"Of course, the real burden of the national debt will be borne by our children and children's children. This is precisely why Americans once held a deeply ingrained moral taboo against deficit spending. Budget deficits are the ultimate form of what our nation was founded to protect against: taxation without representation."

- from Restoring the Dream, the Bold New Plan (RNC, 1995)

By: David Corn  

With his misrepresentations and false assertions, Bush has dramatically changed the nation and the world. Relying on deceptions, he turned the United States into an occupying power. Using lies, he pushed through tax cuts that will profoundly reshape the U.S. budget for years to come, most likely insuring a long stretch of deficits that will make it difficult, perhaps impossible, for the federal government to fund existing programs or contemplate new ones.

Does Bush lie more than his predecessors, more than his political opponents? That's irrelevant. He's guiding the nation during difficult and perhaps perilous times, in which a credible President is much in need. Prosperity or economic decline? War or peace? Security or fear? This country has a lot to deal with. Lies from the White House poison the debates that must occur if Americans are going to confront and overcome the challenges of this century at home and abroad.

Presidential lying, in fact, threatens the country. To render informed and wise choices about the crucial and complicated controversies of the day, people need truthful information. The President is generally in a position to define and dominate a debate more than other political players. And a lie from the White House - or a fib or a misrepresentation or a fudged number - can go a long way toward distorting the national discussion.

By: Ted Rall  

First but not foremost, Bush's detractors despise him viscerally, as a man. Where working-class populists see him as a smug, effeminate frat boy who wouldn't recognize a hard day's work if it kicked him in his self-satisfied ass, intellectuals see a simian-faced idiot unqualified to mow his own lawn, much less lead the free world. Another group, which includes me, is more patronizing than spiteful. I feel sorry for the dude; he looks so pathetic, so out of his depth, out there under the klieg lights, squinting, searching for nouns and verbs, looking like he's been snatched from his bed and beamed in, and is still half asleep, not sure where he is. Each speech looks as if Bush had been beamed from his bed fast asleep. And he's willfully ignorant. On FOX News, Bush admits that he doesn't even read the newspaper: "I glance at the headlines just to kind of [sic] a flavor for what's moving. I rarely read the stories, and get briefed by people who are probably read [sic] the news themselves." All these takes on Bush boil down to the same thing: The guy who holds the launch codes isn't smart enough to know that's he's stupid. And that's scary.

Fear breeds hatred, and Bush's policies create a lot of both. U.S. citizens like Jose Padilla and Yasser Hamdi disappear into the night, never to be heard from again. A concentration camp rises at Guantánamo. Stasi-like spies tap our phones and read our mail; thanks to the ironically-named Patriot Act, these thugs don't even need a warrant. As individual rights are trampled, corporate profits are sacrosanct. An aggressive, expansionist military invades other nations "preemptively" to eliminate the threat of non-existent weapons, and American troops die to enrich a company that buys off the Vice President.

"Protecting our nation's leaders from harm is important. Protecting our nation's leaders from dissent is unconstitutional."

- Witold J. Walczak, legal director for the ACLU's Greater Pittsburgh chapter

Bush's U.N. speech about Iraq will do little to sway the leaders most in need of swaying, especially those from countries that aren't democracies.

By: Stan Crock  

Judging from President George W. Bush's Sept. 23 speech to the U.N., it seems clear that he never read Dale Carnegie's classic How to Win Friends and Influence People. Carnegie explained how to make people like you, how to win them over to your way of thinking, and how to change them without giving offense or arousing resentment. Bush's unyielding speech, which trumpeted the triumph of liberty and democracy over Saddam Hussein and terrorism, isn't likely to accomplish any of the above with his intended audience.

Nor is it likely to achieve its overriding goal: persuading nations to provide military and financial help to rebuild Iraq. Why? Because "President Bush's plans for Iraq continue to concern Middle Eastern governments and anger Middle Eastern publics", says Jon Alterman, director of the Middle East program at the Center for Strategic & International Studies.

Indeed, Bush's unilateral policies in pursuit of American causes and ideals have already raised concerns around the globe. His call for preventive attacks - striking an enemy before it starts to mass troops or even develops potentially lethal weapons - conflicts with the notions of collective security and international law that have governed the U.N. for more than five decades...

