Bush lies and deceptions

The Lies and Deceptions of the Bush Regime are chronicled, in part, at and through the following:

Books

 * Joe Conason, Big Lies:The Right-Wing Propaganda Machine and How It Distorts the Truth, Thomas Dunne Books; 25 May 2003
 * Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber, Weapons of Mass Deception: The Uses of Propaganda in Bush's War on Iraq, Jeremy P. Tarcher/Penguin, July 2003.
 * Jim Hightower, Thieves in High Places: They've Stolen Our Country--And Its Time to Take It Back, Viking Press; (August 14, 2003)
 * Al Franken, Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right, E P Dutton; (August 29, 2003)
 * David Corn, The Lies of George W. Bush: mastering the politics of deception, Crown Publisher, September 2003
 * Paul Krugman, The Great Unraveling: Losing Our Way in the New Century, W.W. Norton & Company, September 2003
 * Kevin Phillips, American Dynasty: Aristocracy, Fortune, and the Politics of Deceit in the House of Bush, Viking Press; (January 1, 2004)
 * Ron Suskind with Paul O'Neill, The Price of Loyalty, Simon and Schuster, January 2004.
 * Eric Alterman and Mark Green, The Book on Bush: How George W. (Mis)leads America, Penguin Books, 2004.
 * Craig Unger, House of Bush, House of Saud : The Secret Relationship Between the World's Two Most Powerful Dynasties, Scribner; (March 16, 2004)
 * Richard A. Clarke, Against All Enemies : Inside the White House's War on Terror--What Really Happened, Free Press; (March 22, 2004)
 * John W. Dean, Worse Than Watergate: The Secret Presidency of George W. Bush, Little Brown & Company; 1st edition (April 2004)
 * Joseph Wilson, The Politics of Truth: Inside the Lies that Led to War and Exposed My Wife's CIA Identity--A Diplomat's Memoir, Carroll & Graf; (April 30, 2004)
 * Jeff Lomonaco and Murray Waas, "The United States v. I. Lewis Libby," Union Square Press, Feb. 2, 2007.
 * Chalmers Johnson, The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic
 * Paul Rutherford, Weapons of Mass Persuasion: Marketing The War Against Iraq
 * Danny Schechter, Embedded: Weapons of Mass Deception
 * Lou Dubose and Molly Ivins, Bushwacked
 * Norman Solomon, Target Iraq: What The News Media Didn't Tell You

SourceWatch Articles

 * Bush lies and deceptions: The Pakistani Exception
 * Bush lies and deceptions: Uzbekispin


 * 'A war sold on deception'
 * Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002
 * Bush administration flip flops
 * Bush administration investigations
 * Bush administration propaganda and disinformation
 * Bush administration rationales for war in Iraq
 * Bush administration smear campaigns
 * Bush administration talking points on Iraq
 * Bush's 2002 LA "hijack" Story
 * "Bush brings in an Iraqi ringer (again)"
 * Bush regime charades
 * Bush Teleconference with Soldiers in Iraq Staged
 * Compassiongate
 * Cooked intelligence
 * Operation Iraqi Freedom
 * Richard A. Clarke
 * Safia Taleb al-Suhail
 * September 11, 2001: 4th Anniversary "Freedom Walk"
 * State of the Union 2003
 * State of the Union 2004
 * Swift Boat Veterans for Truth Republican Connection
 * Tammy Pruett
 * The Cheney-Rumsfeld Cabal Deception
 * The leaked Cabinet Office briefing paper, July 21, 2002: "Iraq: Conditions for Military Action"
 * The secret Downing Street memo, July 23, 2002
 * Weapons of mass deception

Data Base

 * Searchable Data Base by "Topics" or by "Speakers" at Center for American Progress.

