Today is an unpacking and getting reacquainted with the homestead day, but I'm going to address briefly the idea of "lying" since, to this day, there are still people who refuse to accept that George W. Bush ever "lied" to anyone. That the evidence for this is overwhelming makes no difference to these folks -- their bubble chamber simply does not admit to such heresy.
I'll be posting on this topic at length soon but, as a data point, one might consider the following (emphasis added):
Bush pledged to veto either measure and said troops were being harmed by Congress' failure to deliver the funds quickly.
The Pentagon says it has enough money to pay for the Iraq war through June. The Army is taking "prudent measures" aimed at ensuring that delays in the bill financing the war do not harm troop readiness, according to instructions sent to Army commanders and budget officials April 14.
Quite simply, U.S. President George W. McFuckwit has been relentless in claiming that the Democrats' refusal to present a no-strings-attached funding bill is currently harming troops in the field, even though the Pentagon has made it clear that debate over that bill is making no difference whatsoever since current finances are adequate to fund the war into June.
Thus, to wit and therefore, we can ask one question: Is George W. Bush lying? Yes or no. It's a simple question, and deserves a simple answer.
Have at it. I'm going to get more coffee.
6 comments:
I really think there's a difference between lying and spin.
When Bush says "Sadam Hussein has nuclear weapons but I can't show you the evidence without burning sources and methods," while knowing the same to be false, or making the statement as a positive assertion in the face of strong reason to believe in the truth thereof, that's a lie.
When he says the troops will suffer if we don't get the next emergency appropriation by April 15, when everyone who wants to know knows he can just shuffle defense funds around, at least til June and probably til September, to my mind thata's harmless spin.
The Canadian people, and perhaps even some of the American people, don't get fooled by spin. In the alternative, if they get fooled by spin, it's their own fault.
When the president of the United States says "I have secret intelligence that indicates Sadam Hussein is about to deliver a functioning nuclear weapon to the United States," it's not the people's fault if they get fooled, it's Bush's fault.
That said, I wasn't fooled because, even though it never occured to me that the president of the United States would tell an outright lie, I didn't trust W's judgment.
Lying? Well, you get so many conditions an assertion has to satisfy before it can be called a lie that it's impossible to say. There is no benefit in saying he is not lying however, so I'll say "yes."
I call anyone who's dishonest a liar. It comes from the fact that my mother tongue doesn't have that many words for "lying," like English does.
Yes. He has lied from the beginning and should be impeached.
Those other folks who still think Hussein was tied in with 9-11 and had WMDs seriously need to remove their probosci (plural for proboscus as far as I can guess) from their oh so friendly holes also known as sphincti (plural for sphincter)...
To even argue these things is absolute stupidity.
the seer writes:
"When he says the troops will suffer if we don't get the next emergency appropriation by April 15, when everyone who wants to know knows he can just shuffle defense funds around, at least til June and probably til September, to my mind that's harmless spin."
And that's where we part ways. In my mind, for something to be "spin," it must still be based on reality. It might be presented with a particular slant, or even have some relevant parts selectively omitted, but it still has to be technically true.
In this case, that simply isn't happening. Bush is claiming that troops are being harmed right now. That's not true, and he knows it. And that's not spin. That's a lie. Because if you want to categorize that as harmless spin, you've effectively made the word "lie" utterly meaningless.
What you have to understand is that to say George Bush lied is to say that George Bush is a liar - that may seem quite simple at first glance, but it isn't.
Any loyal, upstanding, partiotic, American citizen (and many of their adherants on the northern side of the border) will tell you that the president of the United States of America, the greatest nation on the face of the planet, indeed the only country and people to be truly blessed by God himself, and the (self-styled) leader of the free world could not possibly be a liar.
Therein lies the problem.
That George Bush (the man) lied is an easy concept to grasp, he is after all only human and prey to human short comings - but the incontravertable fact that the the president of the United States of America, the greatest nation on the face of the planet, indeed the only country and people to be truly blessed by God himself, and the (self-styled) leader of the free world makes that an impossibility.
Therefore while George Bush did lie, the president of the United States of America, the greatest nation on the face of the planet, indeed the only country and people to be truly blessed by God himself, and the (self-styled) leader of the free world did not.
Hopefully that cleared everything up for you CC.
hmm, i seem to recall a certain president stating quite plainly that anyone in his administration involved in outing a covert cia operative would be fired. i wonder if karl's termination was among the 5 million lost emails.
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