I KNEW IN 2000, EVEN BEFORE THE SELECTION OF THE 43RD PRESIDENT THAT THE FIRST THING BUSH WOULD DO WOULD BE TO GO TO WAR IN IRAQ.

I LIVE IN FLORIDA AND I WAS EMAILING GOV BUSH ON A REGULAR BASIS (JUST TO VENT)RE: HIS BROTHER AND THE WAR.

I TOLD GOV BUSH THAT I WOULD CUT OFF MY SON'S TRIGGER FINGER BEFORE I WOULD LET HIM FIGHT AN "OIL WAR" FOR HIS "WAR WHORE BROTHER AND HALLIBURTON'S DICK CHENEY".

I DON'T UNDERSTAND WHY EVERYONE DOESN'T GET IT....IT'S THE OIL STUPID.

KATHY

Even if I was a 'Connecticut Yankee", I wouldn't claim that I was a TEXAN.

Gram told me in my youth, "You can watch a Thief, but you can't watch a Liar" little did Gram know that you can watch one who is the same on both aspects of that Revulsion Party of Newt and Tom where"We The People", will just say "He is the President and We are at WAR and we must be Patriotic".

SO

Dear Gram,

How could you be so wrong with both of your sons having protected this Nation against the Germans and the Japanese.

This is the "New American Centuty" and those sentiments mean as much to this Administration as the United Nations or that sticky Geneva Convention.

Is all fair in love and war

or

is murder not murder, even if you insult my daddy?

jpi msha

Joe Conason

does a good job of reminding us that bush lies as easily as angels float.

He goes on to point out how the press time and again ignores the lies and has the gall to wonder why. Clearly he fears upsetting the owners of the press as much as reporters in any other mainstream venue.

I know it's a risk but isn't anyone (in any "press") going to tell the public that they will hear the truth when there is a profit in it and not before.

Docile press, docile public. right controlling shares?

Murph

Of course we knew Hussein had wmd at one time. we had the receipts. but after the first Gulf/Exxon/Mobil/Texaco War, he had nothing, and the no-fly zone and sophisticated surveillance made it impossible for a camel to crap in the desert without us knowing what the ungulate had for dinner. This whole war was trumped up, from jumpstreet. Every death, American and Iraqui, is a needless one, and the blood is on Commander Codpiece's callous-free pampered candyassed hands.

Correspondent "Gene" writes, "For the last time, Saddam had WMD because he used them against both the Iranians and the Kurds. He admitted to having them at the end of the Gulf War in 1991, and he never offered definitive proof to the UN that he had destroyed them."

We all know Hussein had WMD at one time, as he was our ally during the period he used them. That is not the issue, which is: did he STILL have them or had he reconstituted them? All evidence both prior to and subsequent to our attack on Iraq tells us NO. To the extent there was any belief by us or other world intelligence agencies that he might still possess any remnants of his stockpiles, or that he was rebuilding them, this was based on out of date (or unreliable current) intelligence. Despite the Bush team's repeated mantra, there was hardly uniform belief about this matter, and little to no certainty. This is what Bush and company lied about: their CERTAINTY that Hussein possessed WMD, that they had ABSOLUTE PROOF of their nature, amount, and location. I think they probably BELIEVED he had WMD, and they proceeded on their BELIEF. However, they did not tell the world they merely "believed," but that they KNEW. This implies they possessed unimpeachable evidence proving the existence of Hussein's WMD, and there was no such evidence.

And, I suggest you read Scott Ritter, former UN weapons inspector for 8 years, on the question of Hussein's past and present weapons stockpiles.

But, writer "Gene," you ignore the point of Mr. Conason's article, which you cannot dispute: Bush has lied repeatedly AFTER the fact about whether Hussein allowed UN inspectors in PRIOR to our invasion. This can hardly be a mistake on his part, for why would his staff not have corrected him after the first time he made this assertion? How could he not have remembered it to begin with? That Mr. Conason would point out the fact of Bush's repeated lies on this point is hardly indicative of partisan "hatred" on Mr. Conason's part.

"Saddam was an incipient Hitler who had twice invaded his neighbors and was only waiting for the UN sanctions to collapse so that he could reconstitute his WMD program."

Hussein was a weak ruler of a third rate country, and no threat even to his neighbors any longer, much less to America. (See Colin Powell's and Condi Rice's pre-9/11 statements to that effect for confirmation of the administration's own views on that); even at his most powerful, he was no incipient Hitler, an inflammatory comparison made by Bush's father, also a liar who used war against Iraq for his own purposes. The UN sanctions program was hardly about to collapse, and had successfully contained Hussein for a dozen years, albeit at the expense of the health and lives of many Iraqi children and sickly elderly people.

I found it interesting that Conason chose to compare media treatment of Bush's lie about weapons inspectors in Iraq with media treatment of Clinton's lie about Lewinsky. Such a comparison does indeed reveal a remarkable contrast. But what happens if we substitute press treatment of a different Clinton lie: say, about weapons inspectors in Iraq? In at least one instance (and probably more if my memory is correct), a 2004 interview with the BBC, Clinton asserted that in 1998, "Saddam kicked the inspectors out to try to force us to lift the sanctions." In fact, the weapons inspectors were withdrawn in anticipation of US bombing. So what do we get if compare press treatment of this lie with those of Bush? In that case we find a remarkable similarity! The Washington Post and many other papers have repeated this canard time and time again. Such a comparison perhaps leads to more useful lessons about the bipartisan nature of US foreign policy and the media's enabling of it than the comparison made by Mr. Conason.