Krugman on Bush’s Greater Dishonesty
No surprise here: Paul Krugman agrees that Bush is being qualitatively more dishonest in the debates than Kerry is. What’s more, Krugman pre-emptively fact-checks the lies he expects to hear tomorrow at the final presidential debate: Checking the facts, in advance.
By singling out Mr. Bush’s lies and misrepresentations, am I saying that Mr. Kerry isn’t equally at fault? Yes.
Mr. Kerry sometimes uses verbal shorthand that offers nitpickers things to complain about. He talks of 1.6 million lost jobs; that’s the private-sector loss, partly offset by increased government employment. But the job record is indeed awful. He talks of the $200 billion cost of the Iraq war; actual spending is only $120 billion so far. But nobody doubts that the war will cost at least another $80 billion. The point is that Mr. Kerry can, at most, be accused of using loose language; the thrust of his statements is correct.
Mr. Bush’s statements, on the other hand, are fundamentally dishonest. He is insisting that black is white, and that failure is success. Journalists who play it safe by spending equal time exposing his lies and parsing Mr. Kerry’s choice of words are betraying their readers.
October 12th, 2004 at 11:03 am
Thank God.
I was beginning to think I was the only one to see all of Biush’s lies. And Cheney does it too.
Why don’t we hear about this from the TV media people?