Something is Rotten in D.C.

“Something is rotten in the state of Denmark” is a quote from Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Marcellus says it after seeing the ghost of Hamlet’s father, the deceased king of Denmark.

No one has claimed to see Osama Bin Laden’s ghost wafting about, but when liberal jurist Alan Dershowitz and Conservative columnist Wesley Pruden both detect a stench, it is cause for thought.

In a recent column, Pruden asserts that only Barack Obama could have made such a hash out of announcing a military coup. Apparently the administration could not wait to learn the facts before rushing to turn military heroism into political advantage. One would think that if a story was to be concocted, it should at least have been the same story.  But John Brennan, the president’s anti-terrorism chief, (who may have missed his calling as a fiction writer), apparently did not get that memo.

Dershowitz’s problem is not with the dueling stories, but with the rush to dispose of the body.  In Dershowitz’s view, “burying his body at sea constituted the willful destruction of evidence.”  In a recent WSJ essay Dershowitz pointed out that the body should have been subjected “to the usual forensic testing,” Dead bodies, he wrote, “often talk more loudly, clearly and unambiguously than live witnesses.”

Clarity, however, has never been the hallmark of this administration. Once again its veracity is in doubt, exemplifying an on-going problem with the truth. Whether attributing fictitious savings to the Affordable Health Care Act, falsely asserting that old people would be thrown under the Republican budget bus, or announcing that oil drilling will commence while refusing drilling permits, the pattern is well established.

Republicans, however, seem incapable of either exposing these fabrications, or strongly communicating policy alternatives. Now it appears the Republican leadership is reverting to type, engaging in happy talk about bi-partisan agreement, while sounding retreat. Apparently frightened by irate citizens venting fear of losing entitlements at town halls during the congressional break, faint-hearted Republicans seem to be preparing to declare victory and surrender.

Contradictory messages from the House leadership regarding entitlement reform and deficit reduction are not a sign that the leadership is united behind the principles that secured their majority in 2008. One day it is announced that entitlement reform will be postponed until after the 2012 election; the next day, entitlements are back in contention. Putrefaction has more than one source.

The Founders pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor in the Declaration of independence. Patrick Henry famously declared: “Give me liberty or give me death,” words that characterized the founding generation.