Articles

 * "All the Presidents's Lies," Selected Articles from The American Prospect.
 * bush-lies.blogspot.com, with citation links to the most current articles.
 * Barry Yeoman, "Lying is a key part of the way the Bush administration governs,"barryyeoman.com, February 18, 2004.
 * Tom Daschle, Floor Statement of Sen. Daschle on the Abuse of Government Power, U.S. Senate, Office of the Floor Leader, March 30, 2004: Richard A. Clarke "did something extraordinary when he testified before the 9-11 Commission last week. He didn't try to escape blame, as so many routinely do. Instead, he accepted his share of responsibility and offered his perceptions about what happened in the months and years leading up to September 11. ... The retaliation from those around the President has been fierce. ... The point was to damage Mr. Clarke in any way possible. ... This is wrong-and it's not the first time it's happened. ... There are some things that simply ought not be done - even in politics. Too many people around the President seem not to understand that, and that line has been crossed."
 * Sidney Blumenthal, "For Bush, lies follow lies. For those who backed Bush, the argument over the Iraq war has moved beyond facts and on to pure fervor," Guardian/UK, May 3, 2004.
 * Thom Hartmann, "Bush Family Wounds America Below The Belt Line", Published on Tuesday, September 7, 2004 by CommonDreams.org
 * Columbia Journalism Review observes major news organizations fact-checking the lies told at Republican National Convention speeches.
 * After a dismal performance by the major news organizations in fact-checking the Wednesday night assertions and accusations of Vice President Cheney and Sen. Zell Miller, Campaign Desk woke up this morning to a new world: the Associated Press, the New York Times, and the Washington Post, as if the scales had fallen from their eyes, rose up as one and subjected the speakers at the last night of the Republican National Convention -- including the president -- to a rigorous fact-check. Moving at last beyond he-said/she-said reporting, all three news organizations struck back in their own voice at the mis-statements and subtle distortions of the record that the evening's speakers produced.
 * The Times history review found that "President Bush's acceptance speech last night included assertions about his accomplishments and Senator John Kerry's past statements and voting patterns that were at best selective, and in some cases challenged by the historical record."
 * As the Post put it in its summary, the Republican National Convention speakers time and again put forth claims that were "at best selective and in many cases stripped of their context."
 * Jonathan Weiler, "On Bullshit," The Gadflyer, June 13, 2005: "By contrast, in the world of bullshit, the world that President Bush now commands, there is no standard for judgment and, hence, no basis for accountability."
 * Paul Craig Roberts, "Enabling Evil. Bush's Willing Executioners," Counter Punch, June 14, 2005.
 * Robert Kuttner, "Head in the sand," Boston Globe, June 15, 2005: "Somewhere, in a parallel universe, real leaders in a country very much like our own are dealing with real problems. Imagine what America might be like if our top officials were addressing the genuine challenges that confront us."
 * Eric Alterman, "Lying Liars & the Presidents Who Employ Them," The Nation, June 29, 2005.
 * Randolph T. Holhut, "'Even Karl Rove's lies can't save President Bush now'," The Smirking Chimp, June 30, 2005: "It's a sign that the Bush administration is now so tapped out, so intellectually bankrupt and so without scruples that it is reduced to attacking the patriotism of the 60 percent or so of Americans who now think George W. Bush is running this country straight into the ground."
 * "Liberally use Rove's rules against Rove," Atlanta Journal-Constitution, June 30, 2005: "Karl Rove, the president's top political adviser and deputy chief of staff, had himself a little fun a week ago. ... 'Conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 in the attacks and prepared for war,' Rove said in a New York speech. 'Liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers.' ... That's a harsh indictment of a substantial portion of the American people. It's also patently untrue."
 * Helen Thomas, "Rove Crosses Line With Attack On Liberals. Bush Adviser Comes Close To Calling Democrats 'Appeasers'," Hearst Newspapers, June 30, 2005.
 * M. Kane Jeeves, "Bush's Damaged Control," mkanejeeves.com, July 5, 2005.
 * Robert Scheer, "Bush Is Serving Up the Cold War Warmed Over," Los Angeles Times, July 5, 2005.
 * Mary deJuliis, "Texas protest changes columnist's perspective," Muskogee Phoenix, August 18, 2005.
 * Patricia Goldsmith, "Government by Dirty Tricks," Dissident Voice, August 22, 2005: "That’s the kind of government we have now. It’s run by people who have the mentality of 13-year-olds who repeat everything you say. Everything is carried out in the spirit of a very nasty practical joke whose very stupidity is a tremendous insult. Unfortunately, these puerile tactics do accomplish their purpose: they make us disengage."
 * Carla Binion, "Cindy Sheehan, mainstream media and Bush propaganda," The Smirking Chimp, August 31, 2005.
 * Dana Milbank and Walter Pincus, "Asterisks Dot White House's Iraq Argument," Washington Post, November 12, 2005.
 * Craig Unger, "The War They Wanted, The Lies They Needed," Vanity Fair, June 6, 2006: "The Bush administration invaded Iraq claiming Saddam Hussein had tried to buy yellowcake uranium in Niger. As much of Washington knew, and the world soon learned, the charge was false. Worse, it appears to have been the cornerstone of a highly successful 'black propaganda' campaign with links to the White House."
 * Margaret Carlson, "Bush Mired in Stealth, Lies and Cover-Ups," Bloomberg News, April 26, 2007.

