By Ben Fritz
As he rises in the polls and begins to receive increased attention from the press and his political opponents, Democratic presidential candidate Wesley Clark, a former Army general and novice political candidate, is discovering some of the worst pathologies of our modern political system.
First, as others have noted, his statements have been repeatedly misrepresented. Yesterday, the Drudge Report ran an article based on Clark's October 2002 testimony to the U.S. House Committee on Armed Services under the headline "Wes Clark Made Case For Iraq War Before Congress." Drudge's accusation was similar to one made by Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie during a speech in Little Rock, Arkansas yesterday. Picking up on this attack, fellow Democratic presidential candidate Senator Joe Lieberman (D-CT) criticized Clark on CNBC, stating, "Why doesn't he just admit when he changed his position and ended up against the war? Wes has got to answer the credibility gap now on this most critical of issues to our security and our country." The Wall Street Journal also knocked Clark based on this testimony (link requires subscription), arguing that, "We now know that less than 18 months ago, as Congress weighed whether to authorize war against Saddam Hussein, Mr. Clark all but declared himself part of the 'neocon cabal' as he offered a litany of reasons for action while testifying on Capitol Hill."
Others picking up on this line of attack today included Rush Limbaugh, a misleading article in the Washington Times, and Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC), who told the British newspaper The Guardian that "this whole matter raises some serious questions about Wes Clark's ability to tell the truth.''
Opponents can fairly point to some conflicting and contradictory positions taken by Clark on the war, such as his statement to the New York Times in September that "At the time, I probably would have voted for [the resolution authorizing war against Iraq], but I think that's too simple a question," a position he quickly took back. But these critics and journalists went much further in their misrepresentation of Clark's statements to Congress.
They highlighted parts of Clark's testimony where he indicated his concern about Saddam Hussein and made some of the points President Bush would later use in arguing for war, such as his statement that, "The problem of Iraq is not a problem that can be postponed indefinitely, and of course Saddam's current efforts themselves are violations of international law as expressed in the U.N. resolutions." Drudge used this quote to justify his headline, while Gillespie misleadingly asserted that Clark's "position [on the war] does not seem clear at all" and that "There was no stronger case made [for war] than that expert testimony, the testimony of General Wesley Clark."
However, as several journalists, such as Dana Hull and Drew Brown of Knight Ridder, pointed out, Drudge and Gillespie both omitted crucial portions of Clark's testimony. A complete transcript (Adobe PDF) provided by Joshua Marshall on his Talking Points Memo blog shows that Clark made many statements indicating that his support for a war was at best conditional on a number of factors he can legitimately argue the President did not fulfill. Perhaps most notably, Clark said that a "congressional resolution need not, at this point, authorize the use of force," backing up his assertions that he opposed the resolution authorizing force that was passed by Congress. He then conditioned using force on any number of factors, as this quote indicates: "If the efforts to resolve the problem by using the United Nations fail, either initially or ultimately, then we need to form the broadest possible coalition including our NATO allies and the North Atlantic Council if we're going to have to bring forces to bear."
It's not the first misrepresentation of statements by Clark this week. In a piece on Slate, Chris Suellentrop argued that Clark, like Vermont governor Howard Dean, has a "propensity for speaking imprecisely off the cuff." But some of Suellentrop's summaries of Clark's quotes turn out to be imprecise. For instance, he says that Clark states that "Bush was 'warned' about 9/11." But the only reference to the September 11 attacks in the quotes from Clark that follow is this statement by Clark: "[Bush] was warned that the greatest threat to the United States of America was Osama Bin Laden, yet on the 11th of September in 2001, the United States had no plan for dealing with the threat posed by Osama Bin Laden." Suellentrop also summarizes Clark as stating, "Bush 'never intended' to get Osama Bin Laden." But the quote provided from Clark actually says, "the President never intended to put the resources in to get Osama Bin Laden," a crucial difference. (my emphasis) (In a later article, Suellentrop said he wishes he had been "more precise" in the piece about Clark, although he did not retract the deceptive summaries.)
Clark has also engaged in some over-the-line rhetoric of his own. As National Review editor Rich Lowry pointed out in his syndicated column, Clark has accused President Bush of lacking patriotism. According to Lowry, Clark said at a New Hampshire town hall meeting that, "I don't think it's patriotic to put on a flight suit and prance around on the deck of an aircraft carrier looking for a photo op."
