Should Presidents Lie?

Why should we care about the lack of Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq? Because that was the rationale presented to American for invading Iraq. They have such spun a myriad of other explanations from grandiose plans to remake the Middle East, to such fantasies as the Flypaper Strategy, to the trivia of Saddam Hussein gaming the Oil for Food program (trivia compared to Weapons of Mass Destruction, at an rate).

There is pretty strong evidence that that wasn't the real reason; that many elements in the government knew that the WMDs claims were overblown, but that this was the rationale most likely to be accepted. Like many actions, the war in Iraq was probably motivated by a number of factors, predominately a desire to remake the Middle East and thus limit the problems (a laudable goal, but one that seems to be moving further away right now, rather than closer).

Eric Alterman at the Nation discusses this problem in an article at the Nation entitled "When Presidents Lie."

Joseph Cropsey, a close friend and colleague of Strauss's at the University of Chicago, as well as the editor of his work, explains that in Straussian thought, a degree of public deception is considered absolutely necessary. "That people in government have to be discreet in what they say publicly is so obvious--'If I tell you the truth I can't but help the enemy.'"

However high-minded, the argument does not really convince. With few exceptions, Presidents lie largely not for the reasons above but for reasons of political convenience. The decisions to lie were bred of a fundamental contradiction at the heart of the practice of American democracy. American Presidents have no choice but to practice the diplomacy of Great Power politics, but American citizens have rarely if ever been asked to understand the world in those terms.

The White House lied because they believe that if they told the truth, we wouldn't support them in what they wanted to do. They might have been right; we have no way of knowing now

Alterman goes on to explore the effect of these deceptions on our ability to act as wise citizens and voters.