Have you noticed the new RW tactic against the WMD accusations?

[foxglove1]

I've been noticing it since last night. These talking heads get a Dem on .... senator, representative, dem poll .... and then they ask, "Are you saying that President Bush LIED to the American people?"

Then the Dem will hem and haw and not come right out and say YES, and then the talking head will ask again, only louder this time. And so on and so forth.

"ARE YOU SAYING THAT PRESIDENT BUSH LIED TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE? CAN'T YOU SAY THE WORD? ARE YOU AFRAID TO SAY IT? YOU CAN'T SAY IT, CAN YOU?" They're shouting the Dems into silence.

Sue

[JohnyCanuck]

1. The dems should say,

Well how do you explain it, did he lie or is he just a fucking idiot?

[Catshrink]

2. BOTH!!!!

eom

[chookie]

4. You'll get a kick out of this

From the Official Chimphouse site: Behind the scnes of the SOTU address

*"Working at his desk in the Oval Office, President Bush reviews the State of the Union address line-by-line and word-by-word."*

I am not making this shit up....

http://www.whitehouse.gov/stateoftheunion/behindthescenes/05.html

[w13rd0]

3. Shouting them into silence...

...actually, we're getting them to advance the meme for us. We just said he misled, or was misled, now they are trying to connect the dots, and the only conclusions they can come up with are:

Bush lied

or

Bush is an incompetent weekend cowboy getting our boys shot up for political gain and trashing our Constitution because it's in his way

or

Bush is an evil, manipulative man

or all of the above

It's the "Get out of my way or I'll meet you in the playground" school of "diplomacy". Bush is a jackass endangering us all with take your pick: LIES or A PERSISTENT WILLINGNESS TO EXCUSE AND REWARD INCOMPETENCE...

They aren't framing this one, sorry...

[bunnyhop]

5. Same old problem. Dems won't fight

Repugs were never shy about calling clinton a liar and i give them credit for that. Repugs fight while dems sit around worrying "what will people think?"

[ithinkmyliverhurts]

6. Good God, it's their simple either/or proposition.

Lying implies motive. One cannot prove motive here. So they corner these senators/congressmen/congresswomen with the "either he lied or he didn't." The full explanation takes longer. How about this: either his state of the union speech was competely accurate or it wasn't. I'll play that game every day, and two times on Sunday. Watch them squirm as they have to parse his language and go into the "explanation" mode.

[Cocoa]

9. that's good

We assume that what the president tells us is ALL true, every single word.

Can we continue to assume this, or not? Yes, or no?

[PurityOfEssence]

14. Prima facie motive is unnecessary when the pattern's obvious

He wanted to attack Iraq. Why else, when no hard evidence could be turned up did he need to attack Iraq? You don't need to prove that he wanted to attack Iraq, but if called upon, it's just obvious. They only reluctantly went to the U.N., all the evidence was called into question and smacked of innuendo (which it was) and amplification of the Bogeyman's ickyness.

He wanted to do it. You can guess all day about why (avenging Daddy, stealing oil, getting out from under the thumb of the Saudis) but it's a bad idea because then they're calling the tune. He obviously wanted to do it. That's pretty damