Announcement

**Ted Striker** · November 16, 2005, 00:27

Bush lied

**Drake Tungsten** · November 16, 2005, 00:29

I know he did Ted. He also blew up the World Trade Center.

**Ted Striker** · November 16, 2005, 00:31

That's a nice collection of White House links you got there.

Good luck!

**DinoDoc** · November 16, 2005, 00:34

The political machine seems to be begining to right itself now that the Plame investigation fizzled out.

**DRoseDARs** · November 16, 2005, 00:34

Don't know who this guy is nor have I ever seen his blog before (found it trying to find something else this evening), but this caught my eye earlier and seemed very pertinent to your thread Drake:

Just a moment...

http://www.brendan-nyhan.com/

Bush distorts Democratic quotations about Iraq

In the latest phase of his offensive against critics of the war in Iraq, President Bush quoted a series of Democrats about the threat posed by Saddam Hussein during a speech today:

Let me give you some quotes from three senior Democrat leaders: First, and I quote, "There is unmistakable evidence that Saddam Hussein is working aggressively to develop nuclear weapons." Another senior Democrat leader said, "The war against terrorism will not be finished as long as Saddam Hussein is in power." Here's another quote from a senior Democrat leader: "Saddam Hussein, in effect, has thumbed his nose at the world community. And I think the President is approaching this in the right fashion."

They spoke the truth then, and they're speaking politics now.

But as TNR's Ryan Lizza points out, they're ripped wildly out of context:

The problem is that some of the quotes Bush now uses are highly misleading. "Another senior Democrat leader said, 'The war against terrorism will not be finished as long as Saddam Hussein is in power,'" Bush told his Alaskan crowd. The quote is from Senator Carl Levin during a CNN appearance on December 16, 2001. Here's the full context:

The war against terrorism will not be finished as long as he is in power. But that does not mean he is the next target.

And the commitment to do that, it seems to me, could be disruptive of our alliance that still has work to do in Afghanistan. And a lot will depend on what the facts are in various places as to what terrorist groups are doing, and as to whether or not we have facts as to whether or not the Iraqis have been involved in the terrorist attack of September 11, or whether or not Saddam is getting a weapon of mass destruction and is close to it. So facts will determine what our next targets are.

In other words, Levin's full quote shows exactly the opposite of what Bush was trying to say it showed. Levin was laying out the case against attacking Iraq, arguing presciently that there was unfinished work in Afghanistan, that war in Iraq could damage alliances, and specifically cautioning against targeting Iraq absent hard evidence of Saddam's WMDS or his role in September 11. It's ludicrous to argue, as Bush did Monday, that Carl Levin "reached the same conclusion" on Iraq as Bush. Levin didn't even vote for the war resolution.

Bush also offered up this quote by Senator Harry Reid from a September 18, 2002 CNN appearance: "Saddam Hussein, in effect, has thumbed his nose at the world community. And I think the President is approaching this in the right fashion." Again, Bush's point in citing this quote is to blur any distinction between what Democrats said before the war and what Bush said before the war. But it is safe to say that Reid was not speaking of or praising Bush's use of false intelligence concerning yellowcake from Niger, aluminum tubes for a uranium enrichment program, and contacts between Mohamed Atta and Iraqi spies in Prague. Here's the full Reid quote:

As you know when his father went into Iraq, we had a very good debate. Some said one of the best debates in the last 40 years in Congress. We're going to have a debate. But I think we have to acknowledge what's gone on in Iraq. Saddam Hussein, in effect, has thumbed his nose at the world community. And I think that the president's approaching this in the right fashion. He's now trying to get the international community to join. Secretary Powell is basically living in New York, working with international community. And we have made progress.

Reid was offering support for Bush and Powell's diplomacy at the United Nations because the administration had previously signaled that Bush was not going to seek U.N. approval for the war. Bush is now essentially using the quote to suggest that Reid supported every decision the president ever made about Iraq.

Up is down! (For more, as always, see All the President's Spin.)

