Bush Can't Stop Lying

[slash196]

My only solace is knowing that I've never voted for Bush. So I feel very little personal responsibility for his actions.

 

[Whaspe]

Originally posted by: dmcowen674

Originally posted by: DealMonkey
It's no wonder Bush's approval ratings are at such dismal lows -- he can't even talk a straight line to the American public anymore. His latest "campaign offensive," launched against Democrats who have dared to question the administration's flimsy and shifting rationale for war in Iraq, was as pathetic as it was mostly untrue.

Let's examine the two main thrusts of Bush's recent claims:

1.) Congress saw the same intelligence the administration did before the war.

Only partially true. Bush does not share his most sensitive intelligence, such as the President's Daily Brief, with lawmakers. Also, the National Intelligence Estimate summarizing the intelligence community's views about the threat from Iraq was given to Congress just days before the vote to authorize the use of force in that country.

In addition, there were doubts within the intelligence community not included in the NIE. And even the doubts expressed in the NIE could not be used publicly by members of Congress because the classified information had not been cleared for release.

2.) Independent commissions have determined that the administration did not misrepresent the intelligence.

NOT true. The only committee investigating the matter in Congress, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, has not yet done its inquiry into whether officials mischaracterized intelligence by omitting caveats and dissenting opinions.

No wonder the American public no longer supports this idiot, his ability to "straight talk" has been hampered by his increasing penchant for half-truths and outright lies. Go figure.

I think what is even sadder is the Republican supporter parrots especially the ones in here.

They take the GOP Talking points straight from the GOP Brainwashing machine websites and post them verbatim on here.

What is even sadder than that is that it works on the average joe blow religious sheeple.

I can't believe my eyes and ears that I have witnessed how easily it was done to the 1930's Germany of how easily it was done here only 70 years later.

Incredible and sad.

You're stuck with him till 2008, what good is it to have approval ratings? Seems like a waste of resources when all it does is make the militant more militant and those with their heads in the sand digging deeper.

 

[HardWarrior]

Originally posted by: Whaspe

Originally posted by: dmcowen674

Originally posted by: DealMonkey
It's no wonder Bush's approval ratings are at such dismal lows -- he can't even talk a straight line to the American public anymore. His latest "campaign offensive," launched against Democrats who have dared to question the administration's flimsy and shifting rationale for war in Iraq, was as pathetic as it was mostly untrue.

Let's examine the two main thrusts of Bush's recent claims:

1.) Congress saw the same intelligence the administration did before the war.

Only partially true. Bush does not share his most sensitive intelligence, such as the President's Daily Brief, with lawmakers. Also, the National Intelligence Estimate summarizing the intelligence community's views about the threat from Iraq was given to Congress just days before the vote to authorize the use of force in that country.

In addition, there were doubts within the intelligence community not included in the NIE. And even the doubts expressed in the NIE could not be used publicly by members of Congress because the classified information had not been cleared for release.

2.) Independent commissions have determined that the administration did not misrepresent the intelligence.

NOT true. The only committee investigating the matter in Congress, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, has not yet done its inquiry into whether officials mischaracterized intelligence by omitting caveats and dissenting opinions.

No wonder the American public no longer supports this idiot, his ability to "straight talk" has been hampered by his increasing penchant for half-truths and outright lies. Go figure.

I think what is even sadder is the Republican supporter parrots especially the ones in here.

They take the GOP Talking points straight from the GOP Brainwashing machine websites and post them verbatim on here.

What is even sadder than that is that it works on the average joe blow religious sheeple.

I can't believe my eyes and ears that I have witnessed how easily it was done to the 1930's Germany of how easily it was done here only 70 years later.

Incredible and sad.

You're stuck with him till 2008, what good is it to have approval ratings? Seems like a waste of resources when all it does is make the militant more militant and those with their heads in the sand digging deeper.

Wow, what a case study in fatalism. Let's not forget that Clinton was impeached for a lot less than Bush has done.

 

[MicroChrome]

So what bush lied. Who cares. He has been lying for what? ever since he got in to be the gov of texas?