Pages

 * SpinSanity citations; "Bush's rhetoric bears no resemblence to his policies".
 * 68 of One Thousand Reasons, with citation links.
 * The 'Left Coaster' Bush Administration Lies Archives.
 * The Photographic History of the Bush Administration Putting Its Mouth Where Its Money Isn't, produced by the House Appropriations Committee.
 * Blame the CIA? Top 30 Bush - Iraq Lies Debunked BEFORE The Invasion. Even before the invasion began, both the CIA and the FBI said the administration was wrong.

Sites

 * MisLeader.org.
 * TruthIsBetter.org.
 * BushLies.net.
 * BushWatch-The Complete File, AFL-CIO.
 * BushWatch tally.
 * WhatReallyHappened.com
 * DBunker, setting the record straight on campaign lies.
 * "Incomprehensive List of Bush Lies and Dirty Tricks."

Iraq specific

 * Henry A. Waxman's "Iraq on the Record: The Bush Administration's Public Statements on Iraq"
 * Our Nation Betrayed: The Iraq WMD Intelligence Deception
 * "A Chart of Bush Lies about Iraq,", BuzzFlash, July 22, 2003.
 * Sam Smith, "Revision Thing: A history of the Iraq war, told entirely in Lies," Harper's Magazine, September 2003.
 * David Sirota, Christy Harvey, and Judd Legum, "Iraq: One Year, Many Distortions,", Center for American Progress, March 19, 2004: "Underestimated Cost," "Underestimated Troops," "Underestimated Violence," "No Exit Plan," "No WMD," and "War on Terror Weakened by Iraq."
 * Jim VandeHei, "Old Forecasts Come Back to Haunt Bush. Erosion in Confidence Will Be Hard To Reverse, Say Pollsters, Strategists," Washington Post, March 21, 2006.
 * "Video Surfaces of Cheney, in 1994, Warning That An Invasion of Iraq Would Lead to 'Quagmire'," Editor & Publisher, August 12, 2007. Video: "Dick Cheney '94: Invading Baghdad Would Create Quagmire", April 15, 1994; posted August 10, 2007, by GrandTheftCountry on YouTube.