Bush also used a strange bit of rhetoric during his speech:

The truth is that investigations of intelligence on Iraq have concluded that only one person manipulated evidence and misled the world -- and that person was Saddam Hussein. In early 2004, when weapons inspector David Kay testified that he had not found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, he also testified that, "Iraq was in clear material violation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1441. They maintained programs and activities, and they certainly had the intentions at a point to resume their programs. So there was a lot they wanted to hide because it showed what they were doing that was illegal."

As TNR's Noam Scheiber notes on The Plank, this seems like a dumb approach -- why compare yourself to Saddam Hussein?

Once we actually have an investigation into how the administration used intelligence on Iraq--the crucial phase II of the Senate Intelligence Committee investigation, which we're still waiting on--we may learn that Bush also manipulated evidence and misled the world. In which case, according to Bush's formulation, there will be only two people who've done that--Saddam Hussein and George W. Bush. Not exactly the company the president wants to be keeping at this point.

08:40 PM

**SlowwHand** · November 16, 2005, 00:37

Bush did not lie. He acted on intel supplied by various international sources, in regard to WOMD. I still think they went to Syria. He won't accuse them Why, I have no idea.
Hussein, again, was in clear violation on many levels.

**DRoseDARs** · November 16, 2005, 00:39

Originally posted by DinoDoc
The political machine seems to be begining to right itself now that the Plame investigation fizzled out.

Erm, not really:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/15/AR2005111501857.html?nav=rss_politics/administration

Woodward Was Told of Plame More Than Two Years Ago

By Jim VandeHei and Carol D. Leonnig
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, November 16, 2005; Page A01

Washington Post Assistant Managing Editor Bob Woodward testified under oath Monday in the CIA leak case that a senior administration official told him about CIA operative Valerie Plame and her position at the agency nearly a month before her identity was disclosed.

In a more than two-hour deposition, Woodward told Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald that the official casually told him in mid-June 2003 that Plame worked as a CIA analyst on weapons of mass destruction, and that he did not believe the information to be classified or sensitive, according to a statement Woodward released yesterday.

Fitzgerald interviewed Woodward about the previously undisclosed conversation after the official alerted the prosecutor to it on Nov. 3 -- one week after Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, was indicted in the investigation.

Citing a confidentiality agreement in which the source freed Woodward to testify but would not allow him to discuss their conversations publicly, Woodward and Post editors refused to disclose the official's name or provide crucial details about the testimony. Woodward did not share the information with Washington Post Executive Editor Leonard Downie Jr. until last month, and the only Post reporter whom Woodward said he remembers telling in the summer of 2003 does not recall the conversation taking place.

Woodward said he also testified that he met with Libby on June 27, 2003, and discussed Iraq policy as part of his research for a book on President Bush's march to war. He said he does not believe Libby said anything about Plame.

He also told Fitzgerald that it is possible he asked Libby about Plame or her husband, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV. He based that testimony on an 18-page list of questions he planned to ask Libby in an interview that included the phrases "yellowcake" and "Joe Wilson's wife." Woodward said in his statement, however, that "I had no recollection" of mentioning the pair to Libby. He also said that his original government source did not mention Plame by name, referring to her only as "Wilson's wife."

Woodward's testimony appears to change key elements in the chronology Fitzgerald laid out in his investigation and announced when indicting Libby three weeks ago. It would make the unnamed official -- not Libby -- the first government employee to disclose Plame's CIA employment to a reporter. It would also make Woodward, who has been publicly critical of the investigation, the first reporter known to have learned about Plame from a government source.

The testimony, however, does not appear to shed new light on whether Libby is guilty of lying and obstructing justice in the nearly two-year-old probe or provide new insight into the role of senior Bush adviser Karl Rove, who remains under investigation.

Mark Corallo, a spokesman for Rove, said that Rove is not the unnamed official who told Woodward about Plame and that he did not discuss Plame with Woodward.

William Jeffress Jr., one of Libby's lawyers, said yesterday that Woodward's testimony undermines Fitzgerald's public claims about his client and raises questions about what else the prosecutor may not know. Libby has said he learned Plame's identity from NBC journalist Tim Russert.