I truly hope everyone will wake up and ask him to step down. I think his ratings will go down even more since no one can trust him anymore.

 

[BBond]

Georgie boy says he didn't lie, he was just misunderstood.

:roll:

What he said -- What he meant

 

[BBond]

Speaking of Bush's myriad lies, there is an excellent (as usual) article from Frank rich in the Sunday NY Times on that very subject...

'We Do Not Torture' and Other Funny Stories

By FRANK RICH

IF it weren't tragic it would be a New Yorker cartoon. The president of the United States, in the final stop of his forlorn Latin America tour last week, told the world, "We do not torture." Even as he spoke, the administration's flagrant embrace of torture was as hard to escape as publicity for Anderson Cooper.

The vice president, not satisfied that the C.I.A. had already been implicated in four detainee deaths, was busy lobbying Congress to give the agency a green light to commit torture in the future. Dana Priest of The Washington Post, having first uncovered secret C.I.A. prisons two years ago, was uncovering new "black sites" in Eastern Europe, where ghost detainees are subjected to unknown interrogation methods redolent of the region's Stalinist past. Before heading south, Mr. Bush had been doing his own bit for torture by threatening to cast the first veto of his presidency if Congress didn't scrap a spending bill amendment, written by John McCain and passed 90 to 9 by the Senate, banning the "cruel, inhuman or degrading" treatment of prisoners.

So when you watch the president stand there with a straight face and say, "We do not torture" - a full year and a half after the first photos from Abu Ghraib - you have to wonder how we arrived at this ludicrous moment. The answer is not complicated. When people in power get away with telling bigger and bigger lies, they naturally think they can keep getting away with it. And for a long time, Mr. Bush and his cronies did. Not anymore.

The fallout from the Scooter Libby indictment reveals that the administration's credibility, having passed the tipping point with Katrina, is flat-lining. For two weeks, the White House's talking-point monkeys in the press and Congress had been dismissing Patrick Fitzgerald's leak investigation as much ado about nothing except politics and as an exoneration of everyone except Mr. Libby. Now the American people have rendered their verdict: they're not buying it. Last week two major polls came up with the identical finding, that roughly 8 in 10 Americans regard the leak case as a serious matter. One of the polls (The Wall Street Journal/NBC News) also found that 57 percent of Americans believe that Mr. Bush deliberately misled the country into war in Iraq and that only 33 percent now find him "honest and straightforward," down from 50 percent in January.

The Bush loyalists' push to discredit the Libby indictment failed because Americans don't see it as a stand-alone scandal but as the petri dish for a wider culture of lying that becomes more visible every day. The last-ditch argument rolled out by Mr. Bush on Veterans Day in his latest stay-the-course speech - that Democrats, too, endorsed dead-wrong W.M.D. intelligence - is more of the same. Sure, many Democrats (and others) did believe that Saddam had an arsenal before the war, but only the White House hyped selective evidence for nuclear weapons, the most ominous of all of Iraq's supposed W.M.D.'s, to whip up public fears of an imminent doomsday.

There was also an entire other set of lies in the administration's prewar propaganda blitzkrieg that had nothing to do with W.M.D.'s, African uranium or the Wilsons. To get the country to redirect its finite resources to wage war against Saddam Hussein rather than keep its focus on the war against radical Islamic terrorists, the White House had to cook up not only the fiction that Iraq was about to attack us, but also the fiction that Iraq had already attacked us, on 9/11. Thanks to the Michigan Democrat Carl Levin, who last weekend released a previously classified intelligence document, we now have conclusive evidence that the administration's disinformation campaign implying a link connecting Saddam to Al Qaeda and 9/11 was even more duplicitous and manipulative than its relentless flogging of nuclear Armageddon.

Senator Levin's smoking gun is a widely circulated Defense Intelligence Agency document from February 2002 that was probably seen by the National Security Council. It warned that a captured Qaeda terrorist in American custody was in all likelihood "intentionally misleading" interrogators when he claimed that Iraq had trained Qaeda members to use illicit weapons. The report also made the point that an Iraq-Qaeda collaboration was absurd on its face: "Saddam's regime is intensely secular and is wary of Islamic revolutionary movements." But just like any other evidence that disputed the administration's fictional story lines, this intelligence was promptly disregarded.

