"King of the liars"

President Bush continues to spin the Social Security news and The Daily Howler continues to give him hell for it:

KING OF THE LIARS—GEORGE BUSH: Has there ever been a bald-faced liar to match George W. Bush? At yesterday’s forum on Social Security, the president told a series of dumb, stupid jokes for an audience of perfectly decent Americans. And then he lied right in their faces. Incredibly, their president told them this:

BUSH (1/11/05): As a matter of fact, by the time today's workers who are in their mid-20s begin to retire, the system will be bankrupt. So if you're 20 years old, in your mid-20s, and you're beginning to work, I want you to think about a Social Security system that will be flat bust, bankrupt, unless the United States Congress has got the willingness to act now.

And that's what we're here to talk about, a system that will be bankrupt.

“As a matter of fact,” Bush said, without irony, before he offered these bald-faced lies to the decent folks watching him speak.

What is wrong with Bush’s statement? Workers who are in their mid-20s will, by and large, begin to retire shortly after the year 2040. And will Social Security be “bankrupt—flat bust,” as their joke-cracking president said? Sorry. According to the CBO, the system will still pay full scheduled benefits until the year 2052. After that, will SS be “flat bust?” No, it will not, as Bush knows. After 2052, the system will be able to pay 81 percent of scheduled benefits. Even adjusted for inflation, those benefits will be far more than SS recipients are getting today.

Understand: If no changes are made to the system, recipients will get substantially more in 2052 than recipients are getting today! But incredibly, your lying president tells decent citizens that the system will instead be “flat bust!” And by the way: Even according to the pessimistic forecasts of the SS trustees, the system won’t be “bankrupt, flat bust” when young workers start to retire. According to the trustees’ gloomy projections, the system will pay full benefits until 2042. It will then pay 73 percent of scheduled benefits, more than recipients get today.

No, Social Security won’t be “flat bust”—or anything like it—when young workers start to retire. But George Bush lies the way other men breathe. Soon, he even had the gall to tell his audience this:

BUSH: Most younger people in America think they'll never see a dime. Probably an exaggeration to a certain extent. But a lot of people who are young, who understand how Social Security works, really do wonder whether they'll see anything.

Incredible! Because uninformed people “wonder” about something, Bush repeats it as if it’s a fact. Will younger people “never see a dime?” This is probably an exaggeration, to a certain extent, George Bush says. If anyone doubted, you see it there—George Bush lies the way others take air. Why does Congress allow such a man to remain in his great public office?

But let’s put that question for Congress aside. More important for this web site’s concerns: How will the weak-kneed Washington “press corps” respond to this bath of public lying? Will pundits have the courage to stand and tell the public what their “leader” has done? Or will they run and hide behind desks, as they have done for the past five years? Will they still be the store-bought cowards who have allowed this situation to develop?

George Bush, a gut-bucket liar, has lied to the public for the past five years. But so what? Timid, store-bought, thigh-rubbing pundits have stared into air as the lying has grown. Tomorrow, we’ll start to look at the press corps’ accounts of Bush’s astounding remarks on SS. But the time has finally come to insist that Big Major Pundits stand up and speak. Five years ago, the press corps pretended to be upset by ginned-up “lies” from Candidate Gore. Now, a president lies right in their faces, about the day’s most pressing issue. It’s time for the press corps’ conclave of cowards to be battered about their group silence.

....read it all: KING OF THE LIARS—GEORGE BUSH: How will major pundits respond to yesterday’s lies by George Bush?, The Daily Howler, 12 January 2005