He did not lie us into war. I think it is a distinction worth noting- impeaching him shifts the blame from the electorate to the guy we elected, as if we did not know this about him, as if it was a surprise to anyone. Yes, he is piss-poor manager, and neglected to weigh dissenting opinions and review the appropriate facts, and he let himself get run over by idealogical advisors, but he did not lie. If it is anyone's fault, it is ours - can we impeach ourselves? We elected him. TWICE. It's not exaclty like Nixon, who really did engage in criminal bahvior. I mean, maybe Bush has done something illegal, but I have not seen it. Taking us to war was profound and terrible, but not really some clear legal breach. It would be more like Gray Davis's deal out here in California - people just thought the guy sucked, which I thought was sort of bogus. Remember, Bush used the same bad intelligence that rest of the world had. Most of the world thought Iraq had WMD. He did not just make it up. He just could not smell how flimsy it was. Not that that excuses it. At all - we should have better intel than, say, Italy, because we are better resourced and we should just be better. But I think its important to note that it was not a "lie." You could argue recalling him or something -it would not fly, of course - for allowing himself and, by extension, to be fooled because he did not care about pesky things like "nuance" or "detail" or "fact." Faith-based management of the globe will be his legacy, and an ill-advised war that fosters, rather than dissuades, suicidal terrorism will be the party favor. It's bad, no doubt. But even Rove, Libby, Cheney, Rumsfled, Wolfowitz, Fieth... whoever. The war was not really a "I did not have sexual relations with that woman" lie. And I love Clinton, but face it, dude was lying his ass off - With Bush it was just a massive breakdown of management. He is not a liar, he just sucks at his job, I think it is important to distinguish. For some reason.
For the record it is proven that Bush lied. It wasn't under oath, and it wasn't a general lie like Iraq does or doesn't have WMD. Bush stated that he read an IAEA report that showed Iraq was 6 months from nukes. The IAEA came out and said that such a report never existed. Bush claimed that he was mistaken and actually meant a different IAEA report. It turned out that the second IAEA report also never existed. Finally Bush's team tried to say that he was referring to yet a third report. This time the report did exist. The only problem is that the report wasn't out until 2 days AFTER Bush made the initial claim about a report. He lied either initially, in the cover up or both. There is no two ways around it. Bush lied.
You like to jump in and pile on whenever you can get a redneck crack in. If you're lucky, I'll slap this bumper sticker onto your rickshaw.
I totally agree. The delirium of the morality brigade has reached its peak. Many Americans who voted him in are awakening to the fact that they have more important things to lose if this goes on but won't admit that they voted him in again. Lewinsky sucks. The electorate sucks. This will be our stain Lady Liberty's dress....
The Bush Administration used evidence they knew was false to bolster support for starting a pre-emptive war. They outed an undercover CIA agent who was working undercover to counter nuclear proliferation in the Middle East out of sheer political intimidation and revenge. The Plame Affair, like Watergate, is only the tip of the iceberg of the more profound cancer on the body politic. They are liars, they are treasonous and the whole lot of them should be drawn and quartered.
Is it not possible that he simply had the source wrong? It's not like only one piece of paper crosses his desk daily.
It might have been possible once. The second time is less likely. The third time they tried to come up with an explanation, the source they claimed wasn't even around on the date of Bush's initial statement. I'm sorry giddyup, but anyway you look at it, there was either a lie with the initial statement, the coverup statement(s) or both.
With WMD being mentioned earlier, what exactly would constitute WMD's for you guys? Some seem to be requiring fully completed weapons aimed at the US while others define WMD's as any substances that can be used to make such weapons. What is it for most of you? A combination of both?
Before the war, I wrote that the UN wouldn't go with invasion if no nukes were found. Heck, discovering massive stockpiles chemical or bioweapons in Iraq would make this war look much better now. At the very least, other countries might be more inclined to send more troops or pay some bills.
The Bush Administration sure didn't make any subtle distinctions about this stuff when they first beat on the war drums. They sold the war on the fact that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. Period. They had speech after speech where they claimed Iraq was on the verge of having nuclear weapons to be used on the US.
