Posted on: Thursday, February 12, 2004

EDITORIAL
Lingle office stumbles on public disclosure

There were certainly legitimate security reasons for the shroud of secrecy surrounding Gov. Linda Lingle's surprise trip to Iraq this week with five other governors.

But surely security could have been achieved without the need to deliberately mislead the public about where she was and what she was doing. In doing so, Lingle's office turned a benign, if perhaps unnecessary, trip into a controversy over the candor of her office.

The invitation, which gave Lingle a chance to visit with some troops from Hawai'i and to get a firsthand look at conditions in Iraq, came directly from the White House.

The six governors who made the trip were hand-selected by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.

We're sure we will hear more from the governor about what she learned on the trip and what Iraq might mean for Hawa'i-based service members already there or due for deployment in the future.

Some will question whether this trip was more than an elaborate photo op or PR stunt. That's open to debate. From all appearances, troops on the ground were pleased with an in-person visit from their home state's chief executive.

The invitation to go on the trip came with instructions that it had to be kept completely secret until the delegation was safe on the ground in Baghdad.

It was reminiscent of the cloud of misdirection and secrecy that surrounded President Bush's Thanksgiving trip to Iraq.

But in its zeal to keep the lid on this trip, the Lingle administration went too far. Both in briefings and in written releases, the administration consciously misled about the governor's whereabouts, suggesting she was in Hawai'i when she was en route to Iraq.

While the motivation was surely to protect Lingle and the other governors and to follow White House instructions, the handling of this matter got off base.

Even though the White House asked the governors to prevent any leaks about the trip beforehand, it certainly did not suggest that any of them provide misinformation about it. Silence would have worked.

There are many different ways this could have been handled. Lingle's office could simply have said she had no public schedule for those couple of days or that she was off-island for reasons that could not be immediately disclosed.

Such comments might not have been completely satisfying to a public that expects to know what its governor is up to, but they would not have been false.

If anything, the administration has been aggressive and professional in communicating with the public. That good work has been damaged by this, we hope aberrant, incident.

We assume this stumble does not represent the underlying public information policy of the Lingle administration.

The task ahead, then, for the Lingle administration will be to rebuild a sense of trust between itself and the public.

We want our governor to be informed, we want her to be safe, and we want to believe that what she tells us is the truth.