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Politics : GOPwinger Lies/Distortions/Omissions/Perversions of Truth -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Karen Lawrence who wrote (5584)	3/7/2004 11:39:23 AM
From: Karen Lawrence	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 173976

President lauds Iraqi constitution (yet he refuses to uphold the US Constitution) usatoday.com CRAWFORD, Texas (AP) — President Bush on Saturday hailed a new interim constitution as "excellent progress" toward democracy in Iraq, painting an upbeat picture that ignored the cancellation of Friday's scheduled signing of the document. An elaborate ceremony planned by U.S. and Iraqi officials for Friday was scotched indefinitely after Iraq's top Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani, rejected portions of the charter. The enactment of an interim constitution represents a key step in the U.S. plan to hand over power to Iraqis on June 30.

To: Karen Lawrence who wrote (5584)	3/7/2004 12:06:03 PM
From: Karen Lawrence	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 173976

Bush failed to lead on 9/11: White House lied about threat to Air Force One WSWS.Org The White House has been caught in a lie about the alleged terrorist threat against Air Force One which it had cited as the reason for President Bush's absence from Washington for most of September 11. According to reports by CBS News and the Washington Post, White House officials have stated that the Secret Service never received a phone call warning of a direct threat to the president's airplane. The government's reversal has gone largely unreported in the media. In the immediate aftermath of the terror attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Bush's movements became a matter of controversy within political and media circles. As the destruction in New York and Washington unfolded and unconfirmed reports emerged of a car bomb at the State Department and the danger of further hijackings, Bush, who began the day in Florida, was whisked from one military installation to another by the Secret Service. Looking pale and shaken, he taped a brief initial message from an underground bunker at an air force base in Louisiana. Several hours later--when all non-US military aircraft in American air space had been grounded--Bush was flown to another fortified location at the Strategic Air Command headquarters in Nebraska. The president did not return to Washington until 7 p.m., nearly 10 hours after the initial attack. Bush's failure to quickly return to Washington sparked pointed criticism, including from within the Republican Party. Under conditions of a massive attack on US civilians, involving the destruction of a symbol of American financial power and the partial destruction of the nerve center of the American military, any appearance of indecisiveness or panic on the part of the US president was of great concern to the American political and financial elite. New York Times columnist William Safire, a one-time Nixon aide and fixture within the Republican Party, suggested that Bush had panicked and all but abandoned his post in the first hours of the crisis. Writing in a September 12 op-ed piece, Safire said, "Even in the first horrified moments, this was never seen as a nuclear attack by a foreign power. Bush should have insisted on coming right back to the Washington area, broadcasting "live and calm" from a secure facility not far from the White House." Stung by such criticisms, Bush's chief political strategist Karl Rove and other top administration officials worked feverishly to reassure the political, corporate and military establishment, and bolster Bush's authority among the population at large. By the afternoon of September 12, the Associated Press and Reuters were carrying stories, widely circulated throughout the media, that were intended to diffuse criticism of Bush's actions the previous day. They quoted a White House spokesperson saying, "There was real and credible information that the White House and Air Force One were targets of terrorist attacks and that the plane that hit the Pentagon was headed for the White House." White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer repeated this claim at an afternoon news briefing that same day, saying the Secret Service had "specific and credible information" that the White House and Air Force One were potential targets. In a further column in the New York Times on September 13, entitled "Inside the Bunker," Safire described a conversation with an unnamed "high White House official," who told him, "A threatening message received by the Secret Service was relayed to the agents with the president that "Air Force One is next." Safire continued: "According to the high official, American code words were used showing a knowledge of procedures that made the threat credible." Safire reported that this information was confirmed by Rove, who told him Bush had wanted to return to Washington but the Secret Service "informed him that the threat contained language that was evidence that the terrorists had knowledge of his procedures and whereabouts." Two weeks after these astonishing claims, the administration has all but admitted it concocted the entire story. CBS Evening News reported September 25 that the call "simply never happened." The fact that top officials, at a time of extraordinary crisis and public anxiety, lied to protect the president's image has immense implications. If, within 24 hours of the terror attacks, the White House was giving out disinformation to deceive the American public and world opinion, then none of the claims made by the government from September 11 to the present can be taken for good coin. more Commentary: Mr. Bush has become a man that can not be trusted with the facts, with the truth or with the Constitution. This opinion page sums up my thoughts for the man who has no integrity and no character. zzpat.tripod.com