I agree but only to a point. You're right that enough is out there that parties capable of objective analysis would have foresaken Bush Inc. stock many months or years ago. However, most political analysis occurs in the reptile brain. And it appears to me that each additional revelation of the Shrub Dynasty's cynicism, and exploitational opportunism forces the average rube into a less and less tenable choice to explicitly condone what the rational in him would normally see as hypocracy. With approval now at 41%, I think it would be foolish to abandon the litany just yet.
Yeah, I have this vague hope that "Bush got us into this misguided war through completely dishonest means" will gradually become the conventional wisdom even among the people who support him. After than, we can hope that it will just continue to wear away at his support.
Yes, that's a fine thing to want. I guess 1) I wish to have no hope and 2) I'm pre-annoyed at the people who are going to say "people don't even care, waa waa etc."
The people who supported the war figure that if Bush had to lie to get the people who didn't support on board, oh well
How'd you guess? You must be a retrospective mind-reader! Actually, "oh well" is my standard response to lying. I've also become a big fan of torture....
[/sarcasm]
Isn't it a useful piece of evidence that quite a few former war supporters began to think the war a very bad idea when they saw how incompetently and immorally the Bush administration was handling it, whereas the pre-war rhetoric has seemed pressing only to those who were anti-war anyway? If your concern is about future interventions, it's easy to show that this administration, at least, should never again be trusted with those responsibilities. And without accusing your opponents of being completely corrupt.
Yes, it turns out you can argue with your opponents about what most matters without presupposing that they just don't care about lying. Mightn't that be a bit more effective?
(Just trying to play my long-standing role on this blog. The comment is obviously directed not at ogged's explicit argument but at some stated and unstated presuppositions.)
Ted, the whole post is a bit slapdash, and isn't really meant to argue with my opponents, but to serve as a caution to friends. That said, I do think that a pretty sizable group of people isn't bothered by lying in the case for war, because they see it as the necessary response to intransigence on the part of the war's opponents.
That said, I do think that a pretty sizable group of people isn't bothered by lying in the case for war
I know the Galt falls into that category, but I'm not sure how many pro-war Democrats do. Moreover, I'm OK with this argument, as long as (a) the war proves to be A Very Good Thing nonetheless, based on the real primary reasons for going in, (b) the lies don't have an enormous cost, and (c) if (a) isn't true, we vote the jackasses out of office.
I'm pre-annoyed at the people who are going to say "people don't even care, waa waa etc."
I am with you there, brother. If you were not all but immune to pretty much any Bush rationalization, you voted for Kerry last November. Complaining that people don't care if lies were instrumental is like complaining that the tooth fairy doesn't exist. It would really be cool if we lived in a world in which a magical being exchanged cash for things that decayed out of our mouths, but we don't. Get over it.
a pretty sizable group of people isn't bothered by lying in the case for war, because they see it as the necessary response to intransigence on the part of the war's opponents
Is there any evidence of this? (I'm really asking.)
True, plenty of people on the right believe that torture was/is justified by post-9/11 exigencies. But I'm not aware of evidence that these anyone thinks that (what they would concede was) lying about WMDs is justified on this basis, or on any other.
My attitude toward the issue is also informed by the many conversations I've had along the following lines:
"Aren't you outraged by the administration's lying about WMDs?"
Me: "Lying involves positively believing that what you're asserting is false. How much of that was there?"
"Well, their beliefs were informed by neocon ideology -- which is a pernicious fantasy."
Me: "So the issue isn't whether they lied, but the falsity and perniciousness of their ideology. I'm happy to talk about that if you want."
"No, their ideology is so wrong and so pernicious and their motives so despicable that they're simply capable of anything and I wouldn't be at all surprised if they didn't believe half of what they say. These people are monsters."
Me: "Mm-kay..."
(Sorry if that reads like a caricature but I've been party to lots of exchanges that went just like that.)
