Bush Lies, Americans Die
January 23, 2008Crooks and Liars has the lowdown on the two nonprofit groups that discovered 935 false statements in a two year period. John Amato, who does a great job chronicling the lies the crooks keep telling us went into the C&L archives to show exactly the kind of deception we’ve been getting from the most crooked administration in our lifetime. Cheney is caught red-handed lying about something he had said on Meet the Press.
Today, the AP presents further proof of the despicable behavior of BushCo, showing what the Center for Public Integrity along with the Fund for Independence in Journalism discovered.
The study concluded that the statements “were part of an orchestrated campaign that effectively galvanized public opinion and, in the process, led the nation to war under decidedly false pretenses.” 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.“It is now beyond dispute that Iraq did not possess any weapons of mass destruction or have meaningful ties to al-Qaida,” according to Charles Lewis and Mark Reading-Smith of the Fund for Independence in Journalism staff members, writing an overview of the study. “In short, the Bush administration led the nation to war on the basis of erroneous information that it methodically propagated and that culminated in military action against Iraq on March 19, 2003.”
And who are the biggest liars of them all?
Bush led with 259 false statements, 231 about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and 28 about Iraq’s links to al-Qaida, the study found. That was second only to Powell’s 244 false statements about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and 10 about Iraq and al-Qaida.
My question is, does Crooks and Liars keep track of Iraq’s, Iran’s Korea’s and other country’s leaders and if so, where is the outrage for them from you? Or do they not lie?
The Right wing are pushing that George Soros is behind the funding of this group…So what…BushCo still lied the U.S into war…I’m sure Billo will have something to say on the matter tonight.
But of course the Clintons are ultimately to blame.
Thanks for helping my side, hsuk. I hear from certains sources that George Soros is funding this group. I wonder how well this stuff can be trusted.
Also: depends on what “false statement” constitutes if you want to start parsing words. Everyone thought Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, including most Democrats and, as hsuk keenly mentioned, the Clintons.
And I’m not sure how taking intelligence information that is unknowingly flawed and using it to try to get rid of weapons of mass destruction is considered lying. Bush didn’t know it was flawed. Sure, they all exaggerated on the certainty of weapons of mass destruction: I will grant you all on the left that one point. But there WAS intelligence there that pointed to it. The dog & pony show of the inspectors couldn’t guarantee a dang thing.
Bush is an evil warmonger who is taking away rights, but if a dirty nuke were to explode in New York, then he is to blame. It’s easy to complain when we are all being protected. It is ironic that the people most against fighting terrorists (i.e. big city liberals) are the ones who would be targeted first. I’m in rural Tennessee. I won’t be targeted.
When a dog bites a man, it’s not news.
So someone counted the number of speeches. We already knew that there was a belief in Iraq’s having active WMD programs.
Then there’s this…
“It is now beyond dispute that Iraq did not possess any weapons of mass destruction…”
So, the Monday morning quarterback now gets to call the real quarterback a liar for calling a bad play (arguably) with incorrect information? And I don’t know how “beyond dispute” it is. There certainly are intelligent, informed people who do dispute it. What it is, is beyond relevance.
This issue will always be debated.
“What did you know and when did you know it, Mr. Bush, et al?”
I try to stay neutral, but, really, unless this is in conjunction with an actual effort with a realistic chance to impeach Bush, this seems a mostly pointless endevour, and a rehash of old arguments that will otherwise lead nowhere, though the motive of impeachment is already alleged. Agree with it or not, it’s one of the best reasons for going over the issue of the Administration’s honesty.
I mean that in an objective, prosecutorial sense.
“Everyone thought Iraq had weapons of mass destruction” because we were all told 500+ times “we know what they have, and we know where it is.”
“It’s a slam dunk.”
The sheer imcompetance is criminal.
My question is, why doesn’t Hannity & Colmes report on this?