Blog For Arizona

La La Lie Land

President Bush, having made his melodramatic, Land of Make-Believe, landing on USS Abraham Lincoln to deliver his Iraqi victory speech, stood under a banner that declared "Mission Accomplished" and claimed, "major combat operations in Iraq have ended." Since then, violence has continued to spiral out of control in Iraq. The increasingly frequent targeting of our soldiers by guerrilla and para-military forces, massive terrorist bombings, and the assassination of indigenous leaders, indicate that the nature of combat operations may have shifted, but it is no less major, nor less costly in the units of measure that really matter: American and Iraqi lives.

Yet, though he stood under a banner proclaiming victory, White House communications boss Dan Bartlett spun this web, "The President said exactly the opposite: "The mission continues." Why the banner, then? Bartlett says that the Lincoln's captain had the banner made up to thank his crew for the longest-ever carrier tour, not to declare the war over.

This is a laughably bad spin. This from an Administration which barged in vast klieg lights to light the Statue of Liberty just so for a televised address from New York? Who framed Mt. Rushmore perfectly over the President's shoulder for another speech? Who more carefully controls and scripts Presidential appearances than any director controls the action on his set? They allowed an unplanned and ambiguous message to hang behind the President during possibly the most important speech of his Presidency? yeah, OK, I'll buy that. And I'll take a little "Clear Skies" and smidgen of "No Child Left Behind" to choke it down with.

I have a hard time even understanding what it is meant to accomplish. To make Shrub look like less a fool, I suppose. It must be a fascinatingly bold and inept attempt to rewrite an embarrassing chapter in the Bush Administration's history. Don't expect to hear this spin more than once though, because the real effect is to draw attention to Bush's lies. I've heard people opine that this Administration lies subtly; they don't, they just lie deniably. A subtle lie is one that you can't detect, a deniable lie is one that you can't prove.

But Bartlett is right one thing, Bush did say that. But in the proper context, he said nothing like what Bartlett implies Bush said:

"Our mission continues. Al Qaeda is wounded, not destroyed. The scattered cells of the terrorist network still operate in many nations and we know from daily intelligence that they continue to plot against free people. The proliferation of deadly weapons remains a serious danger."

So Bush said the fight with Al Qaeda continues. That the fight with terrorism continues. But Bartlett clearly wants us to believe Bush meant that the combat mission in Iraq continues.

But Bush wouldn't conflate Al Qaeda and Iraq, would he? He wouldn't intentionally blur the distinction between them as justification for invading Iraq, right? No, no, don't laugh... yet.

At a joint press conference with Tony Blair on January 31, 2003, he was asked, "Do you believe that there is a link between Saddam Hussein, a direct link, and the men who attacked on September the 11th?" Bush said, " I can't make that claim."

Then why on the day of "victory", June 1, 2003, did he say of Iraq in his speech aboard the Lincoln, "We have removed an ally of Al Qaeda and cut off a source of terrorist funding," making the very claim he said he could not make just four months earlier?

It certainly wasn't the only time Bush blatantly implied a connection between the two, nor was he the only one in his Administration to do so. Bush recently owned up once again to the fact that there isn't and wasn't any connection between Iraq and Al Qaeda. Clearly, Bush is not on speaking terms with the truth. Nor is there is nothing subtle, nor even deniable about it. He was just lying through his teeth.

King Shrub also said, "The war on terror is not over, yet it is not endless. We do not know the day of final victory, but we have seen the turning of the tide."

Yes, the tide has turned. Unfortunately, the tide is rising, not falling; and we are on the beach below the tide line, buried up to our necks in sand.

posted by Michael Bryan @ 9/28/2003 11:59:00 AM