So the question isn't whether the administration's supporters are brain-washed by neocon ideology (etc.). It's whether they (a) concede that the administration asserted a bunch of things that they, the administration, believed false, but (b) hold that the assertions are instrumentally justified by post-9/11 exigencies.
Did I simply miss all the wingnuts arguing along those lines? I'm willing to stand corrected. I don't read blogs as much as I used to. Such arguments were not in evidence in 2003, when the lying-about-WMDs debate unfolded. Back then, the 'wingnut' position was that this was not lying, not that it was justified lying. (My own position was/is that it was very culpable ignorance, which is not at all the same as lying -- though there was some lying later.)
I should have refreshed before posting, since Tim's comment appears to provide the evidence I requested. But really, Tim, do you mean lies when you write 'lies'? You're "okay with" our discovering that the administration positively believed that their WMD assertions were false?
My own position was/is that it was very culpable ignorance, which is not at all the same as lying
The statements made about WMD by the administration before the war claimed certain, or at least well-supported, knowledge. In my view, this is equivalent to making two statements: (A) Iraq has WMD and (B) Statement (A) is not a mere guess or an intuition, but is based on solid evidence. I can see how you could say that statement (A) was not a lie, but was made with culpable ignorance, but doesn't statement (B) have to have been made with actual knowledge of its falsity, making it a real lie?
This seems both obvious and irrefutable to me (although I'm open to correction). Given that, I have a hard time not believing that anyone who supports the administration's actions in the lead-in to war accepts that they lied, some, but doesn't care about it.
LB. It actually is neither obvious nor irrefutable. Historians can't agree about the facts of some events long past. Newspaper reporters get it wrong from the safety of their own desks, even when they are reporting about public events. Trying to figure out what your enemy located on the other side of the world is doing, and intends to to, when he is trying to hide it is exceptionally hard.
Idealist, doesn't everything you just said support the claim that "They weren't as sure as they sounded." That's not the same as they, "They lied about how sure they were," but it gets you damn close.
List the items of solid evidence that justified the administration's belief, if it had such a belief, that Iraq had WMDs. Citations to speeches from American politicians are not relevant in this context -- I'm looking for the primary support for the administration's beliefs.
LB. As I understand the assignment, I can't list the things said in public by politicians who had access to intelligence, I have to list the information upon which that intelligence and those statements were based, much of which is, of course, classified. Sorry, my Top Secret clearance lapsed when I retired. They do not tell me that stuff any more. Nor will they tell you.
But I am just being cranky. Of course, it appears that the Administration was wrong in its claims that Irag had or was developing weapons of mass destruction. Mistake. Mistakes are bad. They should not happen.
And when the war is based on a mistake, and there is no exceptional other basis for that war, then the bums should be voted out of office. If they aren't, it's on the people who voted them in.
Sorry, looks like this is going to degenerate into the same kind of thread as the last one to which I contributed...
But really, I am not lying if I assert "It is widely known that p" in a context in which it is not widely known that p -- as long as I don't believe that it is not widely known that p. The administration did not believe that it was merely guessing or 'intuiting.'
Here's the main thing I don't get. Being culpably ignorant on a matter of war and peace like this strikes me as much worse than lying about it. I'm sure most who read my first comment formed the impression that I'm a supporter of the administration, whereas in fact I think they're much worse than they would have been if all they'd done was lie. Though lying would be a special evil, the evil involved in what the administration has actually done is much worse.
Why, then, when there's a powerful case to be made against the administration on the basis of their totally irresponsible incompetence and profound moral laziness, do would-be liberals choose to focus instead on the dubious charge of lying?
At the time Bush made the decision to invade, the best evidance was the Iraq had WMDs. The problem was Bush made his decision in late 2001/early 2002. Bush is decisive. After he makes his mind up, he hates to back down. He sees it as a sign of weakness.
The CIA was directed to find evidance of WMDs; Counterevidance was frowned upon or ignored. By the time inspectors were back in Iraq, troops were on the border and even the press was salivating for war.
