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Choose one: Liar or Grossly Incompetent
Author: BobR    Date: 12/07/2007 13:13:39

It seems like deja vu all over again. A news report makes us ask the question: Is Bush a liar or just grossly incompetent?... and which one is worse?

The big news of course is that a recently declassified NIE reports that Iran abandoned its nuclear program 4 years ago. This raises a lot of questions: What did the president know and when did he know it? Why is he just now talking about this? Let's take a look at both of these...

Bush stated in a press conference on Tues that:
he was informed of the intelligence report last week, but said U.S. intelligence chief Mike McConnell told him in August there was new information on Iran.

"He didn't tell me what the information was. He did tell me it was going to take a while to analyze," Bush said.

So he was told in August, but... did the President of the United States ask what the information was? It would seem that new information on one of the "axis of evil" would arouse his curiousity. If it didn't, does he deserve to be president? Did he run away with his fingers in his ears yelling "la la la - I can't hear you!"?

Or - as has been suggested by Dan Froomkin of the Washington Post and Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo - Bush DID learn of the details in August. They point out subtle change in his use of words:
Blogger Josh Marshall examines Bush's wording at that press conference and notes: "It's no longer the need to prevent the Iranians from getting the bomb. Now it's the necessity of 'preventing them from hav[ing] the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon.'

"That's the tell.

"That change is no accident. He wants claims that will survive the eventual revelation of this new intelligence -- while also continuing to hype the imminence of the Iranian nuclear threat that his spy chiefs are telling him likely does not exist."

That would point to Bush deliberately lying and trying to scare the American people into supporting a war with Iran. Which is better - lying or incompetence... and does it matter?

The other big question is why it took until last August for the information to reach the oval office. The apparent reason: Cheney suppressed it.
Hersh: "At the time, I wrote that there was a tremendous fight about it, because Cheney in the White House -- the vice president did not want to hear this. So that there was a fight about that intelligence. And, actually, for the last year, I think the vice president's office pretty much has kept -- you know, the vice president has kept his foot on the neck of that report. That report was bottled up for a year.

"The intelligence we learned about yesterday has been circulating inside this government at the highest levels for the last year -- and probably longer."

If this is true - and it rings true - then the articles of impeachment against Cheney should be brought out of committee immediately, and voted on forthwith. Abuse of power to encourage war with another country cannot be tolerated (again).

We might was well write up impeachment papers for Bush too. He tries to appear incompetent because that's not an impeachable offense, but his lies are just too apparent this time. They both need to go ASAP.

If you missed Keith Olbermann's Special Comment last night, you should watch it. He discusses this with a passion and language that is rare and rarified in today's media.

The only bonus from this? CNN had to cancel a special on the rush to war with Iran.

 

223 comments (Latest Comment: 12/08/2007 05:16:09 by MMB)
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