The Department of Energy, using the head cheese himself as its
spokesman, has launched a public relations advertising campaign to
convince Americans that DOE is a capable agency and is constantly
working hard to improve the lives of each of us.
The voice of Secretary Bill Richardson himself — rightly accused as
a co-conspirator in the Chinese theft of U.S. nuclear secrets from
weapons labs he is in charge of protecting — is telling Americans in a
new radio commercial that DOE has discovered some sort of new procedure
to help cancer victims get the most out of their radiation treatments.
I’m thrilled to know that.
However, instead of investigating the full extent of the theft of
nuclear weapons secrets, then reporting his findings far and wide to an
America that no longer trusts DOE or Richardson, he is spending his time
— and our tax money — making commercials designed to take our minds
off his incompetence and the new dangers we face from the Chinese
because of his incompetence.
This form of lying — known as redirect — is classic Clinton
administration. Can you seriously remember when was the last time
anyone took full responsibility for his or her criminal
incompetence?
I seem to remember Attorney General Janet Reno try to publicly accept
all responsibility for the Waco disaster in ’93 but it was pointless
because she kept her job and was protected by Clinton from retribution
by Congress. Since then, other officials — including the president —
have never even been held accountable for the whoppers they’ve told,
usually to hide some blatant criminal act.
Now we find out — as we expected to all along — that the Clinton
administration lied through its teeth about almost everything relating
to Kosovo.
They say they didn’t lie, of course. They said that they were merely
reporting “the best intelligence we could get at the time.” Oh.
Sure it’s true that in a war zone it is sometimes difficult, even in
today’s surveillance society, to get good ground intelligence. But some
of the details Americans were provided during the nearly 80-day air war
are so radically different than the truth that one cannot conclude
anything other than we were being fed propaganda to maintain support for
Clinton’s illegal military action. For many, the lie about bombing the
Chinese embassy — “we were using outdated maps” — did it for them.
What bothers me is that the mainstream press — some of whom are now
reporting these discrepancies — dutifully went along with everything
the administration told them about the war for weeks, no matter how
uncharacteristic or fantastic the details seemed. Only now that the war
is essentially over are they questioning official accounts — weeks
late, as usual. I’m sure that’s just a coincidence too.
Here are some of the most obvious examples:
* There were not 100,000 ethnic Albanian men killed by rampaging
Serbs during the war. Officials now estimate that maybe 10,000 were
killed, and no one really even knows if that is accurate.
* 600,000 ethnic Albanians were never “trapped within Kosovo itself
lacking shelter, short of food, afraid to go home or buried in mass
graves dug by their executioners,” as Clinton told a veterans group in
May. “Though thousands hid in Kosovo, they are healthy,” says USA Today.
* Kosovo’s livestock, wheat and other crops are growing and progressing
normally — they have not been “slaughtered” or “torched,” as was
previously widely reported.
* The scores of “missing men” — young Albanians who were believed
killed — are at home and unemployed. In fact, NATO forces “are
struggling to keep them from seeking retribution.”
Pentagon spokesman Ken Bacon — himself not exactly a bastion of
truth — tried to spin the facts as best he could, sounding indignant
while attempting to continue the “theme of morality” endemic to
Clinton’s decision to bomb in the first place.
He said, “I don’t think you can say killing 100,000 is 10 times more
morally repugnant than killing 10,000.” Well, fair enough — but if
that’s so, then why lie at all? If what Mr. Bacon said is really
how “the American People” felt, then it wouldn’t have been necessary to
lie to them. The truth would have sufficed.
Realistically, of course, Clinton and his spin team had to make the
situation in Kosovo appear much worse than it really was because all of
these liars knew most of us would never go for attacking sovereign
Yugoslavia unless it sounded really bad over there. Even with
the administration’s lies millions of Americans still didn’t want
U.S. or NATO forces there.
No matter what the subject, what the issue, what the charge, or what
the story, the Clinton spin team has certainly earned its money over the
last seven years. Clinton himself is such a pathological liar, he has
lied even when he didn’t have to.
Granted, most — if not all — presidential administrations have
liars in their ranks. Most presidents have twisted the truth, ignored
the facts, or lied about certain details of many issues over the years
and it’s not going to change with the next administration either,
whomever that happens to be.
But Clinton’s team has raised propaganda to such an art form
virtually no one believes anything these people say, including
the president himself. It’s a classic example of “crying wolf” far too
many times.
And the White House is scratching its head wondering how in the world
Gov. George W. Bush has already collected some $37 million for his
presidential bid. Are you people kidding me?
Let’s curb the kangaroo court of anonymous sources
Tim Graham