So much so that eight months later - in October 2002, as the White House was officially rolling out its new war and Congress was on the eve of authorizing it - Mr. Bush gave a major address in Cincinnati intermingling the usual mushroom clouds with information from that discredited, "intentionally misleading" Qaeda informant. "We've learned that Iraq has trained Al Qaeda members in bomb-making and poisons and deadly gases," he said. It was the most important, if hardly the only, example of repeated semantic sleights of hand that the administration used to conflate 9/11 with Iraq. Dick Cheney was fond of brandishing a nonexistent April 2001 "meeting" between Mohamed Atta and an Iraqi intelligence officer in Prague long after Czech and American intelligence analysts had dismissed it.

The power of these lies was considerable. In a CBS News/New York Times poll released on Sept. 25, 2001, 60 percent of Americans thought Osama bin Laden had been the culprit in the attacks of two weeks earlier, either alone or in league with unnamed "others" or with the Taliban; only 6 percent thought bin Laden had collaborated with Saddam; and only 2 percent thought Saddam had been the sole instigator. By the time we invaded Iraq in 2003, however, CBS News found that 53 percent believed Saddam had been "personally involved" in 9/11; other polls showed that a similar percentage of Americans had even convinced themselves that the hijackers were Iraqis.

There is still much more to learn about our government's duplicity in the run-up to the war, just as there is much more to learn about what has gone on since, whether with torture or billions of Iraq reconstruction dollars. That is why the White House and its allies, having failed to discredit the Fitzgerald investigation, are now so desperate to slow or block every other inquiry. Exhibit A is the Senate Intelligence Committee, whose Republican chairman, Pat Roberts, is proving a major farceur with his efforts to sidestep any serious investigation of White House prewar subterfuge. Last Sunday, the same day that newspapers reported Carl Levin's revelation about the "intentionally misleading" Qaeda informant, Senator Roberts could be found on "Face the Nation" saying he had found no evidence of "political manipulation or pressure" in the use of prewar intelligence.

His brazenness is not anomalous. After more than two years of looking into the forged documents used by the White House to help support its bogus claims of Saddam's Niger uranium, the F.B.I. ended its investigation without resolving the identity of the forgers. Last week, Jane Mayer of The New Yorker reported that an investigation into the November 2003 death of an Abu Ghraib detainee, labeled a homicide by the U.S. government, has been, in the words of a lawyer familiar with the case, "lying kind of fallow." The Wall Street Journal similarly reported that 17 months after Condoleezza Rice promised a full investigation into Ahmad Chalabi's alleged leaking of American intelligence to Iran, F.B.I. investigators had yet to interview Mr. Chalabi - who was being welcomed in Washington last week as an honored guest by none other than Ms. Rice.

The Times, meanwhile, discovered that Mr. Libby had set up a legal defense fund to be underwritten by donors who don't have to be publicly disclosed but who may well have a vested interest in the direction of his defense. It's all too eerily reminiscent of the secret fund set up by Richard Nixon's personal lawyer, Herbert Kalmbach, to pay the legal fees of Watergate defendants.

THERE'S so much to stonewall at the White House that last week Scott McClellan was reduced to beating up on the octogenarian Helen Thomas. "You don't want the American people to hear what the facts are, Helen," he said, "and I'm going to tell them the facts." Coming from the press secretary who vowed that neither Mr. Libby nor Karl Rove had any involvement in the C.I.A. leak, this scene was almost as funny as his boss's "We do not torture" charade.

Not that it matters now. The facts the American people are listening to at this point come not from an administration that they no longer find credible, but from the far more reality-based theater of war. The Qaeda suicide bombings of three hotels in Amman on 11/9, like the terrorist attacks in Madrid and London before them, speak louder than anything else of the price we are paying for the lies that diverted us from the war against the suicide bombers of 9/11 to the war in Iraq.

 

[HardWarrior]

That's a great find, B. Thanks for the posting.

 

[BBond]

Originally posted by: HardWarrior
That's a great find, B. Thanks for the posting.