A New York Times transcript shows that quote is a standard part of Clark's stump speech (the Times also quotes him as saying "I don't think it's patriotic not to have done everything you can as president of the United States to protect us from terrorism"). These attacks are inflammatory and unfair. Because of its disputed meaning, it is virtually impossible to prove a lack of patriotism, making such accusations nearly always unacceptable when used in political debate.
As the Democratic race heads into the Iowa caucus next week, voters deserve more respect for rational debate and honesty from one of the leading candidates, his opponents, and the press.
By Ben Fritz
Former Vice President Al Gore and Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie both included misleading statements in public addresses they gave yesterday, omitting crucial context or highlighting unrepresentative examples.
Speaking about the environment to the liberal group MoveOn.org, Gore pushed a misleading attack that has been repeated by several other Democrats, implying that President Bush's "Clear Skies" initiative will increase the amount of air pollution allowed under federal regulations from current levels.
"A policy that vastly increases the amount of pollution that can be dumped into the air is called the 'Clear Skies Initiative,'" Gore said in his speech in New York City.
In fact, as we pointed out when former Vermont Governor Howard Dean made a similar claim, "Clear Skies" would lower the amount of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and mercury emissions allowed from current levels, but would slow the rates of reduction relative to what they would have been under the Clean Air Act. Some may still object to the proposal as increasing pollution relative to current law, but the distinction is an important one that Gore and others should not ignore. (According to transcripts, Dean has continued to repeat this claim on the campaign trail.)
In a Little Rock, Arkansas speech on the same day, Gillespie made two deceptive claims of his own, offering highly parsed attacks on Democrats who propose to repeal Bush's tax cuts.
"Those Democrats seeking to repeal all the President's tax relief," Gillespie said, referring to plans offered by Dean and Rep. Dick Gephardt, D-MO, "would raise taxes on a family of four with an income of $40,000 by almost $2,000 per year-over $160 per month in higher taxes."
As we noted when similar accusations were made by two Senators running against Dean and Gephardt, Joe Lieberman (D-CT) and John Edwards (D-NC), this figure is unrepresentative of the tax cuts received by middle income households under Bush that Gephardt and Dean propose to repeal. It relies on a carefully constructed hypothetical family to exaggerate the benefits of the tax cut to middle income households. An analysis (49K PDF) by the liberal Citizens for Tax Justice has shown that the average tax cut in 2004 for those in the middle 20 percent of the income distribution from President Bush's tax packages is actually $863.
Gillespie also repeated another tax cut deception that has been frequently employed by the Bush administration: claiming that the primary beneficiaries of tax cuts for the top one percent of the income distribution are small business owners. "Those who seek to raise taxes on the top 1 percent of income tax payers that Democrats seem to despise so much would end up hammering the small business owners who always pave the way for new job creation in our economy," he stated. "That's because two-thirds of the top 1 percent of personal income tax payers are small business owners who file as individuals because they are not corporate entities."
When Gillespie offered a similar attack last month, however, we showed that many of those Gillespie calls "small business owners" are in fact passive investors who receive just a portion of their income from investments in small businesses. And according to an analysis by the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, only two percent of small businesses would be helped by a repeal of the tax cut for the top one percent of earners.
Deceptive claims like these threaten to become accepted truth if they are repeated over and over without consequence. Gore, Gillespie and others like them need to be held accountable.
Related links:
-The arsenic meme (Brendan Nyhan, 1/11/04)
-Spinsanity on the environment
-Spinsanity on taxes and the budget
By Ben Fritz
On a number of issues, partisans from both sides have been engaging in cheap attacks recently, using irrational associations to connect their opponents with hated groups and people. The list of offenders includes New York Times columnist David Brooks, two ads submitted to a MoveOn.org contest, The Nation columnist Alexander Cockburn and Fox News Channel host Bill O'Reilly. (Read the whole column.)
By Bryan Keefer
In recent weeks, former Vermont governor Howard Dean's proposal to repeal the tax cuts passed in 2001 and 2003 has come under fire from other contenders for the Democratic presidential nomination as well as conservative pundits. Regrettably, some of these critics - including two of Dean's Democratic rivals - have used slanted statistics and outright misstatements that echo tactics employed by President Bush during his campaigns to pass the cuts. (Read the whole column.)