"If what Woodward says is so, will Mr. Fitzgerald now say he was wrong to say on TV that Scooter Libby was the first official to give this information to a reporter?" Jeffress said last night. "The second question I would have is: Why did Mr. Fitzgerald indict Mr. Libby before fully investigating what other reporters knew about Wilson's wife?"

Fitzgerald has spent nearly two years investigating whether senior Bush administration officials illegally leaked classified information -- Plame's identity as a CIA operative -- to reporters to discredit allegations made by Wilson. Plame's name was revealed in a July 14, 2003, column by Robert D. Novak, eight days after Wilson publicly accused the administration of twisting intelligence to justify the Iraq war.

Fitzgerald's spokesman, Randall Samborn, declined to comment yesterday.

Woodward is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter and author best known for exposing the Watergate scandal and keeping secret for 30 years the identity of his government source "Deep Throat."

"It was the first time in 35 years as a reporter that I have been asked to provide information to a grand jury," he said in the statement.

Downie said The Post waited until late yesterday to disclose Woodward's deposition in the case in hopes of persuading his sources to allow him to speak publicly. Woodward declined to elaborate on the statement he released to The Post late yesterday afternoon and publicly last night. He would not answer any questions, including those not governed by his confidentiality agreement with sources.

According to his statement, Woodward also testified about a third unnamed source. He told Fitzgerald that he does not recall discussing Plame with this person when they spoke on June 20, 2003.

It is unclear what prompted Woodward's original unnamed source to alert Fitzgerald to the mid-June 2003 mention of Plame to Woodward. Once he did, Fitzgerald sought Woodward's testimony, and three officials released him to testify about conversations he had with them. Downie, Woodward and a Post lawyer declined to discuss why the official may have stepped forward this month.

Downie defended the newspaper's decision not to release certain details about what triggered Woodward's deposition because "we can't do anything in any way to unravel the confidentiality agreements our reporters make."

Woodward never mentioned this contact -- which was at the center of a criminal investigation and a high-stakes First Amendment legal battle between the prosecutor and two news organizations -- to his supervisors until last month. Downie said in an interview yesterday that Woodward told him about the contact to alert him to a possible story. He declined to say whether he was upset that Woodward withheld the information from him.

Downie said he could not explain why Woodward provided a tip about Wilson's wife to Walter Pincus, a Post reporter writing about the subject, but did not pursue the matter when the CIA leak investigation began. He said Woodward has often worked under ground rules while doing research for his books that prevent him from naming sources or even using the information they provide until much later.

Woodward's statement said he testified: "I told Walter Pincus, a reporter at The Post, without naming my source, that I understood Wilson's wife worked at the CIA as a WMD analyst."

Pincus said he does not recall Woodward telling him that. In an interview, Pincus said he cannot imagine he would have forgotten such a conversation around the same time he was writing about Wilson.

"Are you kidding?" Pincus said. "I certainly would have remembered that."

Pincus said Woodward may be confused about the timing and the exact nature of the conversation. He said he remembers Woodward making a vague mention to him in October 2003. That month, Pincus had written a story explaining how an administration source had contacted him about Wilson. He recalled Woodward telling him that Pincus was not the only person who had been contacted.

Woodward, who is preparing a third book on the Bush administration, has called Fitzgerald "a junkyard-dog prosecutor" who turns over every rock looking for evidence. The night before Fitzgerald announced Libby's indictment, Woodward said he did not see evidence of criminal intent or of a substantial crime behind the leak.

"When the story comes out, I'm quite confident we're going to find out that it started kind of as gossip, as chatter," he told CNN's Larry King.

Woodward also said in interviews this summer and fall that the damage done by Plame's name being revealed in the media was "quite minimal."

"When I think all of the facts come out in this case, it's going to be laughable because the consequences are not that great," he told National Public Radio this summer.

**DinoDoc** · November 16, 2005, 00:42

Woodward also said in interviews this summer and fall that the damage done by Plame's name being revealed in the media was "quite minimal."

"When I think all of the facts come out in this case, it's going to be laughable because the consequences are not that great," he told National Public Radio this summer.

Fizzled out still seems to apply.

