Sticking to His Story, No Matter How Misleading

If kudos were handed out for persistence, Cliff Slater's trophy case would be full. But Mr. Slater also has earned his share of anti-kudos for persistently using misleading arguments in his decades-old fight to stop rail transit in Honolulu.

We pointed out recently why Mr. Slater has earned the title of Obfuscator in Chief. After you read that post, consider something posted at his anti-rail site just yesterday:

“The Final EIS already says, ‘traffic congestion will be worse in the future with rail than what it is today without rail.’" As usual, Mr. Slater stops there without telling, as Paul Harvey used to say, the rest of the story.

The rest of the story surely would include Mr. Slater’s statement on July 14 during the City Council’s hearing on the rail Final Environmental Impact Statement:

“We don’t disagree at all that rail will have an effect on reducing traffic congestion from what it might be if we did nothing at all,” said Mr. Slater. In other words, after being cornered at the Council hearing, he actually had to admit that rail will reduce traffic congestion from what it would grow to if rail transit were not built.

The rest of the story surely also would include City Transportation Services Director Wayne Yoshioka’s humorous take on Mr. Slater’s well-worn one-liner: “…No kidding, in the future, traffic congestion will be greater than it is today. I don’t think that’s any earth-shattering news. I think what the difference is, is that without the rail in the future, traffic congestion will be much worse than with the rail, and I think that’s the whole point of the discussion would be….”

So we finally have Mr. Slater agreeing with Mr. Yoshioka on a key point: With rail, traffic congestion will be less in the future than if rail weren’t built.

That has the ring of truth to it. Mr. Slater’s one-liner? Not so much.