Author: lux

To follow up to my earlier post on more Administration lies and how the Washington Post is calling them on it, blogger Joel Carris deconstructs the responding spin.

Bush’s campaign released this statement on Monday rebutting the Washington Post article. It’s absolutely brilliant. What the campaign does here is they take multiple assertions from the article and meticulously show through a series of quotes and references how the Washington Post was exactly right in calling the statements misleading.

Hang on to your aspirin bottle, because there’s a torrent of minutia involved in the deconstruction. The long and the short of it is, the Post was right. The Administration lied their butts off and not even a mountain of spin can get them out of it.

I have to think long and hard about whether the new “Spirit of America” program is one worth supporting. On the face of it, the idea has merit. Ordinary Americans set aside their differences on the war’s merits and send Iraqis things to help rebuild their lives – items such as laptop computers, baseballs, and power tools. What’s not to like? Iraqis learn that Americans are not all evil and Americans get to help the Iraqi society rebuild.

The problem is, nothing is ever that simple.

If the issue was sending food to people who were starving – life and death issues – that would be different. Jewish law requires that you help people in genuine need. But someone whose main need is a toy is not someone in danger of starving to death. In cases like that, other considerations can come into play.

Here’s a what-if for you: What if ‘Spirit of America’ manages to make a significant improvement in Iraq between now and November? Enough so that swing voters who have been soured on Bush due to the war decide that they can still comfortably vote for Bush? We get 4 more years of liars who think laws don’t apply to them running our country and ruining our economy.

Is 4 more years of Bush a price worth paying to send Iraqis 2 tons of Frisbees?

Maybe I’m selfish. Maybe I’m cynical. But I am not going to join the chorus on this one just yet.

It’s been pretty well covered in the blogosphere already but I can’t resist the Washington Post article on the Bush team’s amazing run of negative campaign ads.

Three-quarters of the ads aired by Bush’s campaign have been attacks on Kerry. Bush so far has aired 49,050 negative ads in the top 100 markets, or 75 percent of his advertising. Kerry has run 13,336 negative ads — or 27 percent of his total. The figures were compiled by The Washington Post using data from the Campaign Media Analysis Group of the top 100 U.S. markets. Both campaigns said the figures are accurate.

Pandagon does the math for us (emphasis added):

An interesting thing about that number – if 13,336 is the number of negative ads Kerry has run and it’s 27% of his total, then Bush has run about as many negative ads (49,050) as Kerry has ads total (49,392). By any standard, that’s just ridiculous.

And it’s only Memorial Day. What’s the picture going to look like in September?

Morning tip of the hat to Rude Pundit for this followup on Bush’s Saddam firearm:

Exactly how may laws, federal and D.C., might the President be breaking with his possession of that firearm? Did he receive a background check for the transfer of ownership? Is Bush licensed to possess a firearm in a federal facility? The District of Columbia prohibits firearms to be gifts. How many people are implicated in Bush’s firearm possession?

It’s like they think the laws don’t apply to them.

Is there anyone left in the Bush administration that is not a proven liar?

Liar of the Day: Dick Cheney.

A Pentagon e-mail said Vice President Dick Cheney coordinated a huge Halliburton government contract for Iraq, despite Cheney’s denial of interest in the company he ran until 2000.

In previous administrations, this would be the stuff of resignations and impeachments. Now it’s just business as usual.