Blog For Arizona

WMD = W's Mounting Deficits

Bush's recent interview with Russert is almost universally recognized to be a complete disaster, with only the most abject lickspittle apologists trying vainly to spin the appearance as a political triumph - and hoping that people didn't see it.

I think that a very strong strategy for the Democratic nominee is to distribute an annotated, hyperlinked DVD version of the interview to demostrate just how many times the President lied, or fudged the truth, or simply stonewalled. There are so many opportunities in it to show how mendacious and manipulative of the truth W is. These should be sent to the few Democrats and remaining Republicans who still think this President is trustworthy. The Democrat would win by a margin large enough to give him whopping coat-tails, too.

The most eggregious lie came in response to Russert's inquiry about deficits:

Russert: But your base conservatives and listen to Rush Limbaugh, the Heritage Foundation, CATO Institute, they're all saying you are the biggest spender in American history.

President Bush: Well, they're wrong.

Russert: Mr. President

President Bush: If you look at the appropriations bills that were passed under my watch, in the last year of President Clinton, discretionary spending was up 15 percent, and ours have steadily declined.

What, what, what?!! Now, I don't much care what W might believe or what he thinks, which are his usual modus operandi for lying through his teeth, here he's making an objective, unqualified claim that discretionary spending has declined each year under his watch before the entire country. Bush may be capable of believing 10 mutually contradictory untrue things before lunch, but this is an objective, and verifiable, claim for the purpose of establishing his own innocence: and it does not check out.

He claims that, 1) Clinton's final discretionary spending increase was 15%, and, 2) that the rate of increase in discretionary spending during his term has, a) declined from Clinton's rate, and, b) declined year to year during his term. All horsefeathers. Clinton's last budget increased domestic discretionary spending by 4.56 percent; not 15 percent. LIAR. Bush's first budget increased it by 7.06 percent. This is not a decline from Clinton's 4.56 percent rate. LIAR. His second budget increased it by over 10 percent. "Ours have steadily declined"? LIAR. Three lies in a single breath; not bad, but likely not a record for W.

Why do we let such baldfaced liar continue as President? There is simply no way that the President of the United States, even one as inept as W, is unfamiliar with these basic facts. Clinton went before America and told people that he didn't have sexual relations with Monica Lewinski. Bush went before America and told people that he didn't steal all our credit cards and run them up to the limit. Just as there was a reckoning for Clinton's folly, there must be one for Bush; especially since his lies actually matter to the goverance of the nation. But it will never happen until people force the media and the benchwarming idiots in Congress to start demanding answers and treating stonewalling as an admission of guilt rather than as vindication.

posted by Michael Bryan @ 2/10/2004 12:03:00 AM