Congressional Complicity in WMD Duplicity by Jacob G. Hornberger August 22, 2003 Why has Congress been relatively quiet on the executive branch’s deception about Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction? The answer is easy: By abrogating its constitutional responsibility regarding its constitutional power to declare war, Congress made itself a silent partner in the president’s wrongdoing. Keep in mind that our system of government is different from others ...
A President Lies about War? Shocking! by Sheldon Richman August 13, 2003 It is regarded as beyond the pale to suggest that a president of the United States would lie or otherwise play politics to win support for a war. Even President Bushs biggest critics in the Democratic Party shrink from using the L-word when they talk about the famous 16 words or the presidents other unequivocal pre-war claims about Saddam ...
The Greatest Ignorance of the Greatest Number by James Bovard August 1, 2003 The specter of an ignorant or indifferent populace has long haunted democracy. Montesquieu wrote in 1748, The tyranny of a principal in an oligarchy is not so dangerous to the public welfare as the apathy of a citizen in a democracy. James Madison warned, A popular Government, without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue ...
Is Fraud a High Crime or Misdemeanor? by Jacob G. Hornberger July 16, 2003 In claiming that 16 controversial words in his State of the Union address last January were technically correct, the president is implying that he didn’t actually deceive — or intend to deceive — the American people. Nothing could be further from the truth. While the president wants people to focus only on the technical wording ...
False in One, False in All by Sheldon Richman July 14, 2003 When I was a newspaper reporter covering the criminal courts in Pennsylvania, lawyers always told juries they were entitled to apply this old legal principle to any witness: falsis in unum, falsis in omnibus — false in one thing, false in all things. This means that if jurors determined that ...
Presidential Sophists on the Loose by Sheldon Richman July 1, 2003 The controversy over President Bushs State of the Union allegation about President Saddam Hussein of Iraq and African uranium is a lesson in how to distinguish a PR flack from an honest commentator. The latter tries to ground his statements in evidence and logic. The flack performs embarrassing mental contortions that have no bearing on the matter. For example, to ...
Short-Sighted Bush by Sheldon Richman May 9, 2003 Advocates of big government sometimes say that politicians are superior to business people because the latter are shortsighted: they only care about the next quarter’s balance sheet. This was always nonsense, because while business has strong incentives to look farther up the road, politicians have little incentive to look beyond the next election. It turns out that ...
Don’t Look for Sense Where There Is None by Sheldon Richman December 18, 2002 Presidents, their cabinet officials, and their press secretaries show how much they respect the American people by how they use the English language. To be more precise, they indicate how much they disrespect the American people by how they abuse the language. All presidents lie. We know that. But when ...
With Friends Like These by Jacob G. Hornberger December 2, 2002 Without any shame whatsoever, President Bush has returned John Poindexter, Elliott Abrams, and Henry Kissinger to the federal government. Poindexter is in charge of “Total Information Awareness,” a government information-gathering operation straight out of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four. Abrams has been appointed as top National Security Council envoy to the Middle East. And ...
Political Plundering of Property Owners by James Bovard November 1, 2002 For the first 175 years of the American republic, it was clearly recognized that government should not casually seize people’s property and give it to other people for their private use. The Supreme Court ruled in 1937 that “one person’s property may not be taken for the benefit of another private person ...
Anthrax Antics from Uncle Sam by James Bovard April 1, 2002 SINCE THE TERRORIST ATTACKS last September 11, public opinion polls show a sharp decrease in cynicism about government and politicians. Yet, if one has been paying attention since then, it is difficult not to conclude that there is still, occasionally at least, a sliver of evidence that could foment cynical tendencies. In his state of the Union address on January ...
Real Campaign-Finance Reform by Jacob G. Hornberger March 2, 2002 Congress has recently engaged in another flurry of activity over ampaign-finance reform. Yet, congressmen never ask a fundamental question: Why shouldn’t people be free to do whatever they want with their own money, including donating whatever amounts they want to political candidates? The usual answer that congressmen give is: “That type of system would make us crooked and corrupt ...