Liberals Don't Lie

Liberals don't lie - the NY Times examines the debate and discusses "exaggerations and shadings", as they were described in the front-page headline. Most of the coverage is devoted to Kerry's positions on Iraq; I urge the interested reader to march through it, because the Times outdoes itself on this one.

Oh, I can't resist - let me get you started:

More than a dozen times in their 90-minute debate on Thursday night, President Bush accused Senator John Kerry of continually shifting positions on Iraq.

"As the politics change, his positions change," Mr. Bush said at one point. "You cannot lead if you send mixed messages," he said at another.

This line of attack has become a central element of the Bush campaign, and Mr. Kerry was clearly prepared to answer it.

"I've had one position, one consistent position," Mr. Kerry said.

...Concerning Iraq, a review of Mr. Kerry's public statements found that his position had been quite consistent. But as the politics changed, Mr. Kerry repeatedly changed his emphasis. News accounts reflected what he was emphasizing at the time. And Mr. Kerry was often unclear in expressing his views.

Got it? Kerry emphasized different things, but a combination of sloppy reporting and poor word usage led the rest of us to believe he was fliop-flopping. Our bad! And shed a tear for poor, misunderstood John. Here we go:

Since well before the presidential campaign began, Mr. Kerry has maintained that Saddam Hussein was a menace and that removing him from power was a worthy goal. He has said that the president needed the authority to use troops in Iraq.

But Mr. Kerry has also said that Mr. Bush should not have gone to war without exhausting all diplomatic alternatives and without mobilizing international support. And he has insisted that the war's cost should be covered as much as possible by repealing tax cuts for the wealthy enacted during the Bush presidency.

A tower of constancy! On this rock named "John" I will build my policy on Iraq!

A bit further, however, the rock wavers a bit:

In May 2003, two months after the United States invaded Iraq and routed Mr. Hussein's army, Mr. Kerry was the presumed front-runner for the Democratic nomination. Former Gov. Howard Dean of Vermont, from the antiwar wing of the party, was not yet regarded as a serious threat.

In a nine-candidate debate in Columbia, S.C., on May 3, Mr. Kerry declared: "I would have preferred if we had given diplomacy a greater opportunity, but I think it was the right decision to disarm Saddam Hussein. And when the president made the decision, I supported him, and I support the fact that we did disarm him."

By October 2003, Dr. Dean had begun to emerge as a strong candidate and it had become clear that no unconventional weapons would be found in Iraq. On Oct. 12, Mr. Kerry asserted on the ABC News program "This Week": "The president and his advisers did not do almost anything correctly in the walk-up to the war. They rushed to war. They were intent on going to war. They did not give legitimacy to the inspections. We could have still been doing inspections even today."

The Times continues their probing, and it does not get better for the man with one position, but many points of emphasis.

Now, on the subject of nuclear proliferation, this would have been a lie of Bush had said it:

Mr. Kerry said, "Thirty-five to 40 countries in the world had a greater capability of making weapons at the moment the president invaded than Saddam Hussein."

A report this year by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace lists 36 countries that have, once had or are suspected of pursuing nuclear weapons programs, including Iraq, whose program it lists as "recently terminated." Some countries have not progressed any further than Iraq and could not yet produce weapons.

An odd mistake for him to make, since Kerry wrote the book on these issues:

Mr. Kerry may have exaggerated the attention he has given the issue of proliferation. He said, "I did a lot of work on this. I wrote a book about it several years ago."

The book, "The New War" (Simon & Schuster, 1997), discusses the issue in about 20 of its 210 pages; the book, which is subtitled "The Web of Crime That Threatens America's Security," is about dangers posed by international criminal networks, mostly involving drugs and other concerns.

On the question of domestic security, Kerry offered these "exaggerations":

Mr. Kerry complained that money spent on the war could be better used for police, firefighters and other security measures at home. He said the administration had put "not one nickel" into protection for vulnerable tunnels, bridges and subways.

That is an exaggeration. Even Democratic critics demanding more spending on rail and transit security and lobbyists for transit systems say the government has spent millions of dollars, while the systems have spent more than a billion dollars.

"That's why they had to close down the subway in New York when the Republican convention was there," Mr. Kerry said of the lack of security upgrades. Several stations around Madison Square Garden were indeed closed, as were nearby streets, partly to deter protesters.

Some were closed, most were open. [And eventually the Times corrects this - see below]

The story also cites some problematic Bush statements, but none as striking as the Kerry stuff. Oh, don't take my word for it:

Mr. Bush countered by saying, "Actually, we've increased funding for dealing with nuclear proliferation, about 35 percent since I've been president."

Victoria Sampson of the Center for Defense Information said Mr. Bush's 35 percent figure was "not entirely accurate," since it included money for disposing of the United States' own unneeded nuclear materials.