I don't think I'm disagreeing with you, particularly.
when there's a powerful case to be made against the administration on the basis of their totally irresponsible incompetence and profound moral laziness, do would-be liberals choose to focus instead on the dubious charge of lying
Because we're soft morons who live lives that are largely hardened against the policies of the Apostasy, and thus have the luxury of worrying about being unambiguosly, "Right. Morally Right!," without having to worry about actually winning.
I view "We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud" to count as a lie if the speaker does not believe that there is a distinct possibility that Iraq might develop a nuclear weapon. (What else was it supposed to mean?)
There is not the slightest possibility that, anywhere in the classified elements, there was anything that would have given Rice reason to believe that Iraq was anywhere close to a nuclear weapon. Had there been, the Administration would have found some way to reveal it, instead of peddling that nonsense about centrifuge tubes.
I think, BTW, it would be better if Ogged had said "the people who still support the war" or "the people who supported the war and aren't really pissed off about the way the war was sold"--of course there are plenty of people like Ted (and, sorry, Andrew Sullivan) who supported the war and aren't happy about this sort of thing. I think Ogged's claim is that anyone who isn't already convinced the Administration did something bad will never be convinced, or won't be convinced by this.
Come on, Matt. There's lots and lots to criticize in Rice's speech act, but calling it a lie is just weak. There was good reason to believe that Saddam was seeking a nuke. And anyway the issue isn't whether there was good reason but whether Rice really believed that "there was a distinct possibility that Iraq might develop a nuclear weapon" (as you put it). Lots of people believed that, and there's no reason to believe was Rice was not among them.
Why make a fetish of discrediting their sincerity when there's so much else wrong with the administration's whole attitude? Their relentless sincerity is part of the problem!
I think Ogged's claim is that anyone who isn't already convinced the Administration did something bad will never be convinced, or won't be convinced by this.
If that's ogged's claim, then of course I agree with second disjunct. But the first disjunct is too strong, given that there is a better argument on the different basis that I've been emphasizing.
And I don't at all mind the comparison with (post-2003) Sullivan.
I think Ogged's claim is that anyone who isn't already convinced the Administration did something bad will never be convinced, or won't be convinced by this.
Split the difference: will never be convinced by this kind of thing, viz. evidence that the administration was less than honest.
Ted, I really believe that they are lying quite a lot of the time. There may be a way in which they are sincere, but it doesn't have to do with telling the truth.
I think it's important to discredit their sincerity because we really need to know that there isn't any reason to take anything they say with the slightest amount of good faith. This is important when thinking about, say, Social Security--what people in the Administration say will have been reverse-engineered from what they want to do, rather than having any relation to the facts.
And a big reason lots of people believed that was that the Administration kept saying it. Like, saying that the tubes could only be part of a nuclear program, when many people said that they could and most likely did have other uses. Rice: tubes "are only really suited for nuclear weapons programs, centrifuge programs." She has to have known that there were other possible uses for the tubes--that experts in State and Energy said so. The only alternative is that the dissenting views were suppressed before they got to Rice, but I have a hard time believing that.
Perhaps saying "The Administration is psychopathically resistant to counterevidence, and orders that it be suppressed" is worse than saying "The Administration frequently lies," though I also think it's harder to get across. But it seems to me that both are true.
Unfortunately, I'm not sure that your new argument--that's the resistance to counter-evidence one, isn't it?--will convince anyone either. We should have plenty of evidence about total irresponsible incompetence, too.
Aargh, should go fill out pink slips. (Everyone else: It's not what it sounds like.)
What Matt said, with an added note that at many points over the last three years, I have believed that Bush himself didn't know he was telling untruths, either because he had been fed false information or because he's a fantasist. The deliberate falsehoods come from lower down.
what people in the Administration say will have been reverse-engineered from what they want to do
Translation: the administration is driven by ideology and as a result governs in a fantasy world.
That's exactly the kind of criticism that I'm endorsing and recommending that others make as loudly as they can. But an administration that lies is specifically not living in a fantasy -- the fact that it lies shows that it knows what's so in reality. So if you couch your criticisms in terms of lying you change the subject away from this excellent case against the administration and into a space where they and their supporters can more easily rebut it.
