Editorial: Yet more deceptions from Bush

Friday, Oct. 15, 2004 | 9:16 a.m.

President Bush has been experiencing a credibility gap for his refusal to acknowledge the worsening conditions in Iraq and his unwillingness to concede that he failed to provide enough troops to secure the peace in that country. During Wednesday's debate with John Kerry, Bush once again demonstrated that he won't level with the American people. A telling example of this continued deception was an exchange during the debate between Bush and Kerry about Osama bin Laden.

Kerry mentioned that six months after Bush had said bin Laden must be caught dead or alive, Bush was asked where the terrorist leader was. Bush, Kerry noted, told reporters that he didn't know where bin Laden was hiding, that he really didn't think about him very much, and that he wasn't concerned. But Bush claimed Wednesday that he never said this about bin Laden, that it was yet another campaign exaggeration by Kerry. But the fact is that in March 2002, Bush said the following about bin Laden: "I truly am not that concerned about him. I know he is on the run." He then went on to add, "I just don't spend that much time on him." It's this kind of deception, coupled with a refusal to acknowledge reality in a number of areas -- whether it's a health care system that is broken or a war in Iraq that is a quagmire -- that has become a trademark of the Bush Whit e House.

The president also has resorted to name-calling, saying during the debate that Kerry wasn't in the "mainstream" of American politics. It's an attempt to cloud Bush's own sorry record. At a campaign stop in Las Vegas on Thursday, he followed up by calling Kerry a "liberal." Well, if Kerry is a liberal we'd hate to think what that would make Bush. Bush inherited a federal surplus that was projected to be $4.6 trillion over the next 10 years, but now we're going in the other direction: Over the next 10 years it's estimated that there will be a deficit of $2.3 trillion. And while Bush has tried to portray Kerry as a big spender, saying that the Democrat has promised $2 trillion of new government spending if he's elected, the president's own agenda laid out at the Republican National Convention carries a $3 trillion price tag over the next decade. Kerry, who vi sited Las Vegas himself on Thursday, has noted before that he would return our federal government to a pay-as-you-go system! , which would protect future generations from bearing the burden of paying off these debts.

The three presidential debates weren't kind to Bush. They exposed just how shallow his grasp is of the issues and just how far he is willing to go to deceive the American people to try to secure his re-election. Fortunately, not only has Kerry been up to the task in peeling back the covering hiding these falsehoods, but he has also laid out a vision and policies that are sensible and acknowledge the real world that we live in.