Caveat lector

THE EMPEROR’S NEW TAX CUT! The truth about Bush is abundantly clear. Somehow, the press doesn’t notice:

THURSDAY, MAY 29, 2003

THE EMPEROR’S NEW TAX CUT: In Campaign 2000, Candidate Bush swore that $1.3 trillion (over ten years) was all the tax cut we could afford. More than that, the deeply religious man said, and we’d be spending Social Security money—something he swore he wouldn’t do. But that was then, and this is empire. Bush pushed through a $1.3 trillion tax cut, then sought $726 billion more. Meanwhile, Christ-like majority leader Bill Frist explains that more tax cuts will roll down the pipeline.

What ever happened to Candidate Bush’s solemn pledge? Mainstream scribes are too frightened to ask. Weird, ain’t it? Your Washington press corps has pretended for years that it simply hates all politico flip-flops. Not only that—during Campaign 2000, they pretended to hate lying so much that they simply made up a bunch of lies and pretended that Al Gore had said them! But now, a Culture of Lying surrounds George Bush, and a cowardly press corps is paid not to notice. And, in the midst of Bush’s fakery, the Washington Post editorial board finally says the AMT must be fixed! Here’s the start of yesterday’s lead editorial, headlined “Fix a Real Tax Problem:”

WASHINGTON POST: As the president holds a signing ceremony today for a tax cut that favors the wealthy, a real middle-class tax problem has been put off for another day—even though everyone agrees that it needs to be fixed. The problem is the alternative minimum tax—and before your eyes glaze over, consider this: Pretty soon, it’s apt to cost you money.

The facts about the AMT are fairly well explained in the editorial. But one thing isn’t made fully clear: Everyone has always known that this problem with the AMT was coming. During Campaign 2000, the Gore campaign sent press releases noting an important fact. The size of Bush’s proposed tax cut was fake, Gore and his campaign correctly noted; the AMT would have to be fixed for citizens to get the cuts which were being described, and that would add a great deal more to the price tag of the Bush cuts. Within the establishment, everyone has always known that this problem was built into Bush’s tax cuts. Everyone has known that Bush’s original price tag was a mirage—that passage of his original tax cut would lead to another large adjustment.

But you know the way your “press corps” works. The Washington press corps is paid not to notice the Culture of Lying surrounding George Bush. And Bush knows he can count on their somnolence. Indeed, here’s all the fervor the Post could muster as it called for this expensive new tax cut:

WASHINGTON POST: [T]he administration and lawmakers have opted for the easy way out in the bill Mr. Bush will sign today: a temporary and inadequate fix that simply gets taxpayers through this year and next without subjecting even more taxpayers to the AMT than would have been affected without the tax cuts….The Bush administration says it’s working on a solution. Too bad it didn’t tackle the real problems first—before piling on new tax cuts that only make it harder to do so.

The Post board is strangely unable to see the real shape of their emperor’s new tax cut. The board is strangely unable to see that Culture of Lying around Bush.

TOMORROW: The Blumenthal Wars just rumble on. Beyond that, let’s bend it like Sullivan.

A PAIR OF MEEK LITTLE VOICES: In Tuesday’s New York Times, Paul Krugman “stated the obvious” about the unfolding Bush tax cut proposals. But he had to go across the pond, to the Financial Times, to find a paper willing to follow (see THE DAILY HOWLER, 5/28/03). At the Washington Post, meanwhile, meek little voices pretend not to see the Culture of Lying around George Bush. In yesterday’s Post, David Broder could only note—in a quiet little voice—that voters don’t seem to want all these cuts. Robert Samuelson, meanwhile, played moral equivalence; he pretended that Reps and Dems are equally bad in this mess. But what ever happened to Candidate Bush, and his solemn pledge about Social Security? Broder isn’t going to ask—and his board pretends that it doesn’t know how we got stuck with the AMT problem. Can we finally state the obvious? It was Bush who was lying in Campaign 2000, not the well-flogged Candidate Gore! But your fake, phony “press corps” pretended not to know—and there’s no chance on earth that they’ll tell you now. Result? Your emperor will soon parade about town, and you’ll gaze on his brilliant new tax cuts.

The Daily update

BEND IT LIKE JAYSON (PART 3): Is there anything sadder than watching Mickey Kaus (and all the others) flog the ongoing Jayson Blair “scandal?” Think how much you had to miss to be shocked by the mess at the Times.

First, you had to miss Jeff Gerth’s “reporting” as he gimmicked up the Whitewater hoax. Fools for Scandal explained it—in 1996! So you had to miss FFS too.

Howell Raines’ bad judgment have you down? Then you had to miss the endless, foolish, pro-Starr editorials with which he littered the Times ed page. Tomasky laid it out in The Nation. You had to miss Tomasky too.

You had to miss that same Jeff Gerth when he bungled the paper’s Wen Ho Lee “reporting.” In September 2000, the paper finally admitted their work had been bollixed. The Times “[e]ssentially acknowledg[ed] that they were swept away by the hype” about Lee, Howard Kurtz wrote. To be surprised by the current mess, you had to miss that big mess too. (Of course, Raines wrote wild-eyed, Clinton-trashing editorials about that bungled tale also.)

Finally, you had to miss the way the Times made a joke out of Campaign 2000. You had to miss Frank Bruni’s clowning, as he loved, briefly hated, then loved his man Dub. And you had to miss the clown “Kit” Seelye. In August 2000, the Financial Times—who else would dare?—finally stated the obvious:

FINANCIAL TIMES: At the heart of the [Gore] press corps are three reporters…perhaps the most influential reporters on the Gore campaign, having covered the vice-president almost without break this year: Ceci Connolly of The Washington Post, Katharine Seelye of The New York Times and Sandra Sobieraj of the Associated Press. They can also be the most hostile to the campaign, doing little to hide their contempt for the candidate.

In fact, you’d have to live in a cave—or be a press stooge—to be surprised by the mess at the Times. The Times has been a car wreck for years, but as long as the paper slimed Clinton and Gore, well-bred “journalists” knew not to notice. Now Kaus hangs on every word, pretending he’s shocked by the unfolding story. Are you starting to spy a small secret here? Any chance that he bends it like Jayson?