...Mr. Bush's statement that 75 percent of Osama Bin Laden's "people have been brought to justice" is impossible to document. It appears to refer to terrorist leaders, a poorly defined category.

There is no reliable tally of how many Qaeda operatives ever existed, and the administration has not provided the number who have been captured or killed.

Until just before the Republican convention, Mr. Bush said in his stump speeches that two-thirds had been brought to justice, but then began using the larger figure. A C.I.A. spokesman told Reuters at the time that the 75 percent figure was "absolutely consistent with our view."

...Mr. Bush's statement that the administration had "tripled the amount of money we're spending on homeland security to $30 billion a year" was an approximation and embroidered somewhat the rate of growth. It depends in part on what programs are counted, and from what date.

Programs inherited by the new Department of Homeland Security from other agencies have more than doubled since 2001, to about $24 billion in the fiscal year 2004, according to a report in April by the Congressional Budget Office. Related programs in other agencies have grown almost as fast, bringing total domestic security spending to about $41 billion, a doubling since 2001. Democrats have argued for even faster growth in spending on some of these programs.

Points to the Times for rehashing the Kerry nonsense - I hope their readers make it past the reassuring introduction.

UPDATE: From the Times Corrections the following Wednesday:

Because of an editing error, a front-page article on Saturday that examined statements by President Bush and Senator John Kerry in their first debate gave partial support erroneously to Mr. Kerry's assertion that New York "had to close down the subway" during the Republican National Convention. Although several subway entrances near Madison Square Garden were closed for security, the stations themselves were not, and service continued.

They would have gotten it right the first time if the dispute involved a city like Ulaanbaatar; NYC was too easy to research, and the will to believe was too strong.

UPDATE: WaPo version. They are more supportive of Kerry on North Korea, although I think their presetnation is woefully incomplete:

On North Korea, Bush charged that Kerry's proposal to have direct talks with that country would end the six-nation diplomacy that the administration has pursued over Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions. Kerry has said he would continue the six-party talks as well. Bush said direct talks with North Korea would drive away China, a key player in the negotiations.

But each of the other four countries in the talks has held direct talks with North Korea during the six-party process -- and China has repeatedly asked the Bush administration to talk directly with North Korea. Moreover, the Bush administration has talked directly with North Korean diplomats on the sidelines of the six-party talks, and Secretary of State Colin L. Powell met with his North Korean counterpart over the summer.

Yes, but - the other countries can have all the side talks they want - the US is the main player here. And the N Koreans want bilateral talks, so agreeing to them is a major concession.

Comments

[Brian]

Other news organizations have probed into this matter, and shock of all shocks, have found that he's been largely consistant. Take this Knight-Ridder piece, for instance.

There's a certain bullshit factor involved with campaigns like this. Witness Bush's decision to try and label himself "the peace president," or the decision to change the language from "weapons of mass destruction" to "weapons of mass destruction-related activities" in the State of the Union. The difference between Bush and Kerry is that Bush, in a wise political move, has been much more adament about holding Kerry's feet to the fire about this. Kerry should have done the same to Bush.

As for the issue of the countries with nuclear capabilities, I have two questions, for starters. Is Carengie the authority on this matter? And what is the name of the study? I'd like to check it out myself.

[Tom Maguire]

I'd be thrilled if you could find it. It is the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, but the best I can find so far is this map, which names less than 36 countries.

I note that the countries listed include such emerging threats as Australia, Sweden, Switzerland, and other such industrialized countries.

But since it is hard to grasp Kerry's point (how many of those "35 to 40" were also in repeated violation of UN disarmament resolutions?), it is hard to rebut it.

[Brian]

So I'm not the only one that had a hard time trying to find it.

I suspect that Kerry's point, like almost every other, had a decent bullshit factor point in there. It's kind of like when a politician says that he has increased funding by a staggering amount, with the catch being that the amount was next to nothing in the first place.

[abb1]

"weapons of mass destruction-related activities"

Heh, heh. Actually it's "weapons of mass destruction program related activities". I guess it's like buying pencils in order to maybe some day to start a program.

[abb1]

Tom, I think you might've incorrectly italicized some of your own words in your post above. Words An odd mistake for him to make... don't appear in the NYT piece.

Thanks.

[abb1]

On the Carnegie thing: Kerry said: "greater capability of making weapons". The NYT responds with "pursuing nuclear weapons programs".

Iraq was attack on a premise of them having chemical, biological and nuclear weapons.

I see no reason to assume that Mr. Kerry is talking about only nuclear weapons here. I think Mr. Rosenbaum got sloppy in this case.

[abb1]

Sorry, that's "Iraq was attacked"

[MaDr]

Back to the title of your post.

What do you think the third "L" in LLL stands for?