Dated Material

 * William Rivers Pitt, "We Used to Impeach Liars," Truthout, June 3, 2003.
 * Timothy Noah, "Why This Bush Lie? Part 1. It wasn't his first," Slate, July 15, 2003.
 * Robert Parry, "Lying -- a Bush Family Value,", Consortium News, July 18, 2003.
 * Steve Perry, "The Bush administration's top 40 lies about war and terrorism," City Pages, July 30, 2003.
 * Democratic National Committee, "Meet the Truth," democrats.org, February 8, 2004: "President Bush's February 8 campaign stop on Meet the Press failed to answer the questions the American people deserve to hear about his failed policies. Instead, Bush took the opportunity to spin the facts and continue misleading the American people." See research report "Responding to Bush on NBC's Meet The Press" (pdf).
 * David MacMichael, "Untruth and Consequences: What We Know We Know," Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, March 17, 2004.
 * Ehsan Ahrari, "A War (At Any Cost) President," TomPaine, March 24, 2004. Editor's Note: This piece originally appeared in Asia Times online on March 23, 2004.
 * John Kerry, "Bush and Cheney in the Tank," U.S. Newswire, March 24, 2004: "George Bush and Dick Cheney campaigned promising to make energy a centerpiece of their Administration's agenda. They told us they knew how to manage the nation's energy policy because they had worked in the energy industry. But almost four years later, big oil company executives are earning record profits, and today a new Automobile Association of America (AAA) study confirms that consumers are now paying the highest gas prices ever."
 * Lolita C. Baldor, "Kennedy Compares Bush to Richard Nixon,", AP, April 5, 2004: "Iraq has become 'George Bush's Vietnam,' Sen. Edward M. Kennedy said Monday, calling the president deceitful and for the first time comparing him to former President Nixon, who resigned in disgrace. ... Saying that truth has become the biggest casualty of the Bush administration, Kennedy said Bush misled the public about the war, the economy, health care and education, eroding the nation's reputation at home and abroad. ... 'As a result, this president has now created the largest credibility gap since Richard Nixon,' Kennedy said in a speech at the Brookings Institution, a think tank. 'He has broken the basic bond of trust with the American people.'"
 * Paul Krugman, "Yes He Would," New York Times, April 10, 2006.
 * Jim Boyd, "Editorial Pages: Why Courage is  Hard to Find," Nieman Reports, Spring 2006.
 * Edward M. Kennedy, "Roberts and Alito Misled Us," Washington Post, July 30, 2006.
 * Eleanor Clift, "Lies and Obfuscations. A look back at some of the biggest falsehoods of 2006," Newsweek (MSNBC), December 22, 2006.
 * Manuel Valenzuela, "The Unearthing: An Awakening Has Arrived. With Truth Comes Awakening," Information Clearing House, May 3, 2007.

Instances

 * On October 22, 2006, on ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos, President Bush was asked about James Baker's "plan to develop a strategy for Iraq that is 'between stay the course and cut and run'," to which Bush responded "We’ve never been stay the course, George!"
 * Karen Ryan for the Medicare plan, with public funds no doubt.
 * Iraq WMD


 * Although there is documentation for any number of Bush lies and deceptions, the one which could perhaps be called the "Grand Daddy of Them All" originated with the events of September 11, 2001 and "ended" with the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq (Operation Iraqi Freedom) on March 19, 2003.


 * Op-ed columnist Paul Krugman, in the March 19, 2004, New York Times, points directly to President George W. Bush, who, merely a year ago, "had a global mandate to pursue the terrorists responsible for 9/11 (i.e. Al Qaeda), [but] went after someone else (Saddam Hussein) instead."


 * This "bait and switch" has not gone unnoticed, albeit that it has taken some time for some folks to catch on, as they say. See the SourceWatch article coalition of the willing: beginning of the end, beginning with what journalist Jim Lobe calls "Spanish blowback," for articles on the growing awareness among members of the coalition of the willing for unfolding events.


 * Another interesting event is something the Salon blogspot calls "Truth by Decree": "In case there was any question whether our invasion of Iraq has made the nation and the world safer, Congress has passed a resolution to that very effect." On March 11, 2004, Henry Hyde (R-IL) introduced House Resolution 557 which "affirms [among other things] that the United States and the world have been made safer with the removal of Saddam Hussein and his regime from power in Iraq." It passed 327-93 on March 17.


 * "The president's speech was misinformation, pure and simple," said Anthony D. Romero, ACLU Executive Director. "The administration is making a series of deliberate misstatements to deceive the American public." about the PATRIOT Act.


 * Pete Yost, writing for the Associated Press announced February 17, 2005, that it had uncovered two private meetings between former Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge and Republican pollsters during the Presidential campaign. "Ridge's get-togethers with Republican strategists Frank Luntz and Bill McInturff during a period the secretary was saying his agency was playing no role in Bush's re-election campaign were revealed in daily appointment calendars obtained by the AP under the Freedom of Information Act."

Tools

 * photographic manipulation

Analysis
Optical Delusion: Maureen Dowd writes in the April 7, 2004, New York Times Op-Ed "Mired in a Mirage" that "All White Houses spin and lots of presidents stray into fiction. ... Johnson on Vietnam. Nixon on Watergate. Bill Clinton trying to squeeze through silly semantic loopholes on his sex life. And when Ronald Reagan made statements that turned black into white -- trees caused pollution or welfare queens drove Caddys -- his aides said that authenticity was irrelevant because the Gipper was sharing 'parables' or 'notions,' reflecting larger truths as he saw them."

