Consciously Deciding Not To Protect the Homeland

CLAIM:

"We're doing everything we can to protect the homeland."
- President George W. Bush, 9/3/03

FACT:

"The FBI often does not have enough agents or other personnel with the expertise to conduct the surveillance. The FBI still is trying to build a cadre of translators who can understand conversations that are intercepted in such languages as Arabic, Pashto and Farsi."
- AP, 4/16/04

FACT:

"In the early days after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the Bush White House cut by nearly two-thirds an emergency request for counterterrorism funds by the FBI...Attorney General John D. Ashcroft cut the FBI's request for items such as computer networking and foreign language intercepts by half."
- Washington Post, 3/22/04

FACT:

Even before the Sept. 11 attacks, "Ashcroft did not agree to $588 million in increases that the FBI was seeking for 2003. That FBI request included funds to hire 54 translators and 248 counterterrorism agents and support staff."
- Washington Post, 3/22/04

>Pseudomaniac: One Who Has a Morbid Impulse to Falsify or Lie

CLAIM:

"And as to whether or not I make decisions based upon polls, I don't. I just don't make decisions that way...If I tried to fine-tune my messages based upon polls, I think I'd be pretty ineffective."
- President George W. Bush, 4/13/04
Source:

FACT:

"One [White House] adviser said the White House had examined polling and focus group studies in determining that it would be a mistake for Mr. Bush to appear to yield" and apologize for mistakes.
- NY Times, 4/15/04

This is an incredible example...he's now pathologically lying not only about policy, but about mundane details. As the Washington Monthly noted earlier, Bush apparently has an obsession with polling.

On Tax Day, People Start to Realize They Got Screwed Under Bush

A new poll from AP shows that "By almost a 2-1 margin, Americans prefer balancing the nation's budget to cutting taxes even though many believe their overall tax burden has risen despite tax cuts over the past three years...About six in 10, 61 percent, chose balancing the budget while 36 percent chose tax cuts when they were asked which was more important...Half in the poll, 49 percent, said their overall tax burden — including federal, state and local taxes — had gone up over the past three years. That's almost four times the 13 percent in the poll who said their overall taxes had gone down."

The reason for this? Most people got almost nothing from any of the Bush tax cuts, while their state/local taxes/fees went up, their services were slashed, and their wages stagnated. Translation: higher taxes, worse services, less money coming in, all while the White House says we need to cut overtime pay and outsource U.S. jobs.

Translation: middle class gets screwed to pad the wallet of George Bush, Dick Cheney and their fat cat friends.

Iran-Contra Figure Becomes Ambassador to Iraq

The White House has announced that it will appoint Iran-Contra figure John Negroponte as the new ambassador to Iraq. The arrogance of this move is shocking, even by this White House's standards: Negroponte's claim to fame was his involvement in the Iran-Contra scandal, which helped provide weapons to the Iranians in their war with Iraq. Essentially, America's first envoy to the new Iraq was a figure who indirectly helped wage a war against Iraq - a fact that might not go over too well in an Iraqi society that still can remember the bitter Iran-Iraq war.

And, of course, this says nothing about Negroponte's dismal human rights record and lack of expertise in Mideast affairs. Somehow, the White House thinks it is more important to have a conservative ideologue whose specialty Latin American covert operations in Iraq, rather than a Mideast expert who speaks Arabic.

CLAIM vs. FACT: Bush's Press Conference Tonight

CLAIM:

"But there was nobody in our government, at least, and I don't think the prior government that could envision flying airplanes into buildings on such a massive scale."
- George W. Bush, 4/13/04

FACT:

In the very same press conference, President Bush said "part of [the reason I requested the PDB] had to do with the Genoa G-8 conference I was going to attend" in 2001, where he was warned that Islamic terrorists were potentially plotting to fly airplanes into buildings.

CLAIM:

"The oil revenues, they're bigger than we thought they would be at this point in time."
- George W. Bush, 4/13/04

FACT:

Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz said before the war that "we are dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction, and relatively soon" with Bush administration officials claiming "that Iraq's oil revenues would be $20 billion to $30 billion a year." Those oil revenues are now only "running at a rate of about $14 billion a year" while Americans taxpayers are shelling out billions for reconstruction.
– NY Times, 10/6/03

CLAIM:

Iraq "refused to disarm."
- George W. Bush, 4/13/04

FACT:

"The Bush administration's top weapons inspector in Iraq, David Kay said that his group found no evidence Iraq had stockpiled unconventional weapons before the U.S.-led invasion in March."
- CNN, 1/26/04

White House's Top Economist Demanded Gas Tax Increase

It seems top White House economic adviser Greg Mankiw thinks that the best way to fix the sluggish economy is not only to outsource more U.S. jobs, but also to raise the gas tax. In his article entitled "Gas Tax Now!" Mankiw demands an increase in the gas tax.

I guess on gas tax policy, at least, Mankiw comes out of the Dick Cheney school of thinking - Cheney, you might remember, actually authored legislation in Congress that would have seriously increased the gas tax, "Let us rid ourselves of the fiction that low oil prices are somehow good for the United States."

