Once, twice, 935 times a liar.
January 23rd, 2008This is from Yahoo News.
A study by two nonprofit journalism organizations found that President Bush and top administration officials issued hundreds of false statements about the national security threat from Iraq in the two years following the 2001 terrorist attacks.
The study counted 935 false statements in the two-year period. It found that in speeches, briefings, interviews and other venues, Bush and administration officials stated unequivocally on at least 532 occasions that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction or was trying to produce or obtain them or had links to al-Qaida or both.
Maybe this is why Bush has had so much trouble convincing us all to go along with him on his war on Iran. I remember when the story came out about the Iranian boats harassing U.S. warships, I actually found it easier to believe IRAN’S version of the story over our own government. That is when you know the President is polling low in the honest and trustworthy categories.
January 23rd, 2008 at 8:01 am
For what it’s worth, the study goes to great lengths to characterize the information as “false” and “erroneous,” but it doesn’t say that the Bush administration did so willfully or knowingly (i.e., that it “lied”). For instance, hurricane forecasters last year saying 935 times that last season would be “the worst ever,” but the hurricane season ends up being perfectly normal, have provided “false” and “erroneous” information, but only identifiable as such in hindsight. It’s quite another thing to say that they “lied,” i.e., that they intentionally provided false information with the knowledge that it was false. That, I think, is the crucial distinction. Whether the administration was incompetent, blinded by alternative desires in its quest for war, or seriously misjudged the global intelligent is the matter for debate (indeed, the article blames Bush for “ignoring or distorting the available intelligence,” but never for “lying,” particularly because Bush was being selective with information, but that information did nonetheless exist). I, however, would argue that “lying,” at least from this report, is, at best, dubious.
Additionally, though both organizations are “nonprofit,” they’re not exactly unbiased. Take TFJI’s timeline of pre-9/11 and post-9/11 journalism; it’s clear their intention is to paint the Bush administration in as negative a light as possible.
Just to provide an alternative view on the subject….
January 23rd, 2008 at 11:56 am
Sorry, Derek! You cannot to continue to defend these guys.
Liar, liar, pants on fire—that is our administration. ” Being selective with information??” What the heck does that mean? As more and more items come to the surface it is time to admit that the Bush administration had an agenda that had/has nothing to do with the hopes, desires and beliefs of the rest of this country. They probably haven’t lied about EVERYTHING but they certainly have made a mess of everything they have touched.
The environment, the economy, the war, treatment of veterans, FEMA—it is all under their watch and as they go skipping happily off into the sunset in a year I doubt that their delusional little minds will experience one moment of remorse. I’m sure that their memory is as selective as their information. About all those missing e-mail????
And by the way I fully support all those non-profits that are painting the Bush administration in the most negative light possible—broad strokes if you please!!!
January 23rd, 2008 at 3:16 pm
Take a look at this video…
http://www.crooksandliars.com/Media/Play/14267/2/Hardball-DickChe.mov/
and yes, it is hosted on a very liberal blog, I apologize for that. And you can make the arguement that Cheney simply forgot his exact wording after three years, but this happened time and time again. In the months after 9/11 the administration talked in absolutes, this has to happen, they are certainly doing this, WMD’s WMD’s WMD’s. If the information provided to them was false, they didn’t spend much time confirming the sources before running with it.
When Cheney says “There is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction…”, and then it turns out that Saddan doesn’t, that is a lie. He lied to the American people. He didn’t say pretty sure, or “intelligence sources believe”, but that there was “no doubt”. I am 100% sure that there was atleast one person, one report, one CIA analyst who had a doubt.
Also “once, twice, 935 times a misinformationist” doesn’t read as well.