Big Lie #2 for 2007

As we prepare for the next election cycle, it is time to address the Big Lies. I will entertain Big Lie entries from those who find the right is lying all the time, like Bush and his cronies went to war for oil, though no one seems to connect the two in any way. There are maybe-lies, spin, conspiracy theories, and, then, there are LIES.

My problem with Big Lies are that they come from the left because the left gets a lie by, thanks to print and TV media which is immune from Lexis-Nexis research. It is one thing to allege some grand conspiracy, it is another to ignore facts. The only sector of media not under correct-think control is talk radio, so, obviously, there is an all out attack by Democrats on the hugely successful political talk/entertainment shows.

Here is the lie for today: the Bush Administration tricked everyone into going into Iraq by saying Iraq was linked to 911 via its Al Qaeda cooperation.

I never heard the Administration say that and continue to be amazed at the repetition of the lie. Last week, the Rangel caricature was on TV nearly yelling, in a non-responsive answer to a critical observation, that Bush lied to us by telling us we went to Iraq because of 911.

I don't think he is stupid, so either he is a manipulative liar or just reads the Post and Times and, like many, assumes they are reporting reality, which is understandable for busy people - but he is a politician.

Here is the result of 5 seconds of Google research, a 2003 Press Conference:

[Adam Boulton, Sky News (London):] One question for you both. Do you believe that there is a link between Saddam Hussein, a direct link, and the men who attacked on September the 11th?

THE PRESIDENT: I can't make that claim.

THE PRIME MINISTER: That answers your question.

This is exactly what I recall. The Administration, by its President's own words, several times, has refused to link 911 with Iraq. Period. End of story, except, now we have the media complex shifting words to trick people into believing otherwise. This game is intentional, hurts the commonweal, and in various guises gets people killed.

For your consideration:

Bush Defends Assertions of Iraq-Al Qaeda Relationship

By Dana Milbank
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, June 18, 2004; Page A09

President Bush yesterday defended his assertions that there was a relationship between Saddam Hussein's Iraq and Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda, putting him at odds with this week's finding of the bipartisan Sept. 11 commission.

"The reason I keep insisting that there was a relationship between Iraq and Saddam and al Qaeda: because there was a relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda," Bush said after a Cabinet meeting. As evidence, he cited Iraqi intelligence officers' meeting with bin Laden in Sudan. "There's numerous contacts between the two," Bush said.

The finding of the commission's staff led Bush's Democratic challenger, Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.), to escalate his accusations that Bush deceived both the Senate and the American public about the rationale for war in Iraq. "The president owes the American people a fundamental explanation about why he rushed to war for a purpose that it now turns out is not supported by the facts," Kerry told reporters at the Detroit airport. "That is the finding of this commission." [HUH? What is? This guy is hopeless. No wonder he got a low C at Yale.]

The panel's staff reported on Wednesday that there were contacts between Iraq and al Qaeda, "but they do not appear to have resulted in a collaborative relationship."

In challenging the commission's finding, Bush and his aides argued that their previous assertions about the ties between Iraq and the terrorist organization were justified by the contacts that occurred.

"This administration never said that the 9/11 attacks were orchestrated between Saddam and al Qaeda," Bush said. "We did say there were numerous contacts between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda."

No one seems to care what the President actually says. It gets in the way of the reportage of what he said, which, because it is wrong, can be attacked like any good straw dog.