The Daily Sandwich

"We have to learn the lesson that intellectual honesty is fundamental for everything we cherish." -Sir Karl Popper

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Location: Boston, Massachusetts, United States

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Thursday, October 27, 2005

How to deal with the high cost of lying

Mil Apodos passes on an article that's all meat and no filler that dares to ask the question: what will the White House do when the indictments strike?

We've already seen one response that's gotten a very tepid reaction: keep talking Iraq. But that's like calling attention to a D+ to distract your parents from an F.

I'm surprised to see the article state that indictees will immediately resign. It's possible, but it would go against everything this administration does-- little guys take the fall for the inner circle, period. Of course, they could resign and still be big players. Sort of like Michael Brown is still pulling down his FEMA salary.

Keep refusing to talk about the issue? Well, duh. Anyone who's listened to a press conference in the last two months has become intimately familiar with the phrase "I'm not going to comment on an ongoing investigation." All you do is shift the response to "I'm not going to comment until the justice system has run its course." Then move on to "I'm not going to dwell on the past. We've got lots of ideas, and we're moving on."

There's one problem with Rep. Mike Pence's (R-IN) suggestion that Republicans start talking about their original agenda-- they've played every card, and the public hates it all. War, energy, Social Security, spending cuts? Nothin'.

The new SCOTUS nomination will certainly "distract" from the issue, but I don't see much to go on except for a "bad apple" defense-- Bush and Cheney had no idea that their underlings were lying to them to advance their own sneaky agendas. Which won't exactly inspire public confidence. Another idea is for them to use Rove and Libby's relatively unknown status (among the general public) to their advantage. Focus on the names no-one knows to protect the big boys. Sadly, the public has become so inured to political corruption that it doesn't really seem to register much anymore. In spite of the fact that the degree of criminality actually is more serious than Watergate.

It's tough to excerpt from the article because there's so much being addressed in it. Have a look for yourself and test your own skills of prognostication.