Bush’s Speech: Let’s Count the Lies
By David Swanson, AfterDowningStreet.org
http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/?q=node/569
In the coming free 30 minutes of uninterrupted airtime that ABC News and the Disney Corporation will no doubt give to a spokesperson for the majority of Americans who believe that the war on Iraq was a mistake, I expect we’ll see some of the following points made about the speech that Bush just gave.
First, it was curious to see Bush adopt usage of the French language, in particular his repeated usage of the word “oui.” At one point, he said “Oui, accept these burdens.” Some viewers supposed he meant “We accept these burdens,” but no one has been able to identify a single burden that Bush has accepted, leading to the consensus that the French word must have been the one on the teleprompters.
Second, and there’s no really delicate way to put this, it was stunning to see the extent to which Bush flat out lied his ass off. The Downing Street Minutes and related documents have made clear, among other things, that Bush determined early on to promote two false justifications for the war: asserting a threat from Iraq’s fictitious weapons of mass destruction, and blaming the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, on Saddam Hussein. Tonight, Bush said he never made any such crazy claims.
Just kidding. Actually, Bush made them again tonight. Of course, voices in the media believe the fact that he’s lying his ass off is “old news,” and polls ARE starting to reflect that. But apparently repetition of the lies themselves is new news, worthy of commercial-free airtime that even the Michael Jackson trial never merited. And ABC News had been given the speech transcript ahead of time. They provided commentary on it before and after Bush read his lines. Yet their commentary never touched on the “old news.”
Bush came back to September 11th at least four times during the speech. He said that we (oui?) are fighting “a global war on terror,” and that “the terrorists we’re fighting aim to remake the Middle East