Jonathan Alter Raises An Interesting Political Question

In his latest column for Newsweek, Jonathan Alter raises an interesting political question:  Could the truth be a potent political weapon?

Reporters were pressing President Bush hard. James Gerstenzang of the Los Angeles Times asked Bush if he subscribed to President Nixon's notion that "when the president does it, it's not illegal." This was, indeed, the essence—the truth—of the president's position on the National Security Agency's warrantless eavesdropping, which violates a 1978 law. Instead of the issue being framed in Karl Rove's phony and demagogic terms—where anyone who opposes the president's power grab doesn't want to protect us from Al Qaeda—we were edging our way toward a more accurate depiction of the controversy.

The news conference wasn't a complete truthfest. No reporter managed to ask the president about his statement of April 24, 2004, when Bush told a Buffalo audience: "Any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires—a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so." This statement was false, and Bush knew it when he said it. The president lied in Buffalo, just as surely as Bill Clinton lied when he said: "I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Ms. Lewinsky." Of course, Bush's Buffalo lie got a tiny fraction of the airplay of Clinton's Lewinsky lie.

The truth will only be a potent weapon for Democrats if they learn how to go on offense against the Bush administration. 

They need to learn the art of picking a fight, and then being willing to fight it once they have picked it, even in the face of the inevitable counterattack the Bush White House will wage against them.