By Victor Davis Hanson
Thursday, October 31, 2013
By 1968, President Lyndon Baines Johnson was finally done
in by his "credibility gap" -- the growing abyss between what he said
about, and what was actually happening inside, Vietnam.
"Modified limited hangout" and
"inoperative" were infamous euphemisms that Nixon administration
officials used to mask lies about the Watergate scandal. After a while, few
believed any of the initial Reagan administration disavowals that it was not
trading "arms for hostages" in the Iran-Contra scandal.
George H.W. Bush thundered during his campaign to
"read my lips: no new taxes," only to agree later to raise them. Bill
Clinton's infamous assertion that "I did not have sexual relations with
that woman" was followed by proof that he did just that with Monica
Lewinsky.
The George W. Bush administration warned the nation about
stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and never quite recovered its
credibility after the WMD were not found. No one believed Bush when he told
incompetent FEMA Deputy Director Michael Brown that in the midst of the Katrina
mess he was doing a "heck of a job."
Yet the distortions and lack of credibility of the Obama
administration have matched and now trumped those of his predecessors. The
public may have long ago forgotten that Obama did not close down Guantanamo as
promised, or cut the deficit in half by the end of his first term, or stop the
revolving door of lobbyists coming in and out of the executive branch.
The public may even have forgiven the president when the
stimulus bill never lowered unemployment as promised, or when his misleading
boasts about vast increases in oil and gas production came to fruition despite,
not because, of his efforts.
But the distortions and broken promises have now become
so frequent that many at home and abroad are finally tuning out the president.
Almost nothing promised about the Affordable Care Act is proving true. Contrary
to presidential assurances, Obamacare has not lowered premiums or deductibles.
It will not reduce the deficit or improve business competitiveness. It really
will alter existing health plans and in some cases lead to their cancellation.
Signing up is certainly not as easy buying something online on Amazon.
Two considerations often turn these presidential ethical
lapses into political disasters. Unfortunately, both apply to the present
administration.
First, the economy must be robust to offset the
deception. Voters rejected the first George Bush for deceiving them, largely
because the economy tanked in 1992. Yet the public did not turn on an impeached
Bill Clinton, given that the economy was quite robust in 1998. Watergate's lies
came at a time of oil embargos and stagnation. In contrast, Reagan survived
Iran-Contra because of the boom years.
Second, we expect presidential mendacity to be sporadic
rather than serial. By 1968, even when LBJ told the truth, no one listened. In
1973, no one believed anything that the Nixon administration asserted.
Unfortunately, Barack Obama has presided over five years
of continued economic sluggishness that have not diverted attention from his
administration's disingenuousness. If unemployment were down to 5 percent, the
gross national product growing at 4 percent and the budget nearly balanced, we
might have forgotten about the Benghazi cover-up, the monitoring of AP
reporters, the politicization of the IRS and its vast overpayment in income tax
credits, the NSA disclosures and the Syrian mess. Or if Obama had spoken
untruthfully only once, made false promises just twice, or offered empty boasts
merely three times, he might have been forgiven.
If Republicans agree to pass a comprehensive immigration
reform bill, can they be sure that Obama won't suspend "settled law"
on border enforcement as he did with the employer mandate? If Secretary of
Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius assures yet again that Obamacare is
suffering from a mere glitch, why should we believe her?
For that matter, will a Saudi ambassador or an Israeli
diplomat now trust Obama when he swears that Syria's next use of chemical
weapons will cross a red line, or that another newly discovered secret Iranian
nuclear facility is a game-changer?
Will German Chancellor Angela Merkel listen to Obama when
he insists that the NSA did not monitor her phone? Would the American public
trust administration officials if they stated on television that the next
attack on a U.S. embassy was due to anger over a mere video, or that Guantanamo
would be closed in 2014?
Obama understandably came into office with a sense of
immunity. His personal story and nontraditional background made him an
emblematic figure. An enthralled media had unfortunately redefined its role as
an appendage to, rather than an auditor of, the presidency. After the unpopular
Bush administration, even Obama's empty "hope and change" platitudes
were considered deep.
Yet after nearly five years of scandals, untruths and
hard economic times, a now-ignored Barack Obama has finally learned that even
an iconic president can tell one too many untruths.
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