However, she adds, "By holding back documents, officials, information, images and the  sight of returning military coffins, by  twisting and exaggerating facts to fit story lines, by  demonizing anyone who  disagrees with its version of reality, this administration strives to create an optical delusion."

"Just as they once conjured a mirage of a Saddam sharing lethal weapons with Osama, now the president and vice president make the disingenuous claim that Al Qaeda is on the run and that many of its capos are behind bars. Meanwhile, counterterrorism experts say terrorism has become hydra-headed, and one told Newsweek that the spawned heads have perpetrated more major terror attacks in the 30 months since 9/11 than in the 30 months before. Experts agree that the nature of the threat has shifted, with more than a dozen regional militant Islamic groups reflecting growing strength."

"The president did not want to mar the gay mood of his fund-raiser here Wednesday night, so he did not mention the ghoulish slam dance in Falluja. As The Times's David Sanger wrote, 'In the Bush campaign,  casualties are something to be alluded to obliquely, if at all.' In the Bush alternative universe of eternal sunshine, where the  environment is not toxic and Medicare is not a budget buster,  body bags and funerals just muddy the picture.

"Bush strategists say that good or bad Iraq news is still good for Mr. Bush; they think scenes of desecration will simply remind voters of his steely presidential resolve.

"The Bushies are busy putting a retroactive glow on their terrorism efforts, asserting that their plan was more muscular and 'comprehensive' than Mr. Clinton's. To support that Panglossian view, they held back a load of Clinton documents on terrorism from the 9/11 commission.

"If we can't take a cold, hard look at reality, how can we protect ourselves from terrorists? And how can we rescue Iraq from chaos? Now we're told the military is preparing an 'overwhelming' retaliation to the carnage in Falluja. You can hear the clammy blast from the past: We're going to destroy that village to save it."

Congressional investigation into "intelligence failures" behind the Iraq invasion: "like many Congressional investigations, this one has been set up to avoid answering key questions while wasting millions of taxpayer dollars that do not even exist because of huge budget deficits. The focus of the investigation was limited so that it addresses only the gathering of intelligence but not how forthright the administration presented intelligence to Congress, the U.N. or the American public. The Bush administration is also appointing all committee members so the investigation can hardly be independent. In addition, the scope was expanded to include intelligence on other countries such as Libya, Syria and North Korea and the time frame was pushed into 2005 so that the findings would not impact the 2004 election. Since the Congressional investigation has been corrupted, [Garland Favorito, author of Our Nation Betrayed, has] produced the following analysis of the exact intelligence known PRIOR to the invasion and what the investigation will never reveal to the American public."

Moe Blue, in his March 29, 2004, Bad Attitudes posting "Reliable Numbers", puts it this way:


 * "The Bush administration has a proven proclivity for doctoring the output of government agencies to suit the agenda of the moment. Whether it's messing with EPA reports (deleting all references to global warming, falsely claiming the air at Ground Zero is safe, etc.) or submitting known-false cost projections to Congress over the prescription drug benefit, the White House has shown time and time again its willingness to lie about anything and everything.


 * "All of which leads to the real dilemma: The reliability of the data issued by the White House is questionable, and that makes it difficult or impossible to govern the country, and impossible for business to flourish. The president's economic forecast, issued last month, was quickly proven to be so much fantasizing to meet the political needs of Team Bush. With that document now on the trash heap, how can Congress or the White House do any substantial planning for the next year?


 * "Similarly, the Bush budgets famously leave out known extreme expenses (i.e., the cost of the Iraq occupation). Again, this makes it impossible to prepare a budget that's based on anything other than blue-sky fantasies.


 * "All this should disturb voters of any political stripe -- from far-right to extreme left. If the data upon which our government governs is twisted or fabricated to suit instant political needs, governing is impossible. And that poses far more of a threat to our system of government and our way of life than any possible terrorist attack."