Busted

Have you ever been caught in a lie? There are a few strategies people typically employ to extricate themselves , the obfuscation and the qualified admission being the most popular. Obfuscation as in “I know I said I was going to Bobs’ house but after we got there we decided to go to Bills house” or the word parsing obfuscation as in “Well we were ‘going’ to Bobs house but we turned off in a different direction”. The qualified admission is also effective in deflecting punishment as in “Im guilty of not ending up at Bob’s but blah blah”

Both these strategies were attempted by our President in his “back at you” speech but the problem with this approach, as all of us at one time or another have discovered, is that you must continue a course of deceit to cover for the initial deceit ,in fact digging your hole ever deeper, and further antagonizing those who simply want you to come clean. Calling dissenters unpatriotic and claiming they aid and abet the enemy throws more fuel on the fire and claiming your critics are attempting” to re-write history” only invites a more thorough examination of your clearly documented statements, hurting rather than helping your chance for extrication. Notice how Bush goes back repeatedly to the words “lie” and “manipulation”, two words open to very broad interpretation, reminding me of Clintons’ famous “it depends on what the definition of is is”. Notice also how bringing up the complicity of Democrats is presented as a defense as in “they did it to”.Didn’t work in Junior High and certainly won’t work now. Even Reagan admitted he misspoke but except for the true believers, Bush continues to alienate himself.