**Ted Striker** · November 16, 2005, 00:47

Originally posted by DRoseDARs
Don't know who this guy is nor have I ever seen his blog before (found it trying to find something else this evening), but this caught my eye earlier and seemed very pertinent to your thread Drake:

Just a moment...

http://www.brendan-nyhan.com/

Stop posting well-thought out links, only Officially Approved White House links are allowed here dammit.

**DRoseDARs** · November 16, 2005, 00:50

Originally posted by DinoDoc

Woodward also said in interviews this summer and fall that the damage done by Plame's name being revealed in the media was "quite minimal."

"When I think all of the facts come out in this case, it's going to be laughable because the consequences are not that great," he told National Public Radio this summer.

Fizzled out still seems to apply.

And again, the CIA is putting together a report to determine just how much damage was or could be done by her premature outing before they could tie-up the loose ends after she completed her undercover assignments. This report will remain mostly classified and as such the public won't know the full extent of the damage. Getting snippy about how much or how little damage was done is irrelevent to those of us that will never see the classified report. The fact that she was outed prematurely, an act which threatened national security, is what should be at issue here for us lacking the necessary security clearance to know the full effect.

**Drake Tungsten** · November 16, 2005, 00:50

The political machine seems to be begining to right itself now that the Plame investigation fizzled out.

Yeah, that seems to be the case. This pushback has Rove's name written all over it, which seems to indicate that the rumors that Rove is in the clear on Plame and getting back to business are accurate.

**Boris Godunov** · November 16, 2005, 00:51

It's remarkable that Bush is lying in an effort to "push back" on accusations of his being dishonest:

First, despite Bush's claims, Congress certainly did NOT have access to the same intelligence the WH did. More specifically, the information given to Congress was conspicuously missing all the dissenting viewpoints and the serious credibility questions raised about informants and their information. What Congress got presented what the administrated wanted to present in the best possible light.

Second, again despite Bush's claims, no committees ever "proved" the administration did not manipulate intelligence. In fact, no committee has made any such determination, as the Senate has yet to investigate and the commission on WMDs explicitley stated such a question was outside their perview.

And the third lie is that Congress voted for Bush to remove Saddam Hussein from power. This is certainly not the case, as nothing in the wording of what Congress voted on says anything of the kind. They voted to authorize the use of military force to enforce the UN Security Council resolutions.

This seems to be the Republican tactic as of late: tell a lie, get caught, then tell more about those who caught you and accuse them of "revisionism." Michael Steele seems to be trying this tack in MD as well with the "oreo" story...

**Berzerker** · November 16, 2005, 00:52

But I want to say I think it's a lie to say that the president lied to the American people. I sat on the Robb-Silverman Commission. I saw many, many analysts that came before that committee. I asked every one of them--I said, `Did--were you ever pressured politically or any other way to change your analysis of the situation as you saw?' Every one of them said no.

Hmm...thats McCain's proof I'm a liar for calling the Bushies liars?

First, after what happened to Plame, what analyst wants their career to end by accusing the Bushies of pressure? Inspite of the rhetoric we hear about protecting whistleblowers, we dont protect them nearly enough when there is a partisan angle.

Second, pressuring analysts is just one way to lie. Another way is to selectively pick evidence to support your cause and disregard evidence to the contrary. If the courts were run that way the conviction rate would approach 100% and we'd recognise it as corrupt. The evidence for the latter scenario is ample, just look at how critics were smeared. Honest people dont do that, liars do that.

And the lies continue, the Bushies are claiming Congress had the same intel as the WH. Of course that was after the WH compiled it selectively. Congress wasn't given the exculpitory evidence.. So a Congressman went on Keith Olberman and said he wasn't given intel, he was told by the WH the evidence was valid and concrete and he took their word for it.

At what point do thousands of falsehoods make a liar?

**Drake Tungsten** · November 16, 2005, 00:55

Is anyone going to try to answer my questions? I know ya'll think Bush is a liar, so I didn't ask what you thought of the substance of his statements; I already know the answer to that. What I want to know is who you think is next and what the ramifications of this are.

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