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While we endure another round of FISA baloney from Bush and his enablers, a study by two nonprofit journalism organizations found that President Bush and top administration officials issued several hundred of false statements about the threat from Iraq in the two years following 9/11.
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 was posted Tuesday on the Web site of the Center for Public Integrity, which worked with the Fund for Independence in Journalism...
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." ...
The center said the study was based on a database created with public statements over the two years beginning on Sept. 11, 2001, and information from more than 25 government reports, books, articles, speeches and interviews.
"The cumulative effect of these false statements — amplified by thousands of news stories and broadcasts — was massive, with the media coverage creating an almost impenetrable din for several critical months in the run-up to war," the study concluded.
Still, seems a tad low, but then it doesn't count the last nearly five years.
Good thing all of these people have been called to account and our policy errors corrected by more rational decision and planning.
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Impeach.
Convict.
I am America’s only insomniac.
I eagerly await the bizarre spectacle of Bush delivering his State of the Union speech. I’ll be entranced by all that scripted, wholly orchestrated cheering after every third sentence. There will be numerous standing ovations, while he looks over the crowd, and winks, and smirks, and nods, and then continues.
There will be tight closeups of fat faces twisted in adoration and rapture. Their eyes will tell us what’s in their hearts: God bless you, Mr. President! You are doing GOD’S work!
Lies? What lies? There are no lies, only eternal truths. Like: 9/11 changed everything. We must fight them over there, so we don’t have to fight them here. That Freedom will spread like wildfire all over the globe. The surge is WORKING. And on and on and on.
The real horror here is not the obscene lies Bush tells at the drop of a hat, but rather those who are complicit in the lies. The elite of the MSM. The wimps like Harry reid and other Democrats who cave to every single demand made by the Moron In Chief.
363!
Before they lied about Iraq and their intentions, they lied about their economic policies. Joseph Stiglitz today on some desirable features of a stimulus package.
The tragedy of opportunity cost (ht Juan Cole):
“How the Iraq war’s $2 trillion cost to U.S. could have been spent”
OK, pelosi is TRYING to claim that if there were evidence of impeachable offenses she WOULD impeach
WE MUST CALL HER OUT
we must begin calling her “Nancy bush”, “the bush enabler”
“partner in high crimes to the bush administration”
WE MUST FORCE HER HAND
because she has reneged her oath of office, she is an enabler to high crimes, she is in therefore a party and in league with these crimes and she too must be brought and stand before the bar of justice
ENOUGH IS ENOUGH
there is one thing missing from this report
I think it’s language is not quite strong enough
I think it NEEDS to say “deliberately lied for the purpose of lead us to war and undermined our efforts against terrorism”
I would also like it to add but understand why this is not in there too
“by proceeding with their predetermined agenda to bring war regardless of the facts, they facilitated, strengthened and gave comfort to the enemy”
the only purpose was to redistribute middle class wealth to their pockets
and the premium is astounding in it’s inefficiency, they didn’t care
to launder this money, they turned trillions of dollars in assets to billions of dollars in personal profit
at the cost of our national security, our infrastructure, the worlds economic security, the worlds military security, the integrity of the united states
and with the cost of our children’s lives, the family they leave behind, the family they will never have
NANCY PELOSI, YOU HAVE AN OATH TO HONOR AND A DUTY TO FULFILL
YOUR COUNTRY IS IN NEED OF YOUR SERVICE, A SERVICE YOU HAVE PROMISED TO PROVIDE
363 363 363 363 363 363 363 363 363
Data?? We don’t need no stinking data!! The wingnuttosphere is a fact-free zone. Data don’t matter. We’re winning in Iraq you DFH!!
Nancy Pelosi: support impeachment hearings at least on Cheney. His imperial Rasputin-essque record must be called to account as a matter of public and historical fact. The integrity of our entire system depends on it.
Virtually every dollar in the military budget, aside from direct pay and health care goes to some corporation.
War is robbery.
Stop the madness. Kill the military.
Get rid of the fed and bank interest. Banks are printing money and enslaving people to debt.
Good morning, pups. MoDo is all alone in the NYT today, in South Carolina, sharpening her claws on Hillary. She says it’s odd that the first woman with a shot at becoming president is so openly dependent on her husband to drag her over the finish line.
http://mgpaquin.wordpress.com/
The coffee, tea and hot chocolate are ready, and I’ve got toasted Thomas’ English muffins. (If you haven’t tried the whole wheat one, do. They’re delicious.) Have a great day.
Cold Morning!
and Marion thanks for the English muffins, love to watch the butter melt…
Here’s what’s on
WASHINGTON JOURNAL
Wednesday, Jan. 23
7am - Newspaper Articles & Phones
7:10am - Brad Warthen, The State (SC), Editorial Page Editor
7:30am - Rep. John Campbell (R-CA), Budget Committee, Member
8am - Rep. Allyson Schwartz (D-PA), Budget Committee, Member
8:30am - Peter Morici, University of Maryland, International Business Professor
Here’s a linky to the Center For Public Integrity study.
perris are you still sailing the seven seas?
I suppose the number would be higher if the 10 million emails that are missing from the White House were found.
modofo is unhappy because no man would be her partner
Maureen is on her way to being Liz Trotta
James Fallows on teh Terror.
Wake me up when they find one thing they’ve told the truth about.
The 25%er argument would be, “So many people would not have made so many statements if they were not true.”
(I know, because I sit next to an otherwise rational co-worker who firmly beleives “If Al Gore was President we would be speaking Arabic”
that’s a deep hibernation
If anyone with half a brain doesn’t believe that the people are lied to every single day about almost everything going down they are out to lunch.
