Political Denial . . . Agree To Agree

Denial comes in many forms: the delusion of grandeur ("I am the president of Iraq"); the equivocation ("I voted to support going to war in the right way"); the outright lie ("I did not have sex with that woman"). Another technique—say, if you're stuck in an embarrassing disagreement—is to pretend the disagreement doesn't exist. Some recent examples:



Cia, mia The Bush administration might have been deeply embarrassed by the latest report from the Senate Intelligence Committee citing erroneous conclusions for the war in Iraq—but you'd never know it. In classic rug-sweeping form, White House spokesman Scott McClellan rationalized: The report "agrees with what we have said, which is that we need to take steps to continue strengthening and reforming our intelligence capabilities . . ."



trade off To sidestep his earlier primary tiff with John Edwards over NAFTA, John Kerry told Larry King: "We both believe—I mean, the heart of our disagreement or agreement was that workers in America were not being treated fairly . . . John and I are in agreement that what we need is smart trade, trade that works."



what budget crisis? As budget talks remained stalled in a government shutdown last week, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger fled to his Austrian homeland. But before he did, he offered this piece of reassurance: "Basically, we are in agreement on the budget . . . we're going to work through it."



dust settling In a real stretch, Israeli foreign minister Silvan Shalom deflected U.S. criticism over settlement outposts by saying his country agreed with America that an International Court of Justice ruling on the West Bank separation barrier "should not be used as a propaganda tool by the Palestinians."