By: Leon Hadar  

In short, while backing South Vietnam was clearly an integral part of the rivalry between the U.S. and the communist bloc, ousting Saddam and invading Iraq had nothing to do with the war on terrorism. In fact, as a result of the U.S. occupation, Iraq has become a magnet for radical Islamic terrorists. Moreover, while the Americans in the 1960's could point to Japan and several other East Asian countries that were gradually moving in the direction of economic and political freedom and that could serve as models for Vietnam, the grand designs to democratise Iraq as part of an American-led crusade for freedom in the Middle East seem to be based on nothing more than wishful thinking.

And just compare the willingness of many elements in South Vietnamese society to ally themselves, and socialise with the Americans troops and civilians, to the attitude that most Iraqis are exhibiting today towards the Americans. Hence, let us not insult the Best and the Brightest of the 1960's with those who accused Saddam of supporting Osama, who had promised to find weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in Iraq, and who were so sure that Americans would be welcomed as 'liberators' in Iraq and succeed in making the country a model of democracy for the entire Middle East. The Dumb and the Dumbest sounds a more appropriate title for the current crew.

By: Plaid Adder  

Yes, Virginia, Bush's invasion and occupation of Iraq do have something to do with sex slavery. They help make it all possible.

So, sure, it's always good to bash human trafficking, it's a terrible thing and it does not get nearly enough press. But as long as military force and the resultant mayhem and destruction are this administration's preferred method of dealing with... well, with everything, then I don't want to hear it from Bush. It is just too disgusting to watch him up their condemning the things that his own policies have done so much to foment. When they erect a statue to our great leader in the public square, they should depict him with the panther of evil rubbing up against his legs, as Bush swats it on the nose with a rolled-up newspaper with one hand, and feeds it a humongous, bloody steak with the other.

Editorial from:  

At Mr. Bush's public appearances, his critics are routinely shunted into "protest zones" as much as a half-mile away. At the Columbia, SC, airport last year, a protester with a "No War for Oil" sign was ordered to move a half-mile from the area where Mr. Bush's supporters were allowed to stand. When the protester refused, he was arrested.

Mr. Bush thinks of himself as a man of the people, but carefully staged contacts with groups of supporters or small children does not constitute getting in touch with the people. It is in Mr. Bush's interest, as well as the nation's, for him to burst the bubble he has been inhabiting, and take a hard look at the real world.

"Democracy itself is at stake in this election. The extreme right wing has shown nothing but contempt for democracy. Once again, we stand here in Boston as patriots - and we stand with more than 410,000 other patriots around this nation who have joined this campaign, and countless millions more who share our values. John Ashcroft has drafted a document that has broken down the mutual trust between the American people and their government. That is not the act of a patriot."

- Howard Dean

Novak and Krauthammer Get It Wrong - It's Not About Hate, It's About Bad Policy

By: Molly Ivins  

Among the more amusing cluckings from the right lately is their appalled discovery that quite a few Americans actually think George W. Bush is a terrible President.

Robert Novak is quoted as saying in all his 44 years of covering politics, he has never seen anything like the detestation of Bush. Charles Krauthammer managed to write an entire essay on the topic of "Bush haters" in Time magazine, as though he had never before come across such a phenomenon.

Oh, I stretch memory way back, so far back, all the way back to - our last President. Almost lost in the mists of time though it is, I not only remember eight years of relentless attacks from Clinton-haters, I also notice they haven't let up yet. Clinton-haters accused the man of murder, rape, drug-running, sexual harassment, financial chicanery, and official misconduct, and his wife of even worse.

For eight long years, this country was a zoo of Clinton-haters...

"He [Saddam Hussein] has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors."

- Secretary of State Colin Powell, in Cairo on February 24, 2001

"We are able to keep his [Saddam's] arms from him. His military forces have not been rebuilt."

- National Security Advisor Dr. Condoleezza Rice, April, 2001

Poor Americans Continue To Multiply Under Bush
...as Republicans Continue To Ignore Trend

By: Jackson Thoreau  

...For further proof that wealthy Americans are getting richer while the poor multiply, watch for a report by the Census Bureau on Sept. 26 that will show the poverty rate and income gap rising. A preliminary survey by the Republican-led federal bureau reported earlier this month that some 1.4 million more Americans fell into poverty last year. About 12.4% of all Americans - almost 35 million people - live under the federal poverty rate, which was up from 11.7% in 2001.