Was Rice lying in Matt's new example? It's certainly possible. But it's also possible that she didn't let the counter-evidence penetrate. Given that it really does convince people (e.g. Republican economists, paleo-con IR-theorists, and many others non-identical with Andrew Sullivan) to abandon the Bush administration if you emphasize these ideological fantasies, that seems the better interpretation to argue from.
Now get those pinkslips filled out, Matt. No time to get frilly -- we need them in an hour!
I'm completely with Weiner on this one. What I see as the problem with the "They could just have been insanely mistaken" tack is that: (a) it's too easily answered with "how dare you call us stupid, you elitist snob." The level of stupidity and incompetence necessary to explain the run-up to war as an honest mistake is so great, that it really does look intellectually snobbish to believe that anyone could be that dumb, or that crazy. (b) It's just unlikely. There are bright, competent people in the Bush administration -- I find it much easier to believe that they settled on a policy of deliberate deception than that they could all be as stupid and incompetent as the 'honest mistake' explanation requires them to be.
Why is it so hard to accept that sometimes "bright, competent" people get things wrong when what they are doing is very hard to get right. Indeed, what the Administration did here does not seem to be worse than the sainted Roosevelt administration's failure to predict and defend against the attack on Pearl Harbor. Am I to assume that that was all a plot by FDR to get us more fully drawn into the war (there certainly are those who believe just that)?
For the record, my view is certainly not that what the administration did was an "honest mistake." It is not intellectually or morally honest to willfully ignore counter-evidence and counter-arguments.
Part of the problem here is that "it was an honest mistake" and "it was a pack of lies" are being set up as the only alternatives.
There's an important sense in which culpable ignorance is dishonest, even if it (importantly) is not the same as lying.
My sense is that many people subscribe to your willful ignorance theory. And I agree absolutely that willful ignorance can be just as culpable as lying, sometimes worse, I suppose. That I and other do not agree with the willful ignorance theory does not mean that we are unaware that it is an option.
I.: I can see the Roosevelt analogy for 9/11 (but arguably the Administration did a worse job--not on purpose!--with this evidence than Roosevelt did with his).
But as for culpable ignoring of the evidence, here's a quote from the page I linked before:
ISIS has learned that U.S. nuclear experts who dissent from the Administration's position are expected to remain silent. The President has said what he has said, end of story, one knowledgeable expert said.
If that's not culpable ignoring of evidence, I don't know what is.
This is the part I take issue with: "bright, competent" people get things wrong when what they are doing is very hard to get right.
Precisely what evidence is there that these are competent people, except for their success in gaining their present positions? Why, instead, isn't it more fitting to consider them either liars (see 5/27/04) or incompetents, and decide that either case, they should be out and we shouldn't do any deals not necessary in the interim. Most of the people I know are not against the Administration solely because of their actions in Iraq; that is just the problems of this crew writ large. But I really don't see where this notion of competence comes from.
I agree but only to a point. You're right that enough is out there that parties capable of objective analysis would have foresaken Bush Inc. stock many months or years ago. However, most political analysis occurs in the reptile brain. And it appears to me that each additional revelation of the Shrub Dynasty's cynicism, and exploitational opportunism forces the average rube into a less and less tenable choice to explicitly condone what the rational in him would normally see as hypocracy. With approval now at 41%, I think it would be foolish to abandon the litany just yet.
Posted by notsure | Link to this comment | 05-19-05 9:25 PM
Yeah, I have this vague hope that "Bush got us into this misguided war through completely dishonest means" will gradually become the conventional wisdom even among the people who support him. After than, we can hope that it will just continue to wear away at his support.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 05-19-05 9:35 PM
Yes, that's a fine thing to want. I guess 1) I wish to have no hope and 2) I'm pre-annoyed at the people who are going to say "people don't even care, waa waa etc."
