(Cross Posted from The Blog Roundup).
To paraphrase an old joke: How do you know when George Bush is lying? When his lips move...
It's actually become very difficult for me to watch Bush speak any more, because I know that almost everything he says is at best empty rhetoric, and at worst downright lies. The last debate was actually painful for me, not least because Bush's first response was a bare-faced naked, pants-on-fire whopper:
"I don't think I ever said I'm not worried about Osama bin Laden. That's kind of one of those exaggerations."
As anyone who's been paying attention to the news knows, what he's actually said in the past was a little less of an exaggeration:
"We haven't heard much from him. And I wouldn't necessarily say he's at the center of any command structure. And, again, I don't know where he is," Bush said during the 2002 news conference. "I'll repeat what I said. I truly am not that concerned about him. I know he is on the run.
After that lie, it was all downhill for me. I finally had to stop watching the debate.
Yes, I understand that it's election time and of course all politicians sometimes spin or are "economical with the truth" on occasion, so what makes George Bush such an egregious example of this?
Well for starters, it's the
magnitude of the lies. Whereas another politician will frame the answer to a question or a point in their stump speech to present an issue in the best possible light, Bush consistently turns black into white, up into down in his rhetoric. The obvious example is the situation in Iraq, where anyone with direct experience of it (including many of the
troops on the ground who are risking their lives) will confirm that it's a complete mess, and steadily getting worse. Experienced military experts are concerned because there is
no obvious winning strategy which wouldn't be a disaster politically, and any journalists brave enough to stay over there are reporting that all westerners (now even in Baghdad's Green Zone) are constantly afraid for their lives. Yet Bush continues to throw out upbeat, positive statements and rosy analyses of the situation like candy, as if by repeating the lies often enough, somehow they will become reality. It's not that his interpretation is simply flawed, it's that it's
the complete opposite of the truth. More and more he is telling this kind of lie, which is complete denial of almost all the available evidence. In the face of this, I begin to wonder about his sanity.
For me, the most serious issue with these kind of lies are the consequences to real people, both American and the rest of the world. American soldiers and countless Iraqis are being killed and maimed every day because of Bush's obsession with Iraq (which as the 9/11 Commission has reported, had no connection to the terrorist attacks). Millions more US citizens are living in poverty and without jobs and healthcare because of this President's policies. Our environment is steadily becoming more polluted because of the government's cynical disregard for it. The national debt, which we will all have to pay for, is increasing by billions of dollars a day. These are real consequences for all of us, and yet an alien observer listening to the daily pronouncements from the White House would assume that the nation is rapidly approaching its finest hour ever.
All this was brought to a head for me when I read in my local paper an article about the work of Professor Maureen O'Sullivan, a San Francisco psychologist and expert on human behavior, who discusses how somone who is lying can be spotted by certain expressions, mannerisms and signs (their "tells", as a poker player would say) which give them away. I realized that what she was describing perfectly were the behaviors of George Bush in the debates, particularly the first one. Judge for yourself:
Recognizing Liars: Just Take a Look at Them by Esther Landhuis, Mercury News
Sheer mental overload from the process of fabricating something, O'Sullivan said, can show up as hesitations in speech or slips of the tongue. Accomplished liars may try to compensate by talking faster, but this makes them more likely to become tongue-tied or use odd phrases -- nuances that wizards can often catch.
Lying stirs up emotions, she said. For most people, the emotion may be distress, but others delight in deceiving people. The clue to the deception is the mismatch between what the person says and what he seems to be feeling.
Among the biggest bluff giveaways are so-called microexpressions -- subconscious smirks and grimaces that leap on and off the face within fractions of a second.
Now does that description remind you of any President you know?
Seriously, now there is no doubt in my mind. George Bush is a liar, and he's not simply in denial; most of the time he really knows that he's lying.
And that I think, says it all.
- Trendar