ALL ADMINISTRATIONS WILL DISSEMBLE, distort, or outright lie when their
backs are against the wall, when honesty begins to look like political suicide.
But this administration seems to lie reflexively, as if it were simply the
easiest option for busy folks with a lot on their minds. While the big lies are
more damning and of immeasurably greater import to the nation, it is the small,
unnecessary prevarications that may be diagnostic. Who lies when they don't have
to? When the simple truth, though perhaps embarrassing in the short run, is
nevertheless in one's long-term self-interest? Why would a president whose
calling card is his alleged rock-solid integrity waste his chief asset for
penny-ante stakes? Habit, perhaps. Or an inability to admit even small mistakes.

Mr. Bush's tendency to meander beyond the bounds of truth was evident
during the 2000 campaign but was largely ignored by the mainstream media. His
untruths simply didn't fit the agreed-upon narrative. While generally
acknowledged to be lacking in experience, depth, and other qualifications
typically considered useful in a leader of the free world, Bush was portrayed as
a decent fellow nonetheless, one whose straightforwardness was a given. None of
that "what the meaning of is is" business for him. And, God knows, no furtive,
taxpayer-funded fellatio sessions with the interns. Al Gore, on the other hand,
was depicted as a dubious self-reinventor, stained like a certain blue dress by
Bill Clinton's prurient transgressions. He would spend valuable weeks explaining
away statements—"I invented the Internet"—that he never made in the first place.
All this left the coast pretty clear for Bush.

Scenario typical of the 2000 campaign: While debating Al Gore, Bush tells
two obvious—if not exactly earth-shattering—lies and is not challenged. First,
he claims to have supported a patient's bill of rights while governor of Texas.
This is untrue. He, in fact, vigorously resisted such a measure, only
reluctantly bowing to political reality and allowing it to become law without
his signature. Second, he announces that Gore has outspent him during the
campaign. The opposite is true: Bush has outspent Gore. These misstatements are
briefly acknowledged in major press outlets, which then quickly return to the
more germane issues of Gore's pancake makeup and whether a certain feminist
author has counseled him to be more of an "alpha male." Having gotten away with
such witless falsities, perhaps Mr. Bush and his team felt somehow above
day-to-day truth. In any case, once ensconced in the White House, they picked up
where they left off.

IN THE IMMEDIATE AFTERMATH and confusion of 9/11, Bush, who on that day was
in Sarasota, Florida, conducting an emergency reading of "The Pet Goat," was
whisked off to Nebraska aboard Air Force One. While this may have been entirely
sensible under the chaotic circumstances—for all anyone knew at the time,
Washington might still have been under attack—the appearance was, shall we say,
less than gallant. So a story was concocted: There had been a threat to Air
Force One that necessitated the evasive maneuver. Bush's chief political
advisor, Karl Rove, cited "specific" and "credible" evidence to that effect. The
story quickly unraveled. In truth, there was no such threat.

Then there was Bush's now infamous photo-op landing aboard the USS Abraham
Lincoln and his subsequent speech in front of a large banner emblazoned MISSION
ACCOMPLISHED. The banner, which loomed in the background as Bush addressed the
crew, became problematic as it grew clear that the mission in Iraq—whatever that
may have been—was far from accomplished. "Major combat operations," as Bush put
it, may have technically ended, but young Americans were still dying almost
daily. So the White House dealt with the questionable banner in a manner
befitting a president pledged to "responsibility and accountability": It blamed
the sailors. No surprise, a bit of digging by journalists revealed the banner
and its premature triumphalism to be the work of the White House communications
office.

More serious by an order of magnitude was the administration's dishonesty
concerning pre-9/11 terror warnings. As questions first arose about the
country's lack of preparedness in the face of terrorist assault, Condoleezza
Rice was dispatched to the pundit arenas to assure the nation that "no one could
have imagined terrorists using aircraft as weapons." In fact, terrorism experts
had warned repeatedly of just such a calamity. In June 2001, CIA director George
Tenet sent Rice an intelligence report warning that "it is highly likely that a
significant Al Qaeda attack is in the near future, within several weeks." Two
intelligence briefings given to Bush in the summer of 2001 specifically
connected Al Qaeda to the imminent danger of hijacked planes being used as
weapons. According to The New York Times, after the second of these briefings,
titled "Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside United States," was delivered to
the president at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, in August, Bush "broke off from
work early and spent most of the day fishing." This was the briefing Dr. Rice
dismissed as "historical" in her testimony before the 9/11 Commission.