Posted on 12/05/2003 9:51:42 PM PST by woofie
Is the President a Pathological Liar? Bush’s unhealthy relationship with reality by David Corn
It was a set-up question. Conservative radio talk-show host Michael Medved was trying to bait me, to push me into saying something so out of whack about the commander in chief that I would destroy my own credibility before the audience of his nationally syndicated show. It was a ruse I’ve become quite familiar with in recent weeks, since I published a book demurely titled The Lies of George W. Bush: Mastering the Politics of Deception. In scores of media interviews, right-wing hosts have pressed me to pronounce Bush the all-time biggest SOB-of-a-liar in the White House and essentially accuse him of being a psycho. I have resisted the invitations, choosing to stick to my just-the-facts case that Bush has misled the public on a host of issues — the war in Iraq, his tax cuts, global warming, Social Security, his own past and more. The goal of these interlocutors is to dismiss any harsh critique of Bush as nothing more than angry-left name-calling. I obviously believe Bush has lied often and consistently about grave matters, but I have shied away from labeling Bush “pathological” and the like.
Now I wonder about that.
What forced this reconsideration was a speech Bush delivered in late November to several thousand troops at Butts Army Air Field in Fort Carson, Colorado. On this occasion, Bush served up the usual rah-rah about the war on terrorism. But as he was hailing the U.S. military, he remarked, “Working with a fine coalition, our military went to Afghanistan, destroyed the training camps of al Qaeda and put the Taliban out of business forever.”
Out of business forever?
That was a false statement. Days before Bush’s speech, a U.S. helicopter crashed near Kabul, and five American soldiers were killed. These troops were hunting Taliban remnants. Two days before the speech, a rocket was fired at the Intercontinental Hotel in Kabul; Taliban insurgents were the prime suspects. On November 16, a U.N. aid worker was assassinated, apparently by the Taliban. In Kandahar, the Taliban was threatening to harm Afghans who participated in local elections.
None of this has been secret, even if events in Afghanistan receive less media coverage than the Laci Peterson case. In recent weeks, a stream of news reports has noted that the Taliban is on the rise and mounting an increasing number of attacks. These assaults have impeded much-needed reconstruction projects. In mid-November, a U.N. mission reported that the Taliban attacks were endangering democracy in Afghanistan.
What then could account for Bush’s truth-defying assertion about the Taliban? After all, it was a statement ridiculously easy to disprove. (The Bush bashers of Moveon.org immediately sent out a mass e-mail citing this remark as further evidence that Bush is a misleader.) Was Bush really trying to hornswoggle the troops and the American people? In a way. I assume that had he bothered to think about this line, he probably would have realized that it was inaccurate and that there was no reason to claim the Taliban was stone-cold dead when he could have truthfully declared that the U.S. military (under his command) and its Afghan allies had routed the Taliban. It was not as if Bush said to himself, Aha! I know what I’ll do. I will boast that I eliminated the Taliban — even though anyone who follows this stuff knows a Taliban resurgence is under way — and fool people into believing I am winning the war on terrorism.
Bush was more likely engaged in the deceit of triumphalism — ignoring facts and saying whatever sounds good to juice up the public. It was hype, extreme rhetoric, utterly divorced from events on the ground. This statement was a report from Planet Bush, not the world as it exists — a demonstration of Bush’s penchant to embrace (and peddle) self-serving fantasy over the obvious truth.
The dishonesty underlying the Taliban line was transparent. In the same speech, Bush also practiced (yet again) a more nuanced form of dissembling. He told the crowd that the war on terrorism began with 9/11, and that “we will not rest until we bring these committed killers to justice. These terrorists will not be stopped by negotiations, or by appeals to reason, or by the least hint of conscience . . . We must, and we will continue to, take the fight to the enemy.” So far so good: The terrorists who mounted the 9/11 attacks are bad and must be defeated. Then Bush distorted the picture: “Terrorists need places to hide, to plot and to train, so we’re holding their allies, the allies of terror, to account.” And he cited Afghanistan and Iraq.
