeda leadership] and chase them to ground and root them out and stop them from doing what they're doing...
...And the "scope and strength of our country's bio-defense network" has been impressive...
...What they occasionally fail to grasp, however, is that telling the truth need not be a threatening, scary business—especially now, in a time of crisis...
...And we will even tolerate error...
...And so long as the government plays the whole thing straight...
...questions the Pentagon press corps seems unable to resist asking...
...But Ari Fleischer has angrily repudiated his more candid colleagues...
...The country does not expect global terrorism to be eradicated in a month...
...Does Fleischer imagine they think they're wrong...
...George W. Bush and his appointees do, on balance, seem to understand this duty...
...U.S...
...Early on, obviously on guard lest the natives grow panicky, Health and Human Services secretary Tommy What the administration needs to grasp is that telling the truth need not be a threatening, scary business—especially now, in a time of crisis...
...I am a bit surprised at how doggedly they're hanging onto power," Rear Admiral John Stufflebeem remarked...
...The country can handle its facts undiluted, thank you very much, and would surely prefer them that way...
...That shouldn't be so hard, should it...
...The Bushies do not lie and hide the way their predecessors habitually did...
...Postmaster General John Potter had already publicly acknowledged "I can't offer a guarantee" any such thing is true...
...Long after it was clear that postal terrorism was involved—and trace amounts of anthracis bacilli had been located at an off-site White House mail facility—the administration still seemed to think that preventing public hysteria, evidence for which was virtually nonexistent, was more important than communicating essential information...
...So precisely in order to fulfill his necessary leadership responsibilities, the president is required to subject himself to full and constant public inspection...
...David Tell, for the EdiOtors...
...EDITORIAL To Tell the Truth Nine months have now gone by, and we, like most Americans, find much to praise in the conduct of George W. Bush's presidency—especially his recent assumption of wartime leadership...
...The mood is plain: We are all in this together...
...It would be mighty inconvenient for him to be stricken with a fatal illness just now...
...And for this energy to remain secure, Hamilton went on, citizens must have confidence that it is being exercised wisely...
...Moreover, it's our sense that the administration enjoys a much wider and deeper reservoir of public support than it seems to imagine...
...So homeland security czar Tom Ridge talks like a county councilman up for reelection: "The response at all levels of government was immediate and comprehensive...
...I just don't know whether we'll be successful...
...Consider the Defense Department's shifting answers to those moronic "have we won yet...
...Four times last Tuesday he refused to say...
...Which is another advantage of having a single president: He's easier to keep tabs on...
...And we will tolerate temporary, partial gaps in official expertise and preparedness...
...The White House worries about appearing competent and in control...
...Any administration official who can't perform this task should be told to keep his mouth shut...
...If they thought they were right, they'd put their name on it...
...Two weeks ago, worried, apparently, that the country expected instant success in Afghanistan, DoD spokesmen were full of talk about how an infant American air campaign had already "eviscerated" the Taliban...
...For the duration of the current anthrax outbreak, we would recommend that the White House send out only its most professionally knowledgeable staffers to meet the press, with directions to answer every question as completely and accurately as they are able, freely admit ignorance whenever necessary, and fully explain whatever other reasons there might be why certain questions can't be answered...
...On the homefront, by contrast, administration officials have repeatedly made spin-driven errors of basic fact about the most urgent public health issues imaginable...
...And Ridge talks to the president "two or three or four times a day...
...Wednesday last week, worried, apparently, that they had thus raised expectations a mite too high, Pentagon briefers made haste to caution that certain Talibanic viscera remained very much in place...
...Four times at a photo op last Tuesday, reporters directly asked the president whether he himself had thought it necessary to be tested for exposure to anthrax...
...This magazine would be reassured to hear, for example, that the president has been tested for anthrax...
...This last claim is a stretch, as innumerable senior administration officials have lately admitted on background...
...It does not expect the government immediately and perfectly to understand and respond to a wave of bio-warfare attacks for which there is no precedent...
...And the anti-anthrax work of the various government agencies he's charged with coordinating has so far been characterized by "extraordinary collaboration...
...Got that...
...What the Clinton administration failed to understand was that truthfulness and transparency in government aren't simply inconvenient virtues, but positive constitutional obligations...
...So long as the government appears to be working round the clock, doing its best, and making constant, perceptible progress...
...And our leaders need not turn themselves endlessly upside down, manipulating the news about the terror attacks now being waged against us...
...You can't trust unnamed sources, he contends...
...At least the Pentagon's missteps have involved only relatively trivial responses of the "what grade I would give myself" variety...
...It's "a very difficult situation," rather like "looking for a needle in a haystack," said secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld...
...We have a solitary chief executive, Hamilton famously explained in Federalist 70, because the office demands deliberate, directed "energy" that would be impossible were presidential authority divided among several men...
...And so on...
Vol. 7 • November 2001 • No. 8