99.99% of people don’t know where money comes from, what it is, and how we are ALL enslaved to banks by debt.. debt we are encouraged to take on.
Our lives are driven by a bunch of greedy cynical bastards who lust for power, wealth and control… and sadly they have it. All we seem to be able to do is whine about how unfair things are.
We need some serious direct action to change the statues quo and we need a regime change and a whole paradigm shift. Our laws don’t protect us, they enslave us. Out lawmakers don’t protect us, they facilitate our enslavement, abuse and rob us of our hard work.
Wake up people. Time is long long past to take back your rights, your lives and your nation.
Struggle!
MoDo needs a mojo to shut her up. She can be funny but she is also annoying and usually irrelevant.
I stopped reading these assholes.
Go away MoDo.
There are so few good minds in the MSM. Don’t waste your money on that rubbish… nor your time.
We should inundate Pelosi in copies of Hugh’s list!!
Great comment.
It’s been a subtext so far in the BigMedia storylines, and I expect it to become front and center after the nominees are chosen, but all these people who have supported the Mass Killings will attempt to distance themselves from the Shrub Administration. They’ll blame everything on Shrub, and claim they will be the ones to make things “right” now. They’ll totally ignore the fact that they have enabled the hundreds of thousands of deaths and the hundreds of billions of dollars stolen, all at the expense of the “little people.” They don’t just enable the Mass Murders - they aggressively mock and shout down those who question the BigLies. We cannot let them get away with this!
Yes, these “speeches” are very, very creepy to watch.
I think I’ll try reading “War Is a Racket” during this years spectacle.
http://warisaracket.com/
And we should support an alternative to the Mass Murderer enabler:
http://cindyforcongress.com/
We need to demand better. More and Better! (yes, left off the “Democrats”)
It really is going to be painful to watch this year. I mean it’s always painful to watch Bush speak, but -just ick. I feel it’s my responsibility as a citizen to watch it though. I do every year. Maybe that would be a good night to shoot beers.
Or mainline Zanax.
back, had a gathering with my friends for my b-day party, returned yesterday, had to be home with my dad on my birthday which is today
Perhaps have a shot of whiskey each time the Killer-in-Thief says, “September the 11th”?
Oh wait, we’d probably end up dead from alcohol poisoning. Nevermind. Zanax all the way!
The only way I can tolerate it is with the sound off. He’s bad enough to look at, but the sound of his voice just makes me wild at this point…
Happy Happy Birthday perris!
sounds like you had a fun celebration.
Hope you have a nice day with your Dad today.
oh I know, I know…
Let’s just hope that whoever gets to be President next decides to press some charges against Bush and Cheney.
Marion,
My morning is alway better even if my breakfast is sameoldsameold. thank for the cheerup, daily.
On the cheer up side, in addition to 2 fewer days, there are two fewer republicans running, Thompson and Baby Blount, Gov. MO. Since Blount had adverts up, it is likely he is not running because he is running from something big, most likely corruption.
I need those cheerups personally. I hope the pups don’t mind my posting them here. Sharing them magnifies the cheerup effect.
It is illegal to lie to congress and senate in a lead up to war. It’s illegal. Period. Impeachable. Period.
Must not be, cuz despite plenty of evidence they’re still in office.
I really do wonder how much MSM press that report will get. In fairness, I first heard about it on Nice Polite Republican radio this morning.
The President lied us into war. Ho hum. Now back to the news about the non issues in the campaign: Barack/Hillary/Big Dog/he said/she said/Reagan/yada yada yada.
(/rant)
Impeach.
Remove.
Indict.
Imprison.
It’s the ONLY way to prove our constitution means ANYTHING.
Speaking of FISA baloney — can you do a quick update on your “Tell Harry Reid to Support Sen. Dodd” side bar? It would be nice to have action tools there since the vote’s coming up tomorrow. Thanks!
Watch Moyers show on impeachment. Two constitutional scholars discuss this, and state that Bush is most vulnerable in regard to this and fisa.
He should be impeached, and I am more than a little ticked with Pelosi.
Vote tomorrow? Link? Because as of early this morning, I’m hearing nothing is scheduled, and I’d like to know where you got that date information. Thanks.
It was on my Yahoo frontpage (AP) this morning which seemed odd. These “non-profits” have been releasing all kinds of important things over the years. Why does the BigMedia all of a sudden care what they say?
I wonder if it has to do with what I was saying earlier about how the Repubes will be running against the “Bush Administration” this year. They’ll be saying that the Shrubinistas were a rogue cabal within the Repube Party, and how they’ll come riding in on their fiscally responsible horse to return to the Repube traditions, which are completely phony as we know here.
Again, the Repubes, the Dem enablers, and BigMedia will ignore their own significant role in all this madness, and try like hell to push all the old storylines of “tax-and-spend Liberals” and “responsible” convservatives. I hope I’m wrong.
I forwarded that article to fox news tips and to cbs news yesterday. I’m sure its their lead story today.
None of Bush’s statements were false or misleading in any way. The Unitary Executive does not lie. He cannot. In this country, if the Unitary Executive says something it is, by definition, true. No law or statute can change this core principle. Regardless, truth by others standards is not truth by the standards of the Unitary Executive. Being above the law, he can look down on it and see where it works and where it fails. He can then proclaim that his version is the true truth. We are in terrifying times and we need a Unitary Executive that will lead us out of this wilderness which he in no way created. So do not believe these lies about the Unitary Executive. He cannot lie. He can only tell the truth. And if the truth he tells is not in line with the facts, then the facts are wrong. We must all support Unitary Executive Bush and his quest to make America a more equal and fair place to live. Praise God.