One of my usual sources of info that I use in this blog is the Wall Street Journal; I consider the WSJ and the Financial Times (FT) of London to be the premier press sources of economic information. Its unfortunate that I have progressive friends who will immediately discount something I say because it came out in the WSJ.  They never have any specifics in their criticisms, just usually the idea that obvious bias makes the source unbelievable.  Because obviously, “anything on Fox News” must be a lie.  Or so we’re told.  Do we do this too?  To some degree; many of us (including me) enjoyed referring to CNN as the Clinton News Network  during the ’90s, since the network usually gave favorable coverage to Mr. Clinton.   And I do think there is some wisdom in “considering the source.” Nevertheless, truth or falsity does not depend on where it is published.

On to today’s post.  In the WSJ today there were two editorials, which I’ll share at length to make the point.  In the first post, Mr. Laurence Silberman, a former federal judge and co-chairman of the Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction, writes his concern that many in the press now routinely characterize Mr. Bush as having lied to the American people about WMD in Iraq.  Says Mr. Silberman:

In recent weeks, I have heard former Associated Press reporter Ron Fournier on Fox News twice asserting, quite offhandedly, that President George W. Bush “lied us into war in Iraq.”

I found this shocking. I took a leave of absence from the bench in 2004-05 to serve as co-chairman of the Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction—a bipartisan body, sometimes referred to as the Robb-Silberman Commission. It was directed in 2004 to evaluate the intelligence community’s determination that Saddam Hussein possessed WMD—I am, therefore, keenly aware of both the intelligence provided to President Bush and his reliance on that intelligence as his primary casus belli. It is astonishing to see the “Bush lied” allegation evolve from antiwar slogan to journalistic fact.

The intelligence community’s 2002 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) stated, in a formal presentation to President Bush and to Congress, its view that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction—a belief in which the NIE said it held a 90% level of confidence. That is about as certain as the intelligence community gets on any subject.

There are many reasons to fault Mr. Bush on Iraq.  But that he lied about WMD is a vicious calumny, which in no way is consistent with the facts, if the definition of lying is to mean anything.  Lying is saying something we know to be wrong “with the intent to deceive.” To tell a lie is to say something untrue deliberately, in an attempt to deceive someone.  How can anyone say Mr. Bush knew that WMD was not real when EVERY intelligence agency of import agreed (including Germany’s and Israel’s if I recall correctly), when both the Clinton administration and the Bush Administration had concluded this.  When congressional leadership of both parties from both the house and senate intelligence committees concluded the same thing based on the same evidence?  Fault him for many things if you will–poor judgment, poor decisions, bad diction.  But lying?  I think it says more about those making that claim than about Mr. Bush.

For the second case, consider Eva Moskowitz’s op-ed, where she excoriates the public school unions for making up lies to say about charter schools.  Now Ms. Moskowitz leads a number of charter schools, and therefore may have an ax to grind.  But she refers to a non-partisan report on charter schools as a source for her point of view.  The charge by public school union’s defenders is that charter schools only do better because they “cherry pick” students.  The idea is essentially “if they had to live with the terrible students and parents that we have to, they’d be just as bad.”  Says Ms. Moskowitz:

There is a concept called the big lie, which holds that if you repeat a falsehood long enough and loudly enough, people will begin to believe it. Sadly, fearing the success of charter schools in New York City, the United Federation of Teachers and other education-reform opponents have been telling a big lie for years.

Something that particular galled Ms. Moskowitz was

the outrageous assertion by Chancellor Fariña at the Crain’s Future of New York City conference last November that the city’s charter schools—which admit students by random lottery—game the system by sending “postcards” to top performers on state exams inviting them to apply.

As the leader of a network of schools—Success Academy Charter Schools—dedicated to providing an excellent education to New York City schoolchildren, including the most underserved in Harlem, the Bronx and Brooklyn, I found this accusation insulting. It was also absurd, as any lists of high-performing students would have to come from the chancellor’s own New York City Department of Education, a grave violation of confidentiality. Her assertion also ignored that charter-school students are chosen through a random lottery.

After Chancellor Fariña’s outrageous accusation, I publicly challenged her to produce one of the postcards supposedly sent to high-performing students. Naturally, she couldn’t produce even one. In fact, she didn’t respond at all. The reason is clear—the absurd claim of cherry-picking the very best students for charter-school lotteries, like the claim of counseling out, is a lie.

No doubt, Ms. Moskowitz is going to take the most positive role of charters possible, and my cursory review of the report can’t find her claim on special education students, and generally the report was negative on that category.  Nevertheless, the report does seem to provide robust evidence that charter schools are doing well, and often with students that are more economically challenged compared to the public school students.  And Ms. Moskowitz is right for calling out falsehoods on the part of her opposition, but she should certainly have her own “ducks in a row” in summarizing the report (but again, its possible I missed it).

We all have a tendency to “spin” or justify ourselves and our ideological preferences. Bereans should be aware of it in our own thinking while nevertheless condemning it wherever it appears in public discourse.