Orwell du Jour

Double Orwell du Jour today? And another one gone, and another one gone. Another myth bites the dust. Republican George Bush is a model of small government spending. Sort of. Not.

"He's a big spender," [David Keating, the executive director of the Club for Growth] said. "No question about it."

Take almost any yardstick and Bush generally exceeds the spending of his predecessors.

When adjusted for inflation, discretionary spending — or budget items that Congress and the president can control, including defense and domestic programs, but not entitlements such as Social Security and Medicare — shot up at an average annual rate of 5.3 percent during Bush’s first six years, Slivinski calculates.

That tops the 4.6 percent annual rate Johnson logged during his 1963-69 presidency. By these standards, Ronald Reagan was a tightwad; discretionary spending grew by only 1.9 percent a year on his watch.

Believe what George Bush says or what George Bush does. Spend and say you save. Welcome to Orwell du Jour.

More Orwell du Jour: The Senate Judiciary Committee wants AG nominee Michael Mukasey to tell it whether waterboarding is torture, which Mukasey previously would be unconstitutional if waterboarding were torture. Let us now loose all hope of clarity in the fog of official White House pronouncements.

The letter continued, "Please respond to the following question: Is the use of waterboarding, or inducing the misperception of drowning, as an interrogation technique illegal under U.S. law, including treaty obligations?" The senators requested a "prompt response" since Mr. Mukasey’s nomination is still before the committee.

A White House spokesman, Tony Fratto, said Mr. Mukasey could not comment on details of interrogation techniques because "he has not been read into classified intelligence programs, and he won't be read in until he is confirmed as attorney general."

Details, details: details of interrogation techniques is a blunt way of saying piss off, senators. Waterboarding is either torture or it isn't. We are all being hit over the head with a blunt instrument on this one.