Under President Clinton, the U.S. poverty rate dropped from 15.1% in 1993 to 11.3% in 2000, close to the record low of 11.1 set in 1973. In the initial year of the Bush regime, the poverty rate climbed for the first time in eight years. With tax cuts for the wealthy and cruel budget cuts for social safety net programs, some believe the poverty rate for 2002 is really closer to the Bush I regime figure, that the Republicans are playing with figures and that the bureau's estimates fall far short of reality.

By: Fred Kaplan  

Has an American President ever delivered such a bafflingly impertinent speech before the General Assembly as the one George W. Bush gave this morning?

Here were the world's foreign ministers and heads of state, anxiously awaiting some sign of an American concession to realism - even the sketchiest outline of a plan to share not just the burden but the power of postwar occupation in Iraq. And Bush gave them nothing, in some ways less than nothing.

Bush dredged out the familiar formula - weapons of mass destruction plus terrorism equals the enemy in Iraq - forgetting, or perhaps not caring, that it didn't persuade the United Nations back in November, when Saddam was still in power, and couldn't hope to win backers now.

He acknowledged no mistakes, either in the intelligence that preceded the war or in the planning (or lack thereof) that followed it.

"[N]othing is more important in the face of a war than cutting taxes."

- Tom 'Bugspray' DeLay, the anti-evolutionist Republican leader of the House of Representatives

By: Roger Cressey and Gayle Smith  

As counterterrorism and foreign policy professionals and veterans of the NSC staff in the years proceeding September 11, we have heard our share of misstatements and conspiracy theories about terrorism. But nothing quite compares to Richard Miniter's book Losing Bin Laden, which includes a number of erroneous allegations about the Clinton administration's counterterrorism record, many of which were then published in this newspaper. Let us address a few:

First, Mr. Miniter recycles old, false Sudanese claims that the Clinton White House declined access to Sudan's intelligence files on al Qaeda and that an unnamed CIA official declined an offer from Sudan in 1996 to turn Osama bin Laden over to the United States.

By: Martin Eden  

The problem with Mr. Bush's war is that it can never be won - it can only be perpetuated. When are the American people going to wake up and turn down this betrayer of the public trust? When are the Democrats going to realize that being strong on national defense does not consist of continuing the disastrous policies the public was deceived into supporting? Some politicians opposed the war before it began, but very few are now bold enough to suggest abandoning this misbegotten adventure.

The only viable option is to thoroughly repudiate this President, his chief advisors, and their foreign policy. If our elected representatives in Washington had any real sense of duty they would commence impeachment proceedings for the high crimes of presenting false evidence to Congress in matters of war. But Republicans control both houses, so regime change in Washington will have to wait until the 2004 election. In the meantime, every effort must be made to expose the mendacity and criminal mismanagement of this administration. It will take a popular uprising to bring down the neocons that hijacked our country. Let's do whatever it takes to bring our troops home and bring a better democracy to America.

"...retired General Wesley Clark announced he is running for President of the U.S. Pretty amazing guy. Four star general, graduated first in his class at West Point, supreme commander of NATO, served combat in Vietnam. What, he won the bronze star, silver star, the purple heart. Wounded in battle. See, I'm no political expert, but that sounds pretty good next to choking on a pretzel, falling off a scooter, and dropping the dog."

- Jay Leno

From:  

Basking in public adoration the United States can only dream of in Iraq, ex-President Bill Clinton got a hero's welcome in Kosovo on Friday, four years after NATO bombing ended Serb rule.

Thousands of Kosovo Albanians turned out to greet the man they see as their liberator from a decade of repression under then Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic.

Schoolchildren got the day off and well-wishers waving the Star and Stripes thronged Pristina's Bill Clinton Boulevard as his motorcade drove by.

Loud applause erupted when Clinton, while also preaching ethnic reconciliation with Serbs, gave what Kosovo Albanians may be keen to interpret as implicit support for their drive for complete independence from Serbia.

The reception contrasted starkly with the maximum security visits to Iraq recently by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell, both of whom had virtually no contact with ordinary local people.

By: Molly Ivins  

The EPA estimates that 30,000 Americans a year - 10 times as many as were killed on Sept. 11, 2001 - die each year because the Clean Air standards on coal-fired power plants have not been enforced.

