Say Anything, or: Who You Gonna Believe, Me Or Your Lyin' Eyes?
or: Pryor's Principle.

Well, now there's this lame gesture towards a rationalization by Alberto Gonzales. Earlier the administration referenced a statute that, so far as I--or anybody else--can tell, does not justify their warrantless wiretaps. Now Gonzales is referencing the authorization for the use of force in Afghanistan as justification, which seems to have nothing whatsoever to do with wiretaps.

But adept hard-core liars know that, once your guilt is clear, it doesn't much matter what you say, you just have to say something. If you have nothing at all to say, then you're fairly screwed. If you admit wrong-doing then you're completely screwed. But if you have something--anything--to say in response, no matter how unutterably nutty, then you place some seed of doubt in the minds of observers. Honest people, on account of dealing mostly with other honest people, are unduly credulous, you see, and at a decided disadvantage when dealing with practiced and committed liars.

I think of this as Pryor's Principle, from an old bit by Richard Pryor about getting busted screwing around on your girlfriend. I can't remember the details of the bit, but it goes something like this: does your girlfriend find another girl's phone number in your pants pocket? Tell her you found a poor single mother and got her number so you could help her out. Lipstick on the collar? Your co-worker stumbled and fell against you. Panties in your car? They blew in the window. Get an STD? Toilet seat. No matter what, never, ever admit guilt. Even it she walks in and catches you flagrante delicto in bed with the other woman, Pryor's advice was to say "I'm not messing around on you. Who you gonna believe, me or your lyin' eyes?"

This strategy works particularly well when you are dealing with someone who desperately wants to believe you. And that, of course, is the situation faced by the Bushies. Everybody in the entire world has come to recognize them as arrogant serial prevaricators with no respect for evidence or truth--except, that is, for American conservatives. A substantial chunk of the latter group still desperately, desperately wants to believe that this administration is minimally honest and rational. Under those conditions, Pryor's Principle has served the administration well, and will probably do so into the forseeable future. What is beginning to look a lot like an impeachable offense will, no doubt, go unpunished since such a large proportion of the current Congressional Republicans puts loyalty to their party ahead of loyalty to the constitution.

Right now, the administration just has to say anything and wait for the public to forget or lose interest...perhaps because some new, perhaps less-severe bit of administration wrong-doing comes along to distract from this high crime.

If bin Laden were smart, this would be the time to attack. The most destructive thing he could do would be to panic the masses into rallying around this incompetent administration and its efforts to re-establish the imperial presidency. Al Qaeda alone could never destroy America or our constitution.

But now they have a powerful ally.