Ashcroft & 9/11: AG Previously Lied Under Oath

A look at Attorney General John Ashcroft's sworn testimony to Congress show he has repeatedly contradicted the facts about his record in de-emphasizing and cutting funding for counterterrorism before and after 9/11.

ASHCROFT CLAIM:

"I had asked for and requested an increased funding for counterterrorism efforts of $436 million, and that was for the FY 2002 budget."
– Attorney General John Ashcroft, 2/28/02

FACT:

According to a simple analysis of the Department of Justice's counterterrorism programs, Ashcroft actually proposed an FY2002 budget that would have slashed $500 million out of counterterrorism from the FY2001 level.
– Center for American Progress analysis, 4/13/04

ASHCROFT CLAIM:

For the post-9/11 emergency counterterrorism bill, the FBI "came to me with a $670 million request, and we counseled them to take that to $ 1.1 billion."
– Attorney General John Ashcroft, 2/28/02

FACT:

"In the early days after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the Bush White House cut by nearly two-thirds an emergency request for counterterrorism funds by the FBI... The document, dated Oct. 12, 2001, shows that the FBI requested $1.5 billion in additional funds to enhance its counterterrorism efforts with the creation of 2,024 positions. But the White House Office of Management and Budget cut that request to $531 million. Attorney General John D. Ashcroft, working within the White House limits, cut the FBI's request for items such as computer networking and foreign language intercepts by half, cut a cyber-security request by three quarters and eliminated entirely a request for 'collaborative capabilities.'"
– Washington Post, 3/22/04

ASHCROFT CLAIM:

Before 9/11, "our number-one goal was the prevention of terrorist acts. It is our -- it certainly is our goal. And we began to shape the department and its efforts in that respect." – Attorney General John Ashcroft, 2/28/02

FACT:

"Documents indicate that before Sept. 11, Ashcroft did not give terrorism top billing in his strategic plans for the Justice Department, which includes the FBI. A draft of Ashcroft's 'Strategic Plan' from Aug. 9, 2001, does not put fighting terrorism as one of the department's seven goals, ranking it as a sub-goal beneath gun violence and drugs... The papers show that Ashcroft ranked counterterrorism efforts as a lower priority than his predecessor did."
– Washington Post, 3/22/04

ASHCROFT CLAIM:

"The five-year plan that had been put in place by my predecessor didn't mention counterterrorism." – Attorney General John Ashcroft, 2/28/02

FACT:

"In fact, the plan issued by Attorney General Janet Reno in 2000 said the Justice Department would have to devote more attention and resources to terrorism, citing sophisticated computer and bomb-making technology and the 'emerging threats of chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear weapons.'" – NY Times, 3/1/02

NOW & THEN: Violence In Iraq

NOW:

“It's hard to tell” if violence will end in Iraq soon.
- President George W. Bush, 4/11/04

THEN:

“Major combat operations in Iraq have ended.”
- President George W. Bush, 5/1/03

THEN:

“We will, in fact, be greeted as liberators.”
- Vice President Cheney, 3/16/03

THEN:

"There's no question but that [our troops] would be welcomed.”
- Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, 2/20/03

Depends on What Your Definition of "Specific" Is

CLAIM:

President Bush said yesterday that a memo he received a month before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks did not contain enough specific threat information to prevent the hijackings and "said nothing about an attack on America." "I am satisfied that I never saw any intelligence that indicated there was going to be an attack on America -- at a time and a place, an attack."
- Washington Post, 4/12/04

FACT:

In a single 17-sentence document, the intelligence briefing delivered to President George W. Bush in August 2001 spells out the who, hints at the what and points toward the where of the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington that followed 36 days later.
- NY Times, 4/12/04

Not only is Bush lying, but he's making a ridiculous argument: he's essentially saying that because he did not know terrorists would attack at a specific time, place he is absolved from his gross negligence in failing to ratchet up homeland security and counterterrorism before 9/11. It is like saying that while you know a car accident can kill you and your family, it is OK to not strap yourself and your kids in because you don't know exactly when and where you might get into an accident.

Bush: Two Lies in 10 Minutes

CLAIM:

"The [August 6, 2001] PDB was no indication of a terrorist threat...[It] said nothing about an attack on America."
- President George W. Bush, 4/11/04

FACT:

"[There are] patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York...The FBI is conducting approximately 70 full field investigations throughout the US that it considers Bin Ladin-related. CIA and the FBI are investigating a call to our Embassy in the UAE in May saying that a group of Bin Ladin supporters was in the US planning attacks with explosives."
- Presidential Daily Briefing, August 6, 2001

CLAIM:

"I asked the intelligence agency to analyze the data to tell me whether or not we faced a threat internally, like they thought we had faced a threat in other parts of the world. That's what the PDB request was."
- President George W. Bush, 4/11/04

FACT:

According to the CIA, the briefing "was not requested by President Bush." As commissioner Richard Ben-Veniste disclosed, "the CIA informed the panel that the author of the briefing does not recall such a request from Bush and that the idea to compile the briefing came from within the CIA."
- Washington Post, 3/25/04

Note: The CIA has subsequently tried to change their original story under pressure from the White House and George Tenet has said that the White House requested the briefing. However, the original CIA analyst who authored the report has not publicly corroborated that story.