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 05-19-05 9:44 PM
[redacted]
Posted by [redacted] | Link to this comment | 05-19-05 9:49 PM
The people who supported the war figure that if Bush had to lie to get the people who didn't support on board, oh well
How'd you guess? You must be a retrospective mind-reader! Actually, "oh well" is my standard response to lying. I've also become a big fan of torture....
[/sarcasm]
Isn't it a useful piece of evidence that quite a few former war supporters began to think the war a very bad idea when they saw how incompetently and immorally the Bush administration was handling it, whereas the pre-war rhetoric has seemed pressing only to those who were anti-war anyway? If your concern is about future interventions, it's easy to show that this administration, at least, should never again be trusted with those responsibilities. And without accusing your opponents of being completely corrupt.
Yes, it turns out you can argue with your opponents about what most matters without presupposing that they just don't care about lying. Mightn't that be a bit more effective?
(Just trying to play my long-standing role on this blog. The comment is obviously directed not at ogged's explicit argument but at some stated and unstated presuppositions.)
Posted by Ted H. | Link to this comment | 05-20-05 8:36 AM
Ted, the whole post is a bit slapdash, and isn't really meant to argue with my opponents, but to serve as a caution to friends. That said, I do think that a pretty sizable group of people isn't bothered by lying in the case for war, because they see it as the necessary response to intransigence on the part of the war's opponents.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 05-20-05 9:46 AM
That said, I do think that a pretty sizable group of people isn't bothered by lying in the case for war
I know the Galt falls into that category, but I'm not sure how many pro-war Democrats do. Moreover, I'm OK with this argument, as long as (a) the war proves to be A Very Good Thing nonetheless, based on the real primary reasons for going in, (b) the lies don't have an enormous cost, and (c) if (a) isn't true, we vote the jackasses out of office.
I'm pre-annoyed at the people who are going to say "people don't even care, waa waa etc."
I am with you there, brother. If you were not all but immune to pretty much any Bush rationalization, you voted for Kerry last November. Complaining that people don't care if lies were instrumental is like complaining that the tooth fairy doesn't exist. It would really be cool if we lived in a world in which a magical being exchanged cash for things that decayed out of our mouths, but we don't. Get over it.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 05-20-05 10:05 AM
a pretty sizable group of people isn't bothered by lying in the case for war, because they see it as the necessary response to intransigence on the part of the war's opponents
Is there any evidence of this? (I'm really asking.)
True, plenty of people on the right believe that torture was/is justified by post-9/11 exigencies. But I'm not aware of evidence that these anyone thinks that (what they would concede was) lying about WMDs is justified on this basis, or on any other.
My attitude toward the issue is also informed by the many conversations I've had along the following lines:
"Aren't you outraged by the administration's lying about WMDs?"
Me: "Lying involves positively believing that what you're asserting is false. How much of that was there?"
"Well, their beliefs were informed by neocon ideology -- which is a pernicious fantasy."
Me: "So the issue isn't whether they lied, but the falsity and perniciousness of their ideology. I'm happy to talk about that if you want."
"No, their ideology is so wrong and so pernicious and their motives so despicable that they're simply capable of anything and I wouldn't be at all surprised if they didn't believe half of what they say. These people are monsters."
Me: "Mm-kay..."
(Sorry if that reads like a caricature but I've been party to lots of exchanges that went just like that.)
So the question isn't whether the administration's supporters are brain-washed by neocon ideology (etc.). It's whether they (a) concede that the administration asserted a bunch of things that they, the administration, believed false, but (b) hold that the assertions are instrumentally justified by post-9/11 exigencies.
Did I simply miss all the wingnuts arguing along those lines? I'm willing to stand corrected. I don't read blogs as much as I used to. Such arguments were not in evidence in 2003, when the lying-about-WMDs debate unfolded. Back then, the 'wingnut' position was that this was not lying, not that it was justified lying. (My own position was/is that it was very culpable ignorance, which is not at all the same as lying -- though there was some lying later.)
