A Plurality Finds Bush Not Honest In New Poll

In a new Wall Street Journal/NBC Poll, a 45% to 41% plurality now finds that President Bush is not "honest" or "straight forward". This is a better late than never view by a plurality. For years the coutry has been mislead that limiting malpractice lawsuit would reduce medical costs by Bush, but this was disproven in a report this week. The nation was misled into war by the White House leading the intelligence to promote a premise in favor of war as a first resort, not the last. And now Karl Rove claims a reporter, knew of the identity of a CIA agent, when it was Rove, not reporters who have intelligence clearance.

While Bush has clearly misled America on so many issues, the Karl Rove affair will become a story with more details in the next few days. It will resolve whether Rove is attempting to deflect the problems he is in by now blaming Robert Novak, or whether reporters like Novak are routinely being given intelligence information about agents and other classified information, and Rove is actually innocent of any wrong doing. But nonetheless, the issue raises new honesty and character questions about the Bush White House.

Americans should be able to believe and trust in their government, but too many issues are beginning to tangle at the feet of the Bush Administration. A real attempt to build credibility by the White House is much needed. For an Administration that sought out the support of so many religious voters, the current state of falsehoods about issues including Iraq and the Rove affair raises nothing but character and basic honesty questions. This is very disappointing.