The implication was that somehow Iraq had afforded direct assistance to the people who attacked the United States on September 11, 2001. But there has been no proof that the mass-murdering perps of 9/11 used Iraq to hide, plot or train. Even though Bush conceded in September that there was “no evidence” tying Hussein to 9/11, he still endeavors to draw a straight line from the 9/11 evildoers to Iraq.
He displayed a similar disingenuousness during his surprise, 150-minute-long Thanksgiving Day visit to the American troops at the Bob Hope mess hall at the Baghdad airport. “You are,” he told the GIs, “defeating the terrorists here in Iraq, so that we don’t have to face them in our own country.” That comment — which Bush had said previously — sure seemed designed to create the impression that the war in Iraq is about beating back al Qaeda, the only terrorists Americans have had to face in their “own country.” In the weeks after Baghdad fell, reports out of Iraq raised the possibility that anti-American jihadists linked to or motivated by al Qaeda were pouring into Iraq to do battle with the United States. But a week before Bush told the troops they were battling “terrorists” in Iraq who might otherwise be gunning for their loved ones on the streets of America, two of Bush’s top commanders in Iraq — Major General Charles Swannack Jr. and Major General David Petraeus — said that they had seen little sign that a significant number of al Qaeda loyalists or wannabes had flocked to Iraq. The enemy they are facing, the pair asserted, were mainly Baathist remnants. And there is no reason to believe these murderous thugs would be planning raids on domestic U.S. targets if the U.S. military were not chasing after them in Iraq.
So Bush tells us the ongoing war in Iraq is a strike against the forces that hit America on 9/11 and would do so again (were it not for the invasion of Iraq), and he proclaims the Taliban extinct. None of this is supported by the readily available information provided by the media or Bush’s own military. Making such melodramatic and misleading claims may or may not be pathological, but it certainly isn’t a sign that Bush has a healthy relationship with reality.
(In front of a world wide TV audience of three plus billion)
(Pointing crooked forefinger at TV cameras)
"I did NOT have sex with that woman, Ms Lewinsky..."
Now THAT, jerk, is a lie.
Perhaps Dubya was saying that the military success in Iraq would help further destroy the sagging confidence in the media...the other terrorists working in our country.
For David Corn to even ask the question.."Is President Bush a Pathological Liar?" and then go on to say President Bush has an "unhealthy relationship with reality" speaks volumes of just how far out of touch this DNC bought and paid for "Hack" truly is.
Maybe David Corn should quit using the latest DNC talking points from Terry McAuliffe as a basis for his weekly brain farts he calls and editorial, and try thinking an observing on his own. I know how hard it must be for him to see his party suffer such huge losses in 2000, 2002, 2003 and the impending ass whipping him and his weak and message-less party is going to suffer in November 2004 when George W. Bush wins by a landslide over Howard Dean
Yes, and he also said "fine coalition" when we know some soldiers are not as good as others, they are not all 100% fine, therefore Bush is a liar.
Ramzi Yousef, leader of the first WTC attack came into this country illegally with an Iraqi passport, was briefly detained and then sent to live with a friend (an Iraqi) pending a hearing. Around the same time, three others involved in the first WTC attack also came into this country the same way, with Iraqi passports, and went to stay at the same house as Yousef, but that`s the first WTC attack and I guess that don`t count.
Interesting points to remember when we read and hear all the negatives that are printed or broadcast daily, in our "unbiased" news services.
Since President Bush declared an end to major combat on May 1st...
... The first battalion of the new Iraqi Army has graduated and is on active duty.
... Over 60,000 Iraqis now provide security to their fellow citizens.
... Nearly all of Iraq's 400 courts are functioning.
... The Iraqi judiciary is fully independent.
... On Monday, October 6th power generation hit 4,518 megawatts-exceeding the prewar average.
... All 22 universities and 43 technical institutes and colleges are open, as are nearly all primary and secondary schools.
... By October 1st, Coalition forces had rehab-ed over 1,500 schools - 500 more than scheduled.
... Teachers earn from 12 to 25 times their former salaries.
... All 240 hospitals and more than 1200 clinics are open.
