When you were issued a bad report card in elementary school, you had to bring it back to the teacher with your parents’ signature. That way, you couldn’t hide it from them. But if you’re the President of the United States, hiding your evaluations is apparently just fine. Since his first term, President Bush’s administration has made a habit of hiding facts, most recently declining to publish terrorism statistics that might make him look bad. This wide-ranging habit of secrecy and lies-by-omission is yet another sign of a failed presidency and must be stopped.
The State Department recently decided not to publish its annual “Patterns of Global Terrorism” report after it showed that 2004 had more terrorist incidents than any year since the report’s inception in 1985. The controversial report did not include data from terrorist attacks in Iraq and was subject to careful analysis after errors in last year’s report caused a minor scandal. Nonetheless, this year’s statistics have been discarded.
This is not an isolated occurrence. In 2003, the Department of Labor tried to stop reporting layoffs. The tracking program’s cancellation was announced at the bottom of a press release issued on Christmas Eve, and only came to the attention of the press after the woman in charge of the program went public.
Also in 2003, the Office of Management and Budget ceased publication of the primary report outlining the amount of federal dollars contributed to states following a contentious meeting of the National Governors Association. The organization was complaining about the lack of funding being sent to states facing budget shortfalls, especially due to expanded federal mandates. In the same year, 25 reports of discrimination against women were found to be missing from the Department of Labor’s Women’s Bureau web site.
Administration officials explained the cancellation of most of these programs as cost-cutting measures to prevent government waste and inaccuracy. It is clear, however, that the pattern of closure is directly tied to how much embarrassment the information concerned could cause the President. If the Administration, Congress and this country as a whole are to face challenges and make sound policy decisions, we need access to this data before it becomes politicized. Releasing the “Patterns of Terrorism” report would be a step in the right direction.
President Bush goes out of his way to project an image of his own toughness. It’s a shame he isn’t tough enough to face the facts.
