Friday, June 01, 2007

This Week's Bush Administration Lies

No I haven't forgotten about politics. Here's a round up of some of the Bush administrations lies from this week.

Andrew Sullivan takes up the fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them here lie in Do Republicans Get The Terror Threat?: "The president's trope has been that we're fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them over here. It's a notion dependent on the absurd idea that a disparate, lateral organization of religious fanatics is somehow unable to to both. The truth appears to be: we are training them over there so they can come and murder us over here. We are honing their guerrilla skills by night, have provided them training by day, have either given them arms ourselves, or allowed Iran and Syria to send munitions. The icing on the cake is that the chaotic occupation has allowed some terrorists to skim the oil export industry for the money to keep the killing going indefinitely, and that the maintenance of an occupation of the Muslim country provides an over-arching motive for a new wave of terror. And so all we're doing is waiting to see when this wave of Bush-created terror comes ashore."

The AP attacks Bush's lies about polls on Iraq, The Bush take on US opinion: "Bush said: "I recognize there are a handful there, or some, who just say, `Get out, you know, it's just not worth it. Let's just leave.' I strongly disagree with that attitude. Most Americans do as well." In fact, polls show Americans do not disagree, and that leaving — not winning — is their main goal.

TPMmuchraker adds to this with other White House comments about polls and about Gonzales and concluded with, "the White House's attitude toward public opinion: claim public support for policies that do not have it; when challenged, explain that the public isn't really saying what it's saying; and when confronted with inarguable evidence of public disapproval, claim indifference. It's quite a dance."

Think Progress reports Bush Officials Spreading Lie About Governor Who Blew Whistle On National Guard Shortages. In May, Kansas, Gov. Kathleen Sebelius (D-KS) said the Iraq war was straining the Kansas National Guard's ability to respond to natural disasters. Robert Novak is reporting that "Bush administration officials...are putting out word that she was two days late at the disaster scene because she was attending a jazz festival in New Orleans." Think Progress calls the claim completely false, "Sebelius didn’t attend any of the jazz festival and left her family in New Orleans, flying back Saturday afternoon using a plane arranged by Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco."

grist points out that Bush's new climate strategy is really just a delaying tactic. He proposes new meetings, ignoring the meetings (UN COP, G8 Summits, etc.) going on since 1995 that he's been ignoring. They go into details and conclude: "As you can see -- and as you would expect -- this announcement from Bush is not a genuine change of heart on climate change. The U.S. still will not agree to any emission reduction targets. It will not agree that the developed countries bear primary responsibility for climate change. It will not sign on to the growing consensus among developed nations about how to tackle the problem. This announcement is an attempt to run out the clock on the Bush administration without committing to anything but sweetheart deals for corporate backers."

This isn't really a lie but a false analogy. "President George W. Bush would like to see a lengthy U.S. troop presence in Iraq like the one in South Korea to provide stability but not in a frontline combat role, the White House said on Wednesday." Josh Marshall points out some reasons this comparison isn't a good one and the model doesn't apply. "The more telling dissimilarity is the distinction between frontline troops and troops for stability. At least notionally (and largely this was true) US troops have been in South Korea to ward off an invasion from the North. US troops aren't in Iraq to ward off any invasion. Invasion from who? Saudi Arabia? Syria?"

This week also had new news about older (more serious) lies. "Special counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald has made it clearer than ever that he was hot on the trail of a coordinated campaign to out CIA agent Valerie Plame until that line of investigation was cut off by the repeated lies from Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby."

Do we really need to wait 1.5 years for a new administration? I'm not sure I can take it.

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