E-Mail This Article to a Friend The crooked cowboy Bush lies (the saga continues). Plus, misleading the public about criminal justice.

RONALD REAGAN’S tenuous relationship with reality won him considerable slack from the public. He tried to classify ketchup as a vegetable while gutting school-lunch programs for the poor, and the nation smirked. When he said that trees cause pollution while giving big timber, big oil, and big mining the go-ahead to ravage the land, voters were in stitches. "There he goes again," was the consensus. "Give that man an A for affability."

George W. Bush may be good for a few laughs, but he is no comic. He’s a cowboy, and nobody is ever going to credit him with being a straight shooter. Lies and scams are his stock-in-trade. Never mind his strained relationship with the English language; he’s fluent in deceit.

Bush’s masterpiece of intellectual deception is, of course, the charge that Saddam Hussein was stockpiling chemical and nuclear weapons of mass destruction. Even at his most urgent, Reagan — Bush’s political godfather — never portrayed the evil masters of the Soviet empire to be quite as menacing as Bush made Hussein out to be.

The bigger the lie, the easier it goes down. So it comes as no surprise that Bush and his camp followers are seeking to distort John Kerry’s service record in Vietnam in hopes of destroying his campaign to replace Bush in the White House. Call us cynical, but it never seemed to be a question of whether Bush would go after Kerry this way; it was only a matter of when and how. And the weeks before Bush is to be re-consecrated as the second coming of Reagan at the Republican National Convention is the perfect time to do it.

It’s probably too much to expect the three draft-dodging amigos (that’s Bush, Vice-President Dick Cheney, and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, in case there’s any confusion) to show self-restraint. They are warriors now. And warriors return fire blindly. Yet Kerry’s four months of combat service during which he won a quintet of medals (a Silver Star, a Bronze Star, and three Purple Hearts) underscores an inconvenient fact. Kerry walked the walk. Bush and his minions merely talk the talk.

Dodging the Vietnam-era draft is nothing to be ashamed of. Vietnam was a bad war. Even if its original intent to contain Communism was defensible, its prolonged prosecution became detestable. Perhaps that’s why draft-evader Bill Clinton could joke so disarmingly about his lack of military service at the Democratic National Convention. Service may be a plus, but failing to serve is not necessarily a minus. Unless, of course, you have ordered men and women into combat and compromised the nation’s international standing on a baseless premise. One big lie leads to others.

The man at the center of the big lie that Kerry didn’t do what the Navy said he did in Vietnam is, not surprisingly, a Texan. His name is John O’Neill. Like Kerry, O’Neill was a swift-boat commander in Vietnam. But unlike Kerry, who came home to oppose the war, O’Neill returned home and continued to support it. He was recruited by the Nixon administration to oppose Kerry’s opposition, and during the decades since has harbored a deep and bitter personal animus toward Kerry. Some of the others involved in the Kerry lie were also involved in the lies the Bushies spread about John McCain’s war service during the 2000 primaries. And as we go to press, the New York Times reports that the Bush campaign’s top outside lawyer advised the "independent" group responsible for the Kerry lies. To claim that Bush has nothing to do with this smear campaign is an affront to common sense.

John Kerry is a complicated man. Sometimes — as we’ve noted in the past — he’s too complicated for his own good. Unfortunately, a huge portion of the electorate will not or cannot absorb nuance — and that’s especially true of this presidential campaign. But his opposition to a war he volunteered to fight was indisputably a distinguished moment in Kerry’s public career. And by trying to tarnish this volunteer soldier, Bush and his supporters tarnish all the volunteer soldiers Bush has sent to face death in this, his, war.

GOVERNOR MITT Romney and Attorney General Thomas Reilly should be ashamed of themselves. As David S. Bernstein demonstrates (see "Tipped Scales," page 18), they are more intent on grabbing headlines than solving problems — especially the complex problems that surround the administration of fair and equal criminal justice at a time when funding for it is constrained.

It is shocking to realize that so many of our elected officials of both parties at best exhibit indifference to the criminal-justice system by failing to confront budget needs honestly, or at worst subvert justice by loading the courts with personnel, some of whom can only be called patronage hacks.

For many years, the state has had trouble providing lawyers for those accused of crimes who are too poor to pay for their own defense. The problem has become increasingly acute everywhere, but nowhere more so than in Hampden and Worcester Counties. The reason is not complicated. High-minded, well-educated, lawyer-rich Massachusetts pays those who defend the poor less than most other states do.

To some it may appear to be a simple matter of supply and demand. Not so. Public-spirited defense lawyers have for years shouldered the burden and accepted court cases while being severely under-compensated, even as voters and public officials have ignored the situation or — sometimes — scoffed at it. Though the politicians, many of whom are themselves lawyers, wouldn’t for a moment consider working for such paltry pay and being treated like chattel — a view supported by the decision of a second-rate Supreme Judicial Court justice — they demand that other private lawyers work for as little as $37.50 per hour under the threat of bar sanctions. Good will, like human nature, has its breaking point. And here in Massachusetts, we appear to have reached it. Perhaps the lawyers in our legislature should each be required, as part of their service to the Commonwealth, to handle five such cases per year at these hourly rates. That way, not only would the problem be alleviated, but you can be sure a rate increase would sail through both legislative chambers.

The US Constitution mandates that everyone accused of a crime — whether trivial or capital — be represented by competent counsel. Despite the best efforts of the Bush administration, it’s not yet a crime to be poor in America. But Romney — and his unlikely ally Reilly — seems determined to make it a crime to be poor in Massachusetts.

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