Bush (unintentionally?) LIES!

The Democrats are borrowing a play from Rove's book: They are now attacking W's perceived strengths.

A misinformed citizenry views Bush as a straight-shooter. The Kerry forces therefore must frame the President as someone who cannot tell the difference between what is true and what he wants to be true.

For months, I have screamed that the campaign slogan should be "BUSH LIES!" Toward the beginning of campaign season, a number of books used the Bush-is-a-liar motif. Repetition of that message helped send Bush's popularity groundwards. Kerry ignored this theme for far too long, and W recovered much lost ground.

Bush's odd attitude toward the truth has come back into focus, but the Kerry forces -- typically -- favor a more nuanced variant of the "liar, liar" attack. William Saletan best sums the matter up in this piece of advice to the Democratic candidate:

The other day, in an ad lib, you called him a liar. Don't do that again. In a contest of sincerity, more people trust him than trust you. What they don't trust is the correspondence between Bush's sincere beliefs and reality. The descriptions you used in this speech -- "mistakes," "misjudgment," and "miscalculation" -- are exactly right. And your theme for unifying that critique -- that he's "living in a fantasy world of spin" -- is almost perfect. I don't like the word "spin," which implies that Bush knows better than what he's saying. He doesn't know better, even when he should, and that's the problem. "Fantasy world" is shorter and better.

Being an ornery type myself, I still prefer "BUSH LIES!" -- which is shorter still. In my view, it's also more accurate. But perhaps Saletan has a point. Perhaps Kerry will have an easier time promoting the message that Bush doesn't know the difference between reality and the script in his head.

Given Bush's bizarre "victory is nigh" comments on Iraq, I think Kerry could even slip a zinger of this sort into the upcoming debate:

"I applaud my opponent for his decision to give up alcohol and cocaine. However, his recent comments on Iraq stray so far from reality, some people have made cruel and unfair jokes about the possible influence of hallucinogens."

All right, I know Kerry will never say it. But if he did, I betcha W would not take the opportunity to deny ever using coke.