You're very welcome, HW. :thumbsup:

 

[imported_Condor]

Originally posted by: kage69
Lets see, huum. All liberals here, all with wet spots on pants. No place for me. Movin' on!


Condor, you never fail to disappoint... It's almost as sorry looking as pabster trying to peg a hatefest on anyone who doesn't share your demented world view. Please, get help. I know it's rough having to defend a political viewpoint with an admin like this in office, but being a straight up @ss isn't helping your efforts.

Just matching my input to the audience.

 

[Bodeanicus]

 

[Aegeon]

Originally posted by: Condor
Just matching my input to the audience.

So in other words you can't effectively respond to the points made about the Bush administration in this thread and you therefore resort to ad hominem attacks against other forum members who bring up these issues.

 

[HardWarrior]

Originally posted by: Aegeon

Originally posted by: Condor
Just matching my input to the audience.

So in other words you can't effectively respond to the points made about the Bush administration in this thread and you therefore resort to ad hominem attacks against other forum members who bring up these issues.

What else do diehard conservatives have? It wasn't too long ago that republicans thought they had cornered the market intellectual politics. Now they're just as emotionally driven as liberals. The facts don't matter, Bush is the man and the truth be damned.

 

[Moonbeam]

It is only lies that maintain the illusion of the emperor's clothes

 

[Bowfinger]

Originally posted by: Condor

Originally posted by: kage69
Lets see, huum. All liberals here, all with wet spots on pants. No place for me. Movin' on!

Condor, you never fail to disappoint... It's almost as sorry looking as pabster trying to peg a hatefest on anyone who doesn't share your demented world view. Please, get help. I know it's rough having to defend a political viewpoint with an admin like this in office, but being a straight up @ss isn't helping your efforts.

Just matching my input to the audience.

That "audience" being the other mindless Bushtrolls, of course. Have you ever contributed anything substantive to any thread here?

(Other than that single thread in which you weren't being a partisan tool, of course. You know the one I'm talking about; you were quite proud of it. Have you ever contributed anything substantive other than that one, solitary example?)

 

[Pabster]

Originally posted by: Bowfinger
That "audience" being the other mindless Bushtrolls, of course. Have you ever contributed anything substantive to any thread here?

You better check the mirror.

 

[Bowfinger]

Originally posted by: Pabster

Originally posted by: Bowfinger
That "audience" being the other mindless Bushtrolls, of course. Have you ever contributed anything substantive to any thread here?

You better check the mirror.

Go play, trollboy. I'd put my record of contributions up against yours any day ... if you had one. You're just like Condor, only far more childish; maybe like Condor when he was 13.

Toodles.

 

[Bowfinger]

Originally posted by: DealMonkey
It's no wonder Bush's approval ratings are at such dismal lows -- he can't even talk a straight line to the American public anymore. His latest "campaign offensive," launched against Democrats who have dared to question the administration's flimsy and shifting rationale for war in Iraq, was as pathetic as it was mostly untrue.

Let's examine the two main thrusts of Bush's recent claims:

1.) Congress saw the same intelligence the administration did before the war.

Only partially true. Bush does not share his most sensitive intelligence, such as the President's Daily Brief, with lawmakers. Also, the National Intelligence Estimate summarizing the intelligence community's views about the threat from Iraq was given to Congress just days before the vote to authorize the use of force in that country.

In addition, there were doubts within the intelligence community not included in the NIE. And even the doubts expressed in the NIE could not be used publicly by members of Congress because the classified information had not been cleared for release.

2.) Independent commissions have determined that the administration did not misrepresent the intelligence.

NOT true. The only committee investigating the matter in Congress, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, has not yet done its inquiry into whether officials mischaracterized intelligence by omitting caveats and dissenting opinions.

No wonder the American public no longer supports this idiot, his ability to "straight talk" has been hampered by his increasing penchant for half-truths and outright lies. Go figure.

Good OP, DM. These two lies have been refuted here over and over, yet the faithful keep parroting them. Sadly, I'm sure that won't change.

