Feeling My Oats

I love it when people say what I am thinking in a manner far better than I could say it. Case in point: this blog entry at New Donkey.

I’ll try to quote it selectively, but it’s so good, and so complete, and so in line with how I feel that quoting selectively may be tough. But here goes:

I will cheerfully admit that my own partisan fever exceeded its prior career high in late 2003, and kept going up right through election day. And for the first time in my life, I had a hard time understanding how friends and family members--people with whom I thought I shared a lot--could bring themselves to vote for the other guy. To put it bluntly, I didn't see any honest case for giving Bush a second term, and was angered by the dishonest case … advanced by his campaign.

Moreover, I came to believe strongly that the real agenda of the people closest to Bush--including his political advisors and much of the Republican congressional leadership--was not only dishonest, but deeply cynical and irresponsible: a drive to simultaneously wreck the federal government and to perpetuate their control over the wreckage as long as possible through the exercise of the rawest sort of institutional power and corruption. And moreover, this belief made me angry at even those Republicans who did not share that agenda, because they were helping to promote it against their own best instincts.

…

I think today's Republican Party, and its leader, are built on a foundation of fundamental dishonesty about who they are, what they want, and where they are taking the country. As a Christian, I will endeavor not to hate them for that. As an American, I will endeavor to respect those who voted for Bush, because after all, they have as much right to the franchise as I do. But until they demonstrate the ability to walk, or perhaps I should say swagger, in a straight line, I will continue to hold the president, his advisors, and his allies in Congress in minimum high regard. That did not change on November 3.

Good stuff, if you ask me. Is there a major program or policy this administration has advanced that hasn’t had a fundamental dishonesty at either the core of the policy or the core of how they have promoted the policy? Anything? I know, politicians lie. But politicians also tell the truth if they can, cause the truth is a much better seller. This group lies even when they don’t have to. This group lies about things that the American public would probably give them a pass on. And a culture of lying has been created that permeates all aspects of this Administration. Is it any wonder the only truth-telling that has come from members of this Administration comes after they leave? Clarke, O’Neill, Whitman, and, if his farewell speech is any indication, perhaps Tommy Thompson?

The reason I bring this up now is the discussions we are seeing about privatizing Social Security. Again, there is a fundamental dishonesty about the way the Administration is approaching the issue, from lying about the program being in crisis (every independent analysis shows that Social Security has enough to pay full benefits for at least another forty years) to lying about the benefits of the solution (the stock market has never had a 20-year period where it lost money – how about that? Course, people won’t be investing money for twenty years – they’ll be investing for thirty, or forty, or fifty, or maybe ten, and they won’t be investing in the entire stock market, just a portion of it, and that can be a little dicier) to lying about the nature of the program (Social Security is not a program to allow people to get rich for retirement – it’s about providing a safety net, about ensuring a minimum level of subsidence for the elderly and disabled). They can’t tell the truth. And you know what? Until they can, there is no reason to believe anything they say.