Credibility Gap Redux (nuclear gag alert)

Two recent television docudramas suggest lessons for how leaders can level with the public in a time of war. In one, Winston Churchill told citizens the truth about security lapses leading up to World War II. In the other, President Lyndon Johnson-certain that voters would not tolerate bad news from Vietnam-hid the true cost and trajectory of that war.

PERHAPS THE BUSH WHITE HOUSE was watching the wrong one. The long-hidden warnings, given to George W. Bush, of possible Al Qaeda hijackings last summer suggests less a "finest hour" than a return of LBJ's "credibility gap."

He is no better at history than he is at policy.

It was Winston Churchill who said (and, being at work, I must paraphrase for want of the precise quote), "Truth is such a valuable commodity in wartime that we must surround it with a bodyguard of lies."

Nor were FDR's "fireside chats" and other public pronouncements always the truth or the whole truth. He recognized, as did most (not all) of those around him, that truth and full disclosure are often the first casualties of war and that secrets need to be preserved. For example, when he announced the famous Doolittle raid on Tokyo in early 1942, he announced that the planes had flown, "From our secret base in Shangri La." I doubt that anyone who heard this was fooled, but I doubt too that anyone felt he or she was entitled to know just where those planes did fly from.

I don't want to know everything my country's leaders know at the absolute moment they know it. It is their job to sift the information and take appropriate action. That is why I elected them to positions of leadership. I frankly have better things to do with my time than make judgments about whether this threat is credible and the FAA ought to act on it or this one is not credible. The FAA won't give a hoot what I think anyhow.

More Newsweek drivel. To disclose every "what", "when they knew it" would play directly into the terrorist hands. They wouldn't have to do anything except blab on a web site and the government would turn around and terrorize its citizens for them. Great! Brilliant minds over there at Newsweek!

>>>The president is not just the commander in chief; he is the information officer in chief. <<<

The President's job is to run the country - not to feed information to a corrupt press corps that has, and will continue to, distort anything favorable to Conservatives and embelish anything Liberal.

Newsweek, look in the mirror - your creditability is GONE!!

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