A Credibility Chasm ----Thomas Oliphant

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Published on Thursday, December 15, 2005 by the Boston Globe
A Credibility Chasm
by Thomas Oliphant


WASHINGTON - Four Speeches. Four points. Wow.

The latest cycle of orations from President Bush has produced a bump in his job approval ratings for handling the war in Iraq -- from about 35 percent to about 39 percent -- a bump so tiny that it may not have occurred at all, given the margins of statistical error in opinion polls.

This happened for reasons that go well beyond the fact that the four speeches revealed no significant new fact or argument; they were also, in thrust and content, dishonest.

As the political history of modern American wars has demonstrated repeatedly, the public responds to its understanding of the facts on the ground not the words on the air.

To pick just one telling example, consider the elections this week for a new parliament in Iraq. Bush loved to trumpet the fact that elections were about to be held and then will trumpet the fact that they were indeed held and people voted. But his unwillingness to discuss the elections in depth undercuts the message he is attempting to convey. .....

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1. link

....http://www.commondreams.org/views05/1215-32.htm