Posted by Ted H. | Link to this comment | 05-20-05 10:34 AM
I should have refreshed before posting, since Tim's comment appears to provide the evidence I requested. But really, Tim, do you mean lies when you write 'lies'? You're "okay with" our discovering that the administration positively believed that their WMD assertions were false?
Posted by Ted H. | Link to this comment | 05-20-05 10:39 AM
My own position was/is that it was very culpable ignorance, which is not at all the same as lying
The statements made about WMD by the administration before the war claimed certain, or at least well-supported, knowledge. In my view, this is equivalent to making two statements: (A) Iraq has WMD and (B) Statement (A) is not a mere guess or an intuition, but is based on solid evidence. I can see how you could say that statement (A) was not a lie, but was made with culpable ignorance, but doesn't statement (B) have to have been made with actual knowledge of its falsity, making it a real lie?
This seems both obvious and irrefutable to me (although I'm open to correction). Given that, I have a hard time not believing that anyone who supports the administration's actions in the lead-in to war accepts that they lied, some, but doesn't care about it.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 05-20-05 10:43 AM
LB. It actually is neither obvious nor irrefutable. Historians can't agree about the facts of some events long past. Newspaper reporters get it wrong from the safety of their own desks, even when they are reporting about public events. Trying to figure out what your enemy located on the other side of the world is doing, and intends to to, when he is trying to hide it is exceptionally hard.
Posted by The Idealist | Link to this comment | 05-20-05 10:49 AM
Idealist, doesn't everything you just said support the claim that "They weren't as sure as they sounded." That's not the same as they, "They lied about how sure they were," but it gets you damn close.
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 05-20-05 10:51 AM
I know this sounds a touch melodramatic, but in war you never know for sure until it is too late.
Posted by The Idealist | Link to this comment | 05-20-05 10:53 AM
List the items of solid evidence that justified the administration's belief, if it had such a belief, that Iraq had WMDs. Citations to speeches from American politicians are not relevant in this context -- I'm looking for the primary support for the administration's beliefs.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 05-20-05 10:54 AM
LB. As I understand the assignment, I can't list the things said in public by politicians who had access to intelligence, I have to list the information upon which that intelligence and those statements were based, much of which is, of course, classified. Sorry, my Top Secret clearance lapsed when I retired. They do not tell me that stuff any more. Nor will they tell you.
But I am just being cranky. Of course, it appears that the Administration was wrong in its claims that Irag had or was developing weapons of mass destruction. Mistake. Mistakes are bad. They should not happen.
Posted by The Idealist | Link to this comment | 05-20-05 11:05 AM
And when the war is based on a mistake, and there is no exceptional other basis for that war, then the bums should be voted out of office. If they aren't, it's on the people who voted them in.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 05-20-05 11:08 AM
Sorry, looks like this is going to degenerate into the same kind of thread as the last one to which I contributed...
But really, I am not lying if I assert "It is widely known that p" in a context in which it is not widely known that p -- as long as I don't believe that it is not widely known that p. The administration did not believe that it was merely guessing or 'intuiting.'
Here's the main thing I don't get. Being culpably ignorant on a matter of war and peace like this strikes me as much worse than lying about it. I'm sure most who read my first comment formed the impression that I'm a supporter of the administration, whereas in fact I think they're much worse than they would have been if all they'd done was lie. Though lying would be a special evil, the evil involved in what the administration has actually done is much worse.
Why, then, when there's a powerful case to be made against the administration on the basis of their totally irresponsible incompetence and profound moral laziness, do would-be liberals choose to focus instead on the dubious charge of lying?
Posted by Ted H. | Link to this comment | 05-20-05 11:17 AM
At the time Bush made the decision to invade, the best evidance was the Iraq had WMDs. The problem was Bush made his decision in late 2001/early 2002. Bush is decisive. After he makes his mind up, he hates to back down. He sees it as a sign of weakness.
