BadGimp

Standard Operating Procedure
By PAUL KRUGMAN - New York Times

The mystery of Iraq's missing weapons of mass destruction has become a lot less mysterious. Recent reports in major British newspapers and three major American news magazines, based on leaks from angry intelligence officials, back up the sources who told my colleague Nicholas Kristof that the Bush administration "grossly manipulated intelligence" about W.M.D.'s.

And anyone who talks about an "intelligence failure" is missing the point. The problem lay not with intelligence professionals, but with the Bush and Blair administrations. They wanted a war, so they demanded reports supporting their case, while dismissing contrary evidence.

In Britain, the news media have not been shy about drawing the obvious implications, and the outrage has not been limited to war opponents. The Times of London was ardently pro-war; nonetheless, it ran an analysis under the headline "Lie Another Day." The paper drew parallels between the selling of the war and other misleading claims: "The government is seen as having `spun' the threat from Saddam's weapons just as it spins everything else."

Yet few have made the same argument in this country, even though "spin" is far too mild a word for what the Bush administration does, all the time. Suggestions that the public was manipulated into supporting an Iraq war gain credibility from the fact that misrepresentation and deception are standard operating procedure for this administration, which — to an extent never before seen in U.S. history — systematically and brazenly distorts the facts.

Am I exaggerating? Even as George Bush stunned reporters by declaring that we have "found the weapons of mass destruction," the Republican National Committee declared that the latest tax cut benefits "everyone who pays taxes." That is simply a lie. You've heard about those eight million children denied any tax break by a last-minute switcheroo. In total, 50 million American households — including a majority of those with members over 65 — get nothing; another 20 million receive less than $100 each. And a great majority of those left behind do pay taxes.

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Remind me again why the GOP Rethuglicans in Congress impeached Clinton in 98...

I know Clinton had "zipper problems" and that he lied to the American people about Sex. Only the finger waving thing was a moment where he actually told the truth - technically speaking. He used the term "Sexual Relations with that woman...". Technically true according to testimony.

So it had to be the the lying under oath about having sex in the civil trial that the judge threw out cause the case was so lame.

What Clinton and his cock did seems so infinitesimally trivial next to this President's deliberate lies to start a fucking war that kills 5,000 - 10,000 Iraqi civilians, 150 or so American soldiers, a bus load of Britts and who the fuck knows how many Iraqi soldiers.

But hey, we got that damn oil.

BadGimp

posted by BadGimp @ 10:33 PM