While campaigning for the Democratic presidential nomination, former Vermont governor Howard Dean frequently condemns Republicans and conservative pundits for allegedly attacking the patriotism of their political opponents. But Dean has descended into the same ugly gutter in a newly released article.
As Franklin Foer noted on The New Republic's TNR Primary blog, Dean is quoted in the current issue of the New Yorker claiming that the "main allegiance" of Bush's advisors "is to each other and their ideology rather than to the United States":
I think there are some similarities between George Bush's Administration and Richard Nixon's Administration: a tremendous cynicism about the future of the country; a lack of ability to instill hope in the American people; a war which doesn't have clear principles behind it; and a group of people around the President whose main allegiance is to each other and their ideology rather than to the United States.
The insinuation that Bush's aides are not loyal to the United States is a clear attack on their patriotism. Dean states that the advisors' "allegiance to each other and their ideology" comes before their allegiance to the country, which suggests explicit disloyalty. He may believe the actions of Bush's aides harm the interests of the US, but claiming that their "main allegiance" is to anything other than the country crosses the line.
The Weekly Standard's Fred Barnes points out that several Democratic candidates, including Dean, have previously questioned the patriotism of Bush and other administration officials. On August 30, 2003, Dean said Attorney General John Ashcroft "is not a patriot."
Attacks on the patriotism of one's opponents are disreputable whatever the circumstances. Dean should not use these tactics.
During the January 4 debate among contenders for the Democratic presidential nomination in Des Moines, Iowa, Missouri Congressman Dick Gephardt touted his success in Washington, asserting that the Bush administration "tried to put more arsenic in the water. We stopped them from doing it." This is only the latest repetition of a popular - and misleading - piece of Democratic jargon.
As we explained in 2002, President Bush never "tried to put more arsenic in the water." The controversy began in March 2001 when the White House withdrew a regulation issued late in the Clinton administration that had not yet gone into effect. The regulation would have reduced the federal standard for arsenic in drinking water from 50 parts per billion to 10 parts per billion by 2006. Environmental Protection Agency administrator Christie Todd Whitman stated at the time that EPA would ask expert panels to review the science and consider a standard of 3-20 parts per billion to go into effect by the original 2006 deadline. After a great deal of criticism, the EPA decided in October 2001 to issue a 10 parts per billion standard - the same as the original regulation.
At no point in the controversy did the administration propose raising the allowable limit of arsenic in drinking water above the 50 parts per billion standard that had been in effect since 1942; the controversy centered on how much to reduce that limit. Nor did the White House repeal a standard that was already being enforced; Clinton's regulation had not yet gone into effect.
Gephardt has claimed Bush would allow "more arsenic" in drinking water on two other occasions. On April 29, 2001, he said on CBS's "Face the Nation" that "There's almost been a daily drumbeat of changes in rules and regulations that really are obviously for special interests," including "allowing more arsenic in the water." More recently, he alleged in a June 17, 2003 letter to MoveOn.org members that Bush "sought to allow more arsenic in our drinking water."
Unfortunately, Gephardt is far from the only person to make this claim. Numerous Democratic politicians and liberal pundits repeated the accusation in March and April 2001 during the aftermath of the initial announcement. The Democratic National Committee even ran an ad in which a little girl asks, "May I please have some more arsenic in my water, Mommy?"
Since then, pundits and politicians have continued to circulate the meme, including two of the most prominent members of the Democrat Party. In an April 22, 2002 speech, former Vice President Al Gore offered this misleading attack: "Instead of ensuring that our water is clean to drink, they thought that maybe there wasn't enough arsenic in the drinking water. They actually... You remember that -- they actually had a proposal to increase the levels that would be permitted." Later, he added, "[i]nstead of helping the millions of Americans in communities with dirty water, this administration did try to increase the amount of arsenic in drinking water." And former President Bill Clinton reportedly told an Iowa crowd in August 2003 that Republicans "tried to put more arsenic in the water."
This ploy is very similar to claims by former Vermont governor Howard Dean and others that Bush's "Clear Skies" proposal would allow more air pollution, implying that pollution would rise from current levels, when Bush would actually slow the rate of scheduled reductions in future years. In both cases, the effect of such tactics is to deceive.
Related links:
-Dean foggy on "Clear Skies" (Ben Fritz, 7/1/03)
-Gore's speech deserves more scrutiny (Brendan Nyhan, 4/25/02)