Quote from KymarFye:
If one wishes to discuss nuances, then we can discuss nuances: There is no evidence that Bush "lied": His statement in the SOTU address was, for instance, factually and technically correct. He said, paraphrasing, "British intelligence reports that Iraq is seeking uranium from Niger..." Typically, when CNN or someone else wants to make a point against him, they edit out the "British intelligence reports" part, to make it seem as though Bush was making the categorical assertion. In addition, both the Administration and the British government stand by the claim that Iraq appeared, according to intelligence, to have been searching in Africa for a source of nuclear materials.
There is no evidence Bush told the truth. There is no evidence that he actually believed what he was saying was true.
You trust Bush, that is the bottom line.
And according to nuances, "Clinton did not have "sex" with that woman."
It's a somewhat similar situation with the truly ridiculous and intellectually dishonest use of a Cheney misstatement from a Meet The Press interview, when, after repeatedly stating (all day, on that show and others) that there was evidence Saddam was trying to reconstitute his nukes program, near the end of a repetitive statement he left off the word "program." It shouldn't be necessary to point out that if Cheney intended to say that Saddam actually had nukes, or was about to get them, it would have been the subject of front page headlines all over the world.
What is truly ridiculous is when someone has to defend someone of intellectual dishonesty charges by using nuances of language to to do.
The vast majority of all Administration statements - certainly in all major policy addresses such as the SOTU or Powell's presentation, and leaving aside misstatements and off-the-cuff remarks - were couched in exactly the "intelligence indicates" or "we believe" framework that Bush used for the Niger statement. Even for the isolated statements that are categorical, there is absolutely no reason to believe that the speakers, including of course Bush himself, did not believe them to be true.
There is every reason to distrust politicians, and believe them to be lying sons a bitches. Or have you turned a blind eye to the ways of politics in this country for the past half century.
You say misstatements as you believe they were telling the truth, others call them lies, and misstated with full intention to mislead and convince.
It is all in the intention.
If one believes one's statements to be true, one is not lying.
Pathelogical liars, according to your definition, always tell the truth.
It doesn't matter how many times the Administration repeats the full range of its arguments for the war, opponents will continue to claim that the "only" argument or even the "main" argument was "imminent" or "urgent" danger of a WMD attack. What was urgent, in the view of the Administration, was the need to pre-empt even the possibility of such an attack. "We will not remain passive while dangers gather," and so on... Once the threat of such an attack was urgent in the sense of being about to occur, or able to occur at any moment, then the policy would have failed. I believe the Administration was worried that the policy had already failed in that sense, but decided that it had to accept the risk for the sake of the advantages of a more patient approach. If the Administration really believed that an actual attack was imminent, they wouldn't have wasted time with the Congress, the UN, Turkey, and the rest: They would have intervened directly with whatever tools were at their disposal.
It doesn't matter how much Democrats, when they are in power repeat the full range of their arguments, their Republican opponents will claim the arguments false.
Either the statements regarding the immediate threat were true or false, irrespective of whether or not Bush and company knew them to be true or false.
It's a difficult concept for some people to process, especially if they have little grasp of military strategy, tactics, and logistics, and all the more if it doesn't happen to suit their political agenda or their efforts to make their pre-war opposition and their during-the-war embarrassments look better.
So now you are a military strategist? The military did not act without the direction of the President. The military had nothing to do with the decision directly, they merely carried out the orders.
Of course, neither the Administration nor the American public seems particularly interested in discussing nuances, least of all with opponents who have shown a penchant for dishonest and manipulative rhetorical tactics - they've got wars to fight and lives to lead. The Administration is in a difficult position for another reason, however: The war on terror - which is much more than a fight with individual terrorists - appears to be going fairly well, with two main objectives and numerous smaller ones achieved, and with no follow-on to 9/11 having occurred on American soil, but now involves long-term, expensive commitments required to prevent victory from turning into defeat. Meanwhile, events in Israel, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria and throughout the region are still developing along uncertain courses. With no new major combat operations likely to come anytime soon, it hardly suits the Administration's policy objectives, at home or abroad, to work intensively to remind the public of how much danger we're still in. It opens them to the charge of fear-mongering, it encourages desperate measures on the part of enemies, it complicates efforts to gain cooperation from allies and neutrals, and it wouldn't do much for consumer and business confidence. For the present, it suits almost everyone to let people believe that we're "safer" - and we probably are. That's not the real issue, though, in my opinion. It's not whether we're safer now, much less feel that way, but whether we've created a situation that helps remove much more serious threats, more serious even than 9/11, over the longer term.
During the Clinton Administration, and in the Nixon administration, and in the Reagan administration, neither the public nor the administation in the beginning of those scandals had much interest in focusing in on the nuances.
So, with elections approaching, a desperate opposition struggles to create issues, and, as ever, those seeking investigations ask, "If you don't have anything to hide, why are you resisting?" They never seem to feel that way if they're the ones who are being investigated - whether as public officials on national TV or as private individuals dealing with the police - but there's nothing the party out of power likes more than having the public's attention focused on Congressional investigations of real or manufactured scandals. It gives one Congressional buffoon after another a chance to bloviate on national TV, and to repeat whatever sound-bites he or she thinks will appeal to the constituency back home. The media love such stories as well. Right now, the public in general doesn't seem to care enough to generate the necessary groundswell. Sooner or later, the Administration will produce a white paper or other comprehensive statement on WMDs, terrorism, and the post-war situation. They'll do it when they're ready, and when they feel its in their and the country's interests (politicians don't usually make a distinction - ask Bill), and not a moment sooner. If, in the meantime, Bush slips a few points in the opinion polls and if Bianca Jagger has a cow, so what? They've got bigger fish to fry, and, anyway, who's going to care on election day 2004 what Bush's poll ratings were in the Summer of 2003?
If a non story, it will have no bearing. If it is shown in any way that Bush misled the people, it will linger on.