There is a new BushCo talking point re. the "same intelligence" canard, however. I heard it twice from Bush spokesmen in the last 24 hours. We'll see how long it takes for the faithful here to pick it up.

 

[imported_Condor]

Originally posted by: Bowfinger

Originally posted by: Condor

Originally posted by: kage69
Lets see, huum. All liberals here, all with wet spots on pants. No place for me. Movin' on!

Condor, you never fail to disappoint... It's almost as sorry looking as pabster trying to peg a hatefest on anyone who doesn't share your demented world view. Please, get help. I know it's rough having to defend a political viewpoint with an admin like this in office, but being a straight up @ss isn't helping your efforts.

Just matching my input to the audience.

That "audience" being the other mindless Bushtrolls, of course. Have you ever contributed anything substantive to any thread here?

(Other than that single thread in which you weren't being a partisan tool, of course. You know the one I'm talking about; you were quite proud of it. Have you ever contributed anything substantive other than that one, solitary example?)

I have about four or five constructive threads to my credit. Remember the real liberal dumb chit that said two cups of coffee was equal to smoking pot? The levees? The Saudi visas? The Maring Security Guard role in the diplomatic community? to name a few. I don't get involved in the extreme stupidity exhibited in the forum relating to national security concerns because that is high risk for me. It is fun to know what I know and to watch you libs pretend to know it all on the subject. Comical!

 

[imported_Condor]

Originally posted by: Pabster

Originally posted by: Bowfinger
That "audience" being the other mindless Bushtrolls, of course. Have you ever contributed anything substantive to any thread here?

You better check the mirror.

:thumbsup:

Funny how I thought the same thing.

 

[1EZduzit]

Originally posted by: Condor

Originally posted by: kage69
Lets see, huum. All liberals here, all with wet spots on pants. No place for me. Movin' on!


Condor, you never fail to disappoint... It's almost as sorry looking as pabster trying to peg a hatefest on anyone who doesn't share your demented world view. Please, get help. I know it's rough having to defend a political viewpoint with an admin like this in office, but being a straight up @ss isn't helping your efforts.

Just matching my input to the audience.

Just like Bush does?? LMAO!!

 

[Starbuck1975]

There is a new BushCo talking point re. the "same intelligence" canard, however. I heard it twice from Bush spokesmen in the last 24 hours. We'll see how long it takes for the faithful here to pick it up.

Our elected representatives are the only in our nation with the power to declare war, or otherwise support the President in his decision to commit American troops to combat operations...it is not a decision to be taken lightly, and especially considering the conditions for the war in Iraq, our lawmakers certainly had the power to delay or stall the invasion until all the facts were in.

The problem the Democrats faced was that after 9/11, the nation wanted a response...an enemy...something...anything...the Bush Administration may very well have fabricated an intelligence picture for justifying a pre-emptive strike against Iraq...the Democrats faced a President at the time who had the support of the nation, and approved of his handling of Afghanistan.

Kind of hypocritical for the Democrats to come back now and attack the President when his ratings are down, when they failed to do so when his ratings were up...possibly out of fear for the potential public or political fallout for doing so in the months and weeks before Iraq.

A bi-partisan investigation is certainly necessary at this juncture, but for the Democrats to pretend that they were deceived is ludicrous...all of our elected representatives who voted for the war in Iraq are partially responsible for it.

 

[imported_Condor]

Originally posted by: 1EZduzit

Originally posted by: Condor

Originally posted by: kage69
Lets see, huum. All liberals here, all with wet spots on pants. No place for me. Movin' on!


Condor, you never fail to disappoint... It's almost as sorry looking as pabster trying to peg a hatefest on anyone who doesn't share your demented world view. Please, get help. I know it's rough having to defend a political viewpoint with an admin like this in office, but being a straight up @ss isn't helping your efforts.

Just matching my input to the audience.

Just like Bush does?? LMAO!!

Yeah, he does tone down the pedantic stuff in his speeches. I never thought of it, but I bet you are right. He knows he is addressing liberals and tries to get to thier level. Go Bush!

