Paragons of Mendacity

Watching "The Control Room" tonight. It's a fascinating documentary from 2004 that looks behind the scenes at the Al-Jazeera network during the early days of the Iraq War. In it, Bush gives at least one big lie, and Rumsfeld is (I hope) prophetic -- though not in the way he imagines.

In a press conference early on in the way, a reporter asks him about reports of American POWs in Iraqi hands: "I expect them to be treated humanely. Just like we're treating the prisoners we have captured: humanely." Notice he doesn't say "we expect them not to be tortured." Nor does he say "we expect the Iraqis will be using coercive interrogation techniques on our brave soldiers." No, he says America is treating Iraqi prisoners humanely. Even under the new Senate language I don't think waterboarding falls under the heading "humane."

Earlier in the movie there is a quote from Rummy where he's accusing Al Jazeera of bussing women and children in to bomb sites to make it look as if they were the victims of the attacks. He says: "It's up to all of us to try to tell the truth. To say what we know, to say what we don't know, and recognize that we are dealing with people that are perfectly willing to lie to the world to attempt to further their case. And to the extent people lie, ultimately they are caught lying and they lose their credibility."

I hope the loss of credibility is expressed during the mid-term elections.