The other day in a campaign speech for a Republican candidate, George W. Bush characterized a Democratic vote as follows:
One hundred and seventy-seven of the opposition party said, "You know, we don't think we ought to be listening to the conversations of terrorists."
And of course, that's not what they said. What they said was, "We think you should follow this law that even a lot of Republicans supported which says you can listen to the conversations of anyone you suspect of being involved in terrorism but at some point, before or after, you need to go before a judge and get a warrant."
In other recent speeches, Bush has repeated the line…
If you don't think we should be listening in on the terrorist, then you ought to vote for the Democrats. If you want your government to continue listening in when al-Qaeda planners are making phone calls into the United States, then you vote Republican.
This doesn't sound to me like one of those quaint awkward phrasings for which everyone is expected to forgive Bush. It sounds to me like a bunch of G.O.P. leaders got together and decided to deliberately mischaracterize the Democratic position, figuring their hardcore base would buy and spread the misrepresentation.
When Al Gore used some clumsy phrasing to state — correctly — that he was an early and leading supporter of the Internet, his foes did a good job of selling the idea that he was lying by claiming he'd single-handedly created it. In fact, some of them argued that he was a pathological liar, incapable of telling the truth. I don't think Bush is a pathological liar. I just think he has a real low opinion of his supporters' ability to admit when he's deliberately distorting reality.