The CIA was directed to find evidance of WMDs; Counterevidance was frowned upon or ignored. By the time inspectors were back in Iraq, troops were on the border and even the press was salivating for war.
Posted by joe o | Link to this comment | 05-20-05 11:19 AM
Ted:
I don't think I'm disagreeing with you, particularly.
when there's a powerful case to be made against the administration on the basis of their totally irresponsible incompetence and profound moral laziness, do would-be liberals choose to focus instead on the dubious charge of lying
Because we're soft morons who live lives that are largely hardened against the policies of the Apostasy, and thus have the luxury of worrying about being unambiguosly, "Right. Morally Right!," without having to worry about actually winning.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 05-20-05 11:24 AM
I view "We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud" to count as a lie if the speaker does not believe that there is a distinct possibility that Iraq might develop a nuclear weapon. (What else was it supposed to mean?)
There is not the slightest possibility that, anywhere in the classified elements, there was anything that would have given Rice reason to believe that Iraq was anywhere close to a nuclear weapon. Had there been, the Administration would have found some way to reveal it, instead of peddling that nonsense about centrifuge tubes.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 05-20-05 11:24 AM
I think, BTW, it would be better if Ogged had said "the people who still support the war" or "the people who supported the war and aren't really pissed off about the way the war was sold"--of course there are plenty of people like Ted (and, sorry, Andrew Sullivan) who supported the war and aren't happy about this sort of thing. I think Ogged's claim is that anyone who isn't already convinced the Administration did something bad will never be convinced, or won't be convinced by this.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 05-20-05 11:40 AM
Come on, Matt. There's lots and lots to criticize in Rice's speech act, but calling it a lie is just weak. There was good reason to believe that Saddam was seeking a nuke. And anyway the issue isn't whether there was good reason but whether Rice really believed that "there was a distinct possibility that Iraq might develop a nuclear weapon" (as you put it). Lots of people believed that, and there's no reason to believe was Rice was not among them.
Why make a fetish of discrediting their sincerity when there's so much else wrong with the administration's whole attitude? Their relentless sincerity is part of the problem!
Posted by Ted H. | Link to this comment | 05-20-05 11:43 AM
I think Ogged's claim is that anyone who isn't already convinced the Administration did something bad will never be convinced, or won't be convinced by this.
If that's ogged's claim, then of course I agree with second disjunct. But the first disjunct is too strong, given that there is a better argument on the different basis that I've been emphasizing.
And I don't at all mind the comparison with (post-2003) Sullivan.
Posted by Ted H. | Link to this comment | 05-20-05 11:48 AM
I think Ogged's claim is that anyone who isn't already convinced the Administration did something bad will never be convinced, or won't be convinced by this.
Split the difference: will never be convinced by this kind of thing, viz. evidence that the administration was less than honest.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 05-20-05 11:56 AM
Ted, I really believe that they are lying quite a lot of the time. There may be a way in which they are sincere, but it doesn't have to do with telling the truth.
I think it's important to discredit their sincerity because we really need to know that there isn't any reason to take anything they say with the slightest amount of good faith. This is important when thinking about, say, Social Security--what people in the Administration say will have been reverse-engineered from what they want to do, rather than having any relation to the facts.
And a big reason lots of people believed that was that the Administration kept saying it. Like, saying that the tubes could only be part of a nuclear program, when many people said that they could and most likely did have other uses. Rice: tubes "are only really suited for nuclear weapons programs, centrifuge programs." She has to have known that there were other possible uses for the tubes--that experts in State and Energy said so. The only alternative is that the dissenting views were suppressed before they got to Rice, but I have a hard time believing that.
Perhaps saying "The Administration is psychopathically resistant to counterevidence, and orders that it be suppressed" is worse than saying "The Administration frequently lies," though I also think it's harder to get across. But it seems to me that both are true.
Unfortunately, I'm not sure that your new argument--that's the resistance to counter-evidence one, isn't it?--will convince anyone either. We should have plenty of evidence about total irresponsible incompetence, too.
