Our Noble Liar in Chief

It is very difficult to imagine that the release of tapes showing a prominent Democratic politician talking about drug use would not result in an explosion of self-righteous commentary in the right-wing blogosphere. But I have noticed hardly a peep among lefty bloggers about the secret tapes made of George W. Bush by a friend.

That George W. Bush likely used drugs is certainly not news. In the 2000 campaign, he made his past illegal drug use rather obvious by his choice to enthusiastically volunteer that he had never committed adultery (which would be legal behavior) but refuse to say if he had used cocaine or other drugs (which would be illegal behavior). If he's innocent of illegal drug use, the man draws some strange lines.

The tapes are interesting, however, for what they reveal about our President's, er, nuanced ideas about the truth. Anyone who questions George W. Bush's intelligence may marvel at how during the campaign he was able to hold two seemingly contradictory ideas in his head at the same time: 1) That Al Gore is "pathologically a liar," and, 2) That Al Gore was wrong to tell the truth about his past cannabis use.

In Bush's world, there are some things it is okay to lie about, and others that it is wrong to lie about. In Ambling Into History, which records the same period of time as the new tapes, author Frank Bruni reports Bush's disdain for the dishonest Al Gore because...well, you kind of have to read it to believe it:

Bush had little use for Gore. Publicly, he never said so, but privately, when he talked to friends and political allies, he made it clear that he saw Gore as equal parts pompous blowhard and preening chameleon, a spineless panderer ready to be anything for anyone. For Bush, this was distilled in a single, oddly chosen detail: "The man dyes his hair… What does that tell you about him? … He doesn’t know who he is."

Obviously, George W. Bush knows who he is: George W. Bush is a man who lies about the right things.