LIES, LIES & GOP LIES

There are lies and then there are GOP lies. Vice President Cheney is, of course, a master of telling the straight-faced lie. He simply makes an outrageous statement and the GOP choir nods their heads in agreement. Ditto with Karl Rove.

President Bush has usally stuck to little lies, like about his service in the National Guard. When it comes to national issues, for example, weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, he blames his staff for misinformation. But recently he inaugurated himself into the big time whopper crowd.

Practically choking on the issue of global warming, Bush begrudgingly gave some credence to the report of administration scientists that it's happening. But we can't do anything about it, he says, because it will cost five million American jobs if we impose pollution controls. Five million. He grabs a number out of the air and proclaims it. Either the planet lives or the American economy suffers, he implies. Where did he get that statistic? No one in the media asked. It just hangs out there in the ether.

Is that net or gross loss of jobs he's assuming? What about the jobs that would be created by retrofitting carbon-belching smokestacks and bringing on line new, green industries to limit the toxins we spew into the air? Has anyone ever done an economic study of the issue?

All the arguments will become moot once Mother Nature really starts her roast. The economic engine of Manhattan isn't going to be able to pump fast enough to keep its commerce from drowning under higher sea levels. A third of Florida will sink underwater, taking down that state's economy. And so on, through all our coastal areas.

But that won't be Bush's worry. He'll be gone. We can only hope that by then Jeb will be President and trying to explain to livid Americans how his big brother stood by and let the nation and its economy go down the drain.