 

[1EZduzit]

Originally posted by: Condor

Originally posted by: 1EZduzit

Originally posted by: Condor

Originally posted by: kage69
Lets see, huum. All liberals here, all with wet spots on pants. No place for me. Movin' on!


Condor, you never fail to disappoint... It's almost as sorry looking as pabster trying to peg a hatefest on anyone who doesn't share your demented world view. Please, get help. I know it's rough having to defend a political viewpoint with an admin like this in office, but being a straight up @ss isn't helping your efforts.

Just matching my input to the audience.

Just like Bush does?? LMAO!!

Yeah, he does tone down the pedantic stuff in his speeches. I never thought of it, but I bet you are right. He knows he is addressing liberals and tries to get to thier level. Go Bush!

Bush tries to get to their level?? LMAO again. Out here in the west we have an old saying, all a steer can do is TRY. :laugh:

 

[Red Dawn]

Originally posted by: Starbuck1975

There is a new BushCo talking point re. the "same intelligence" canard, however. I heard it twice from Bush spokesmen in the last 24 hours. We'll see how long it takes for the faithful here to pick it up.

Our elected representatives are the only in our nation with the power to declare war, or otherwise support the President in his decision to commit American troops to combat operations...it is not a decision to be taken lightly, and especially considering the conditions for the war in Iraq, our lawmakers certainly had the power to delay or stall the invasion until all the facts were in.

The problem the Democrats faced was that after 9/11, the nation wanted a response...an enemy...something...anything...the Bush Administration may very well have fabricated an intelligence picture for justifying a pre-emptive strike against Iraq...the Democrats faced a President at the time who had the support of the nation, and approved of his handling of Afghanistan.

Kind of hypocritical for the Democrats to come back now and attack the President when his ratings are down, when they failed to do so when his ratings were up...possibly out of fear for the potential public or political fallout for doing so in the months and weeks before Iraq.

A bi-partisan investigation is certainly necessary at this juncture, but for the Democrats to pretend that they were deceived is ludicrous...all of our elected representatives who voted for the war in Iraq are partially responsible for it.

I agree, the Democrat Politicians were cowardly in their support of the Dub's pre conceived and pre-determined war against Iraq. On the other hand the American public were led done the primerose path by the Dub into supporting this ill advised and ill conceived war assisted by these cowardly Democrat Politicians who were more worried about their re-elections in the near future instead of doing the right thing even if it would have been unpopular at the time. That still doesn't absolve the Dub and his handlers from making the big fsck up of invading Iraq and totally underestimating the resistence they'd face.

 

[imported_Condor]

Originally posted by: Starbuck1975

There is a new BushCo talking point re. the "same intelligence" canard, however. I heard it twice from Bush spokesmen in the last 24 hours. We'll see how long it takes for the faithful here to pick it up.

Our elected representatives are the only in our nation with the power to declare war, or otherwise support the President in his decision to commit American troops to combat operations...it is not a decision to be taken lightly, and especially considering the conditions for the war in Iraq, our lawmakers certainly had the power to delay or stall the invasion until all the facts were in.

The problem the Democrats faced was that after 9/11, the nation wanted a response...an enemy...something...anything...the Bush Administration may very well have fabricated an intelligence picture for justifying a pre-emptive strike against Iraq...the Democrats faced a President at the time who had the support of the nation, and approved of his handling of Afghanistan.

Kind of hypocritical for the Democrats to come back now and attack the President when his ratings are down, when they failed to do so when his ratings were up...possibly out of fear for the potential public or political fallout for doing so in the months and weeks before Iraq.

A bi-partisan investigation is certainly necessary at this juncture, but for the Democrats to pretend that they were deceived is ludicrous...all of our elected representatives who voted for the war in Iraq are partially responsible for it.

I think it is kind of neat. They represent Bush as being of low IQ and themselves as the intellectual elites and yet want to convince the nation that Bush, the ape, completely pulled the wool over their eyes. The thing that always trips them up is that they just can't have it both ways. Either they knew the whole story and supported it honestly or Bush was so much more intelligent than the liberal left that he fooled them all. What a quandry for them. Fortunately, there are a lot of video clips that are proof of the real story. Those bells that they just can't unring!