Under new source review, these dirty plants could perform routine maintenance without having to install cleaner technologies, but any major changes leading to more pollution have to meet Clean Air standards. An excellent article in the current all-environment issue of Mother Jones points out: "For nearly three decades, these facilities have gotten around the new source review rules by continually expanding and calling it 'routine maintenance'."

In 1999, EPA's director tried a novel approach: enforcing the law. The EPA filed lawsuits against eight power companies that together produce one-fifth of the nation's sulfur dioxide. By the end of 2000, two of the largest polluters had agreed to cut emissions by two-thirds, and others were lining up to negotiate settlements.

Then Bush brought in Christine Whitman at EPA, who told Congress that if she were an attorney for one of the sued companies, "I would not settle anything". Presto, the two settlements disappeared, and so did the other offers.

"If Ashcroft is gonna send Tommy Chong to prison for selling pieces of blown glass artwork, then the CEO of Dr. Pepper should get the death penalty for the number of times college students have smoked shitty weed through a modified Dr. Pepper can.

- 'Reef the Dog', as seen on BartCop

By: Eric Alterman  

The various accounts offered by the White House are almost all inconsistent with one another. On December 4, 2001, Bush was asked: "How did you feel when you heard about the terrorist attack?" Bush replied: "I was sitting outside the classroom waiting to go in, and I saw an airplane hit the tower - the TV was obviously on. And I used to fly myself, and I said, well, there's one terrible pilot. I said, it must have been a horrible accident. But I was whisked off there. I didn't have much time to think about it." Bush repeated the same story on January 5, 2002, stating: "First of all, when we walked into the classroom, I had seen this plane fly into the first building. There was a TV set on. And you know, I thought it was pilot error, and I was amazed that anybody could make such a terrible mistake..."

This is false. Nobody saw the jetliner crash into the first tower on television until a videotape surfaced a day later. What's more, Bush's memory not only contradicts every media report of that morning, it also contradicts what he said on the day of the attack. In his speech to the nation that evening, Bush said: "Immediately following the first attack, I implemented our government's emergency response plans." Again, this statement has never been satisfactorily explained. No one besides Bush has ever spoken of these "emergency plans", and the mere idea of their implementation is contradicted by Bush's claim that at the time, he believed the crash to have been a case of pilot error.

"There was no imminent threat. This was made up in Texas, announced in January to the Republican leadership that war was going to take place and was going to be good politically. This whole thing was a fraud."

- Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-MA)

Editorial from:  

Mr. Cheney's Meet the Press appearance was a masterpiece of obfuscation and deceit. By saying "We don't know", he inoculates himself against accusations that he is lying. But by recycling these discredited prewar scare stories, he scores points with the millions of Americans who watch TV but don't read the newspapers.

Mr. Cheney is also speaking to the Republican base. Millions of Americans don't want to believe their government would lie to them about a matter serious enough to provoke a war. For the purposes of the 2004 election, the more the Democrats are outraged, the better. If the White House is compelled to issue a clarification later, that's all right too, it'll be buried in the newspaper. The Vice President got his media hit. Now he can go back to working the phones from his secure undisclosed location.

Editorial from:  

Vice President Dick Cheney has long acted as though the best defense is a good offense, no matter what the damage to truth or common sense. It was Cheney who CIA analysts say personally pressured them to deliver worst-case estimates about Iraqi capabilities and then declared in July that "it would have been irresponsible in the extreme" not to have acted on those very CIA estimates. Even so, Cheney, in commenting about Iraq on Sunday during a rare television appearance, broke new ground. He not only defended the Bush administration's record in rebuilding Iraq but he upheld sweeping, unproven claims about Saddam Hussein's connections to terrorism.

On Aug. 26, 2002, Cheney announced to the Veterans of Foreign Wars that "simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction", and in mid-March he declared that U.S. troops would be "greeted as liberators". Since then, no weapons of mass destruction have been found and American troops face up to 17 attacks a day...

"The President has declared 'major combat over' and sent a message to every terrorist: 'Bring them on.' As a result, he has lost more people in his war than his father did in his and there is no end in sight. Military commanders are left with extended tours of duty for servicemen and women who were told long ago they were going home. We are keeping American forces on the ground, where they have become sitting ducks in a shooting gallery for every terrorist in the Middle East. Welcome to Vietnam, Mr. President. Sorry you didn't go when you had the chance."

- Max Cleland, former U.S. Senator

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