Out of the Gobblydegook

Elizabeth de la Vega explains on Firedoglake why it has taken so long for the American people to understand that the Bush administration cannot be trusted, using the context of the Nixon administration and the Scooter Libby trial:

But there’s another reason, one I’ve learned over many years as a prosecutor. It’s not so much that people are gullible – although sometimes they are—and certainly not that they are stupid, but rather that people judge others, particularly those whom they admire, by the same standards they apply to themselves. They think, well, certainly my neighbor would never mislead me about those limited partnerships he was selling. I would never do such a thing. I cannot even tell you how many times I had people who had lost their entire life’s savings sit in my office and tell me how they gave an obvious con artist one chance after another to make good on his word, because he was, say, a deacon in the church or a member of the Rotary Club.

I've thought this for a long time. It's easy to think, "He can't be lying. He's the President!" When backed by the mighty Right-Wing Wurlitzer of disinformation, it's hard to hear the truth.