How Many Lies Can Bush Tell?

On Monday, President Bush finally commented on the Libby leak case. Bush is the nearly perfect con man. He can spin, lie, talk out of the side of his mouth, parse, propagandize, disinform, you name it, he can do it. But in this era of blogs, a persons words can be analyized and fact checked better than the media does it. The media is so quick to air the news in a limited air time allowance, that they don't spend enough time getting into the deep details.

Bush said on Monday, "I wanted people to see the truth. You're not supposed to talk about classified information and so I declassified the document. I thought it was important for people to get a better sense for why I was saying what I was saying in my speeches."

So here we go. First, Bush actually didn't want people to see the truth, he's a liar! If he really had wanted this truth crap, he would have declassified the entire National Intelligence Estimate that had deeply buried in it the small portion of questionable intelligence about this idea that Saddam tried to purchase uranium yellowcake from Niger. Prior to this Bush transfer of classified material to Lewis Libby through Dick Cheney, Colin Powell had already informed one newspaper that the yellowcake story was not sound. The intelligence report itself questioned the yellowcake validity. So Bush is now saying that he wanted people (that's us) to see the truth, but the only truth he wanted us to see at that time was information that was not truthful. Pure propaganda!

Bush now is claiming he declassified the National Intelligence Estimate simply by allowing Cheney using Libby to spread the yellowcake propaganda. From all the information I've seen, there is a procedure for declassifying a classified document, Bush followed no procedure. The NIE wasn't declassified until 10 days later. Prior to this, reporters were beginning to demand that the report be made available and Condelezza Rice refused.

So why would Bush now claim "I thought it was important for people to get a better sense for why I was saying what I was saying in my speeches," if the yellowcake story was already proven false, claimed so by Colin Powell and CIA Director George Tenet prior to the leak? Because Bush was getting slammed by Joe Wilson about those 16 words in The State of the Union speech where Bush claimed Saddam was seeking the yellowcake, which was known by the Bush Administration as being at best dubious at the time of that speech. That "better sense" he wanted Americans to have is clear, to get Americans to believe information that by the time of the leak was discredited by many including Colin Powell. Bush wanted Americans to be propagandized with false information, that's the "better sense" he wanted Americans to have.

Those three sentences from Monday that Bush spoke in explaining the leak were just more lies and bullshit. Bush didn't want people to see the truth. Bush didn't declassify (declassified by his definition, not procedurely) anything but a line or two from a huge document. And Bush certainly didn't want people to have a better sense.
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But here are some more lies from Monday's speech, this time about the Iran war plan.

Speaking about the report in The New Yorker written by Seymour Hersh that there is a war plan developing for Iran, Bush said this, "I read the articles in the newspapers this weekend, it was just wild speculation."

This is such obvious bullcrap it almost isn't worth commenting on, but I will. It would be absolutely inconceivable to believe that there has never been a plan, that there currently is not a plan and that there are no future considerations to a war with Iran. There are war plans for virtually every country on the planet, they are called contingency plans. And to claim that such a contingency plan is "wild speculation" is blatently a lie. To insinuate that the Pentagon hasn't been looking at those contingency plans due to the White House bluster towards Iran in recent months whether the White House advised the Pentagon or not, is completely disingenous.

The fact is, our government led by Bush would have to be completely comatose to not have Iran war plans being developed and considered after the war threats made by Bush and others coming from the White House. We know from this administration that when they make threats they certainly might follow through (Iraq). Unless they are like some ineffectual teacher in elementary school repeatedly telling an unruly pupil that a time-out is going to happen and never actually instituting the penalty. The Bush Administration doesn't ever want to be an ineffectual teacher even it requires beatin the pupil into a pulp rather than consider using a time-out. The Bush diplomacy tenet in a nut shell, threaten to bomb and then bomb even if there is no valid justification.

As to a possible Iran War people should actually listen to President Bush when he once butchered a famous phrase, "Fool me once, shame on—shame on you. Fool me—you can't get fooled again." In other words, don't be fooled by Bush again. Of course I wasn't fooled the first time about Iraq, although I did wonder if he might back off before the shock and awe started.

Certainly the rhetoric against Iran has a certain pre-Iraq War common theme. Begin the bluster, threaten the country, float the idea to the public, inflate the threat, begin unknown to the public manuveurs against the country, etc., etc. I will believe intensely that a war with Iran is the plan. Better to assume the track record is repeatable than to be fooled later on.