Clearly in hindsight a mistake. Clearly data upon which decisions were made. I reject the lie mantra. I marvel at the ferocity to which it is held as dogma of the hate Bush left.
It has nothing to do with "ferocity." It has to do with respect for truth, especially when the pretenses were so self-serving, blatant and led to such awful consequences for other people. Go read Frank Rich's book, The Greatest Story Ever Sold. If you don't want to actually read the whole thing, then just get it from the library and look at the timeline at the end, pp. 229-307. Yes, it's a long timeline, although the number of pages is misleading. The timeline is in 2 columns. In the left column, Rich puts events that occurred that were later documented, but were not public at the time, and yes, he documents each event. In the right column, he puts newscasts or quotes from principles about what the Bush administration was alleging. Everything is dated and cited.
They lied, Bob. They intentionally misled the public, stretched the truth, cherrypicked "evidence," pretended that their cherrypicked evidence was stronger than it in fact was, and--they lied. No way of getting around it except by willfully ignoring the record. |