... Doctors’ salaries are at least eight times what they were under Saddam.
... Pharmaceutical distribution has gone from essentially nothing to 700 tons in May to a current total of 12,000 tons.
... The Coalition has helped administer over 22 million vaccination doses to Iraq's children.
... A Coalition program has cleared over 14,000 kilometers of Iraq's 27,000 kilometers of weed-choked canals which now irrigate tens of thousands of farms. This project has created jobs for more than 100,000 Iraqi men and women.
... We have restored over three-quarters of prewar telephone services and over two-thirds of the potable water production.
... There are 4,900 full-service telephone connections. We expect 50,000 by year-end.
... The wheels of commerce are turning. From bicycles to satellite dishes to cars and trucks, businesses are coming to life in all major cities and towns.
... 95 percent of all prewar bank customers have service and first-time customers are opening accounts daily.
... Iraqi banks are making loans to finance businesses.
... The central bank is fully independent.
... Iraq has one of the world’s most growth-oriented investment and banking laws.
... Iraq has a single, unified currency for the first time in 15 years.
... Satellite TV dishes are legal.
... Foreign journalists aren't on 10-day visas paying mandatory and extortionate fees to the Ministry of Information for minders and other government spies.
... There is no Ministry of Information.
... There are more than 170 newspapers.
... You can buy satellite dishes on what seems like every street corner.
... Foreign journalists (and everyone else) are free to come and go.
... A nation that had not one single element - legislative, judicial or executive - of a representative government now does.
... In Baghdad alone residents have selected 88 advisory councils. Baghdad's first democratic transfer of power in 35 years happened when the city council elected its new chairman.
... Today in Iraq chambers of commerce, business, school and professional organizations are electing their leaders all over the country.
... 25 ministers, selected by the most representative governing body in Iraq's history, run the day-to-day business of government.
... The Iraqi government regularly participates in international events. Since July the Iraqi government has been represented in over two dozen international meetings, including those of the UN General Assembly, the Arab League, the World Bank and IMF and, today, the Islamic Conference Summit. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs today announced that it is reopening over 30 Iraqi embassies around the world.
... Shia religious festivals that were all but banned aren't.
... For the first time in 35 years, in Karbala thousands of Shiites celebrate the pilgrimage of the 12th Imam.
... The Coalition has completed over 13,000 reconstruction projects, large and small, as part of a strategic plan for the reconstruction of Iraq.
... Uday and Queasy are dead - and no longer feeding innocent Iraqis to the zoo lions, raping the young daughters of local leaders to force cooperation, torturing Iraq's soccer players for losing games, or murdering critics.
... Children aren't imprisoned or murdered when their parents disagree with the government.
... Political opponents aren't imprisoned, tortured, executed, maimed, or are forced to watch their families die for disagreeing with Saddam.
... Millions of long sufferings Iraqis no longer live in perpetual terror.
... Saudis will hold municipal elections.
... Qatar is reforming education to give more choices to parents.
... Jordan is accelerating market economic reforms.
... The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded for the first time to an Iranian -- a Muslim woman who speaks out with courage for human rights, for democracy and for peace.
... Saddam is gone.
... Iraq is free.
... President Bush has not faltered or failed.
... Yet, little or none of this information has been published by the Press corps that prides itself on bringing you all the news that's important.
Iraq under US lead control has come further in six months than Germany did in seven years or Japan did in nine years following WWII. Military deaths from fanatic Nazi's, and Japanese numbered in the thousands and continued for over three years after WWII victory was declared.
It took the US over four months to clear away the twin tower debris, let alone attempt to build something else in its place.
Now, take into account that almost every Democrat leader in the House and Senate has fought President Bush on every aspect of his handling of this country's war and the post-war reconstruction; and that they continue to claim on a daily basis on national TV that this conflict has been a failure.
Taking everything into consideration, even the unfortunate loss of our sons and daughters in this conflict, do you think anyone else in the world could have accomplished as much as the United States and the Bush administration in so short a period of time?
aHAHAHAHAHAhahahahahahahaha....
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