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The Bush Regime’s False Statements

May 18, 2013 By Leave a Comment

Given the Republican obsession with Benghazi talking points, it’s time for a very specific flashback. In 2008, two non partisan groups released a study that determined that President Bush and his top aides made 935 false statements about the security risk posed by Iraq in the two years following September 11, 2001.

These statements were part of a deliberate campaign, according to the study conducted by the Center for Public Integrity and the Fund for Independence in Journalism. They concluded, “The false statements dramatically increased in August 2002, with congressional consideration of a war resolution, then escalated through the mid-term elections and spiked even higher from January 2003 to the eve of the invasion… 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.”
The study’s conclusions were further reinforced when former Bush White House press secretary Scott McClellan wrote, “top Bush aides had outlined a strategy for carefully orchestrating the coming campaign to aggressively sell the war… In the permanent campaign era, it was all about manipulating sources of public opinion to the president’s advantage.” (What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception)
According to the study, then President George W Bush made 232 false statements about Iraq and former leader Saddam Hussein’s possessing weapons of mass destruction, and 28 false statements about Iraq’s links to al Qaeda…

http://refreshingnews99.blogspot.in/2013/05/bush-and-his-aides-made-935-false.html

Aren’t we only supposed to “look forward?”  Just sayin’.  Related:

Prompted by Peggy Noonan’s claim in The Wall Street Journal that “we are in the midst of the worst Washington scandal since Watergate,” Andrew Sullivan steps forward to defend Pres. Obama’s honor. “Can she actually believe this?,” he asks incredulously. “Has this president broken the law, lied under oath, or authorized war crimes? Has he traded arms for hostages with Iran? Has he knowingly sent his cabinet out to tell lies about his sex life? Has he sat by idly as an American city was destroyed by a hurricane? Has he started a war with no planning for an occupation? Has he started a war based on a lie, and destroyed the US’ credibility and moral standing while he was at it, leaving nothing but a smoldering and now rekindled civil sectarian war?”

An Obama critic, having overplayed her hand, gave Sullivan an opening to respond with what amounts to, “It isn’t as bad as Watergate, nor as bad as George W. Bush.” Let’s concede those points. I don’t much care what Obama’s Republican critics say about him. The scandals they’re presently touting, bad as two of them are, aren’t even the worst of Team Obama’s transgressions.

I have a stronger critique. Sullivan hasn’t internalized the worst of what Obama’s done, because his notion of scandal is implicitly constrained by whatever a president’s partisan opponents tout as scandalous. If they criticize Obama wrongly, he defends Obama proportionately.

To see what he’s forgotten as a result, let’s run once more through the first questions in Sullivan’s latest Obama apologia…

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/05/the-biggest-obama-scandals-are-proven-and-ignored/275960/

Nancy Pelosi’s take:

Jay Carney and Nancy Pelosi are trying to outdo each other in passing off the scandals the Obama administration is under fire for as just controversies concocted by Republicans. Pelosi said it’s because Obama is just such “visionary” and a “great president,” who the Republicans fear so they exploit these little issues that come up. Yeah, that’s it…

It’s still somewhat unbelievable that this wretched woman was ever the Speaker of the House. Good grief.

http://www.fromthetrenchesworldreport.com/pelosi-gop-making-up-scandals-because-obama-is-a-visionary/44483#more-44483

 

Filed Under: History, Politics, War

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