Aargh, should go fill out pink slips. (Everyone else: It's not what it sounds like.)
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 05-20-05 11:59 AM
What Matt said, with an added note that at many points over the last three years, I have believed that Bush himself didn't know he was telling untruths, either because he had been fed false information or because he's a fantasist. The deliberate falsehoods come from lower down.
Posted by Chopper | Link to this comment | 05-20-05 12:13 PM
what people in the Administration say will have been reverse-engineered from what they want to do
Translation: the administration is driven by ideology and as a result governs in a fantasy world.
That's exactly the kind of criticism that I'm endorsing and recommending that others make as loudly as they can. But an administration that lies is specifically not living in a fantasy -- the fact that it lies shows that it knows what's so in reality. So if you couch your criticisms in terms of lying you change the subject away from this excellent case against the administration and into a space where they and their supporters can more easily rebut it.
Was Rice lying in Matt's new example? It's certainly possible. But it's also possible that she didn't let the counter-evidence penetrate. Given that it really does convince people (e.g. Republican economists, paleo-con IR-theorists, and many others non-identical with Andrew Sullivan) to abandon the Bush administration if you emphasize these ideological fantasies, that seems the better interpretation to argue from.
Now get those pinkslips filled out, Matt. No time to get frilly -- we need them in an hour!
Posted by Ted H. | Link to this comment | 05-20-05 12:24 PM
I'm completely with Weiner on this one. What I see as the problem with the "They could just have been insanely mistaken" tack is that: (a) it's too easily answered with "how dare you call us stupid, you elitist snob." The level of stupidity and incompetence necessary to explain the run-up to war as an honest mistake is so great, that it really does look intellectually snobbish to believe that anyone could be that dumb, or that crazy. (b) It's just unlikely. There are bright, competent people in the Bush administration -- I find it much easier to believe that they settled on a policy of deliberate deception than that they could all be as stupid and incompetent as the 'honest mistake' explanation requires them to be.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 05-20-05 12:43 PM
Why is it so hard to accept that sometimes "bright, competent" people get things wrong when what they are doing is very hard to get right. Indeed, what the Administration did here does not seem to be worse than the sainted Roosevelt administration's failure to predict and defend against the attack on Pearl Harbor. Am I to assume that that was all a plot by FDR to get us more fully drawn into the war (there certainly are those who believe just that)?
Posted by The Idealist | Link to this comment | 05-20-05 12:57 PM
For the record, my view is certainly not that what the administration did was an "honest mistake." It is not intellectually or morally honest to willfully ignore counter-evidence and counter-arguments.
Part of the problem here is that "it was an honest mistake" and "it was a pack of lies" are being set up as the only alternatives.
There's an important sense in which culpable ignorance is dishonest, even if it (importantly) is not the same as lying.
Posted by Ted H. | Link to this comment | 05-20-05 1:08 PM
My sense is that many people subscribe to your willful ignorance theory. And I agree absolutely that willful ignorance can be just as culpable as lying, sometimes worse, I suppose. That I and other do not agree with the willful ignorance theory does not mean that we are unaware that it is an option.
Posted by The Idealist | Link to this comment | 05-20-05 1:12 PM
I.: I can see the Roosevelt analogy for 9/11 (but arguably the Administration did a worse job--not on purpose!--with this evidence than Roosevelt did with his).
But as for culpable ignoring of the evidence, here's a quote from the page I linked before:
If that's not culpable ignoring of evidence, I don't know what is.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 05-20-05 1:20 PM
This is the part I take issue with: "bright, competent" people get things wrong when what they are doing is very hard to get right.
Precisely what evidence is there that these are competent people, except for their success in gaining their present positions? Why, instead, isn't it more fitting to consider them either liars (see 5/27/04) or incompetents, and decide that either case, they should be out and we shouldn't do any deals not necessary in the interim. Most of the people I know are not against the Administration solely because of their actions in Iraq; that is just the problems of this crew writ large. But I really don't see where this notion of competence comes from.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 05-20-05 1:24 PM