Just a few Bush Lies..
Some critics say Bush's zeal for running Iraq and transforming it into a democracy sounds just like the nation-building efforts he campaigned against.
On Oct. 11, 2000, then-Texas Gov. Bush said: "I think what we need to do is convince people who live in the lands they live in to build the nations. Maybe I'm missing something here. I mean, we're going to have kind of a nation-building corps from America? Absolutely not." But yesterday White House press secretary Ari Fleischer proved the critics wrong once again. "During the campaign, the president did not express, as you put it, disdain for nation-building," he said. So there you have it." --
Washington Post
First off, he was not the president at the time. You can not tell which nations or people he was talking about from the quote. And if you think about how to apply this quote to Afghanistan and Iraq it makes sense. The US couldn't encourage either of those countries to improve themselves. The leadership of both would not allow that to take place. And you can't really supply financial aid to a sworn enemy.
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A horrible story spread widely by the
first Bush administration prior to the Gulf War about Kuwaiti babies pulled from incubators by invading Iraqis turned out not to be true. The current Bush administration
may be also misinforming the public in its efforts to justify a possible second war with
Saddam Hussein.
Dan, why did you even put this in here? The FIRST Bush administration? What does this have to with my question or the topic at hand? So the current Bush MAY be lying? That is ridiculous. Saying this is proof they are lying because they MAY be lying. WTF! OH and about spreading misinformation, maybe they thought the story to be true and were simply wrong for not verifying it. Kind like a certain GI-Joe that was recently captured huh?
One example of misinformation, according to physicist and former weapons inspector David Albright, was the Bush administration’s leak to the media in September about Iraq’s attempt to import aluminum tubes which administration officials claimed were headed for Iraq’s nuclear program.
“I
think it was very misleading,” says Albright, who directs the Ins ute for Science and International Security.
Albright says the tubes could be possibly used for a nuclear program, but were more suited to conventional weapons production. Government experts thought that too, Albright tells Simon, but administration officials “were selectively picking information to bolster a case that the Iraqi nuclear threat was more imminent than it is, and, in essence, scare people." --60 Minutes, 12.06.02
So where is the lie? The individual agrees that the tubes could possibly be used for nuclear weapons. Did Bush say there was no other use for them? No.
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President Bush, speaking to the nation this month about the need to challenge Saddam Hussein, warned that Iraq has a growing fleet of unmanned aircraft that could be used "for missions targeting the United States."
Last month, asked if there were new and conclusive evidence of Hussein's nuclear weapons capabilities, Bush cited a report by the International Atomic Energy Agency saying the Iraqis were "six months away from developing a weapon." And last week, the president said objections by a labor union to having customs officials wear radiation detectors has the potential to delay the policy "for a long period of time."
All three assertions were powerful arguments for the actions Bush sought. And all three statements were dubious, if not wrong. Further information revealed that the aircraft lack the range to reach the United States; there was no such report by the IAEA; and the customs dispute over the detectors was resolved long ago. --10.22.02,
Washington Post
This was the next 2 paragraphs from that article.
As Bush leads the nation toward a confrontation with Iraq and his party into battle in midterm elections, his rhetoric has taken some flights of fancy in recent weeks. Statements on subjects ranging from the economy to Iraq suggest that a president who won election underscoring Al Gore's knack for distortions and exaggerations has been guilty of a few himself.
Presidential embroidery is, of course, a hoary tradition. Ronald Reagan was known for his apocryphal story about liberating a concentration camp. Bill Clinton fibbed famously and under oath about his personal indiscretions to keep a step ahead of Whitewater prosecutors. Richard M. Nixon had his Watergate denials, and Lyndon B. Johnson was often accused of stretching the truth to put the best face on the Vietnam War. Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy, too, played with the truth during the Gary Powers and Bay of Pigs episodes.
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Asked later if his [Harken] stock sale had been related to the company's impending setback, {Board member] Bush replied, "I absolutely had no idea and would not have sold it had I known."
In fact, SEC records show that Harken's president had warned board members two months before Bush's sell-off that the company had liquidity problems that would "drastically affect" operations. --
SF Chronicle, 07.05.02
The commission investigated Bush for insider trading but no charges were brought. Nevertheless, the Dallas Morning News quoted a 1993 letter from investigators to Bush's lawyer stressing that this "must in no way be construed as indicating that (Bush) has been exonerated."
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Bush:
bragged that in Texas he was signing up children for the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) as
"fast as any other state."
Fact: "As governor he fought to unsuccessfully to limit access to the program. He would have limited its coverage to children with family incomes up to 150 percent of the poverty level, though federal law permitted up to 200 percent. The practical effect of Bush's efforts would have been to exclude 200,000 of the 500,000 possible enrollees." Washington Post, 10/12/00
First off, do you know what bragging means? Bush said he was signing people fast. That means he signed them quickly. He never said he had signed MORE people than any other state. As far as setting standards to limit access from certain families that is a judgement call on his part. It's not a lie.
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Some Bush backers claim he's not a liar, he's just not very bright and doesn't remember things very well. That may be true, but we're sure Bush would not allow such an excuse in his "responsibility era." We're sure Bush would agree that if he's that dumb, he shouldn't be President. Other Bush backers claim that some of his lies are "technically correct" or "tailored to fit the audience," or some such cir locution. What they're talking about are lies of omission rather than lies of commission. In lies of omission it's what they imply, not what they say. For example, before the 2000 election Bush told Congress and the American people that he was putting a "lock box" on Social Security. Now, it's very clear that Bush wanted us to feel secure in the belief that he was protecting all of our Social Security funds for the future. No question, right? Yet, the very next day when his budget book was released, we learned that Bush told a lie of omission. What he didn't tell Congress and the American people is that he would later take from $.6 to $1 trillion out of that "lock box" to cover his tax cuts.
No doubt, Bush lied. He wanted folks to believe something that he knew was not true. Of course, politicians do this all the time. It's second nature. In sum, the thing that really bothers us about Bush's lies is that he is also a hypocrite and pretends he's above lying. As a liar, he reinforces our assumptions about politicians. As a hypocrite, he reinforces our assumptions about his character.
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