Mr. President, Your Elongated Nose Is on Fire

(Also posted to nycgeekpolitics.)

This has been posted various places, but I wanted to have a note of it here as well.

The frequently annoying pundit Nicholas Kristof recently announced that calling George Rutherford Bush a "liar" only "polarizes the political cesspool, and this polarization is making America increasingly difficult to govern". (Link is to the New York Times; free registration required, and it will probably expire in a couple of weeks.)

For the past two decades, the cesspool was dug and filled by the Right-Wing Noise Machine--something that Kristof shows that he realizes but doesn't understand, when he compares calling Bush a "liar" to the right wing accusing Clinton of murdering Vincent Foster, as if saying pointing out the truth about Bush were somehow comparable to spreading slanders about Clinton. (Paging Adlai Stevenson, anyone?)

But I can't just walk away by saying that, of course it's true that Bush is a liar. In any non-cesspool discourse, statements like that deserve at least a smidgeon of documentation. Fortunately, the eminently quotable Andrew Northrup has made a little list

He has lied about his time in the National Guard, and lied about his criminal history. He lied about his relationship with Ken Lay, he lied about who would benefit from his tax cuts, and he lied about stem cells. He lied about his visit to Bob Jones University, he lied about why he wouldn't meet with Log Cabin Republicans, and he lied about reading the EPA report on global warming. He lied about blaming the Clinton administration for the second intifada, he lies constantly about how he pays no attention to polls, he lied about how he loves New York, and he lied about moving the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. He lied about finding WMD in Iraq, he lied about making his decision to go to war, he lied about the CIA's dismissal of the yellowcake rumors, and he lied about the IAEA's assessment of Iraq's nuclear program. He lied about funding the fight against AIDS in Africa, he lied about when the recession started, and he lied about seeing the first plane hit the WTC. He lied about supporting the Patient Protection Act, and he lied about his deficit spending, and now my wrist hurts.

There are so many Bush and Bush-administration lies (aluminum cylinders, Atta in Prague, Nigerien uranium, "we have found the weapons of mass destruction") that it's not surprising that Northrup found his wrists hurting, but I have to add one. This list leaves off one of my person favorite of Bush's lies--the "Trifecta", in which Bush claimed that he himself had said something that, in fact, Al Gore had said.

In this space last week, it was noted that President Bush often tells audiences that he promised during the 2000 presidential campaign that he would allow the federal budget to go into deficit in times of war, recession or national emergency, but he never imagined he would "have a trifecta." Nobody inside or outside the White House, however, had been able to produce evidence that Bush actually said this during the campaign.

Now comes information that the three caveats were uttered before the 2000 campaign -- by Bush's Democratic opponent, Vice President Al Gore. The Post's Glenn Kessler found in the archives this promise from Gore: "Barring an economic reversal, a national emergency, or a foreign crisis, we should balance the budget this year, next year, and every year." Gore said that to the Economic Club of Detroit in May 1998, then repeated it at least twice more, in speeches in June and November of that year.

In its pettiness, blatancy, and incompetence, the Trifecta lie sums up the entire Bush usurpation of America. Don't get over it.

Finally, I have to recommend this clip from the Daily Show discussing the blazing state of Dick Cheney's pantaloons. (Warning: non-streaming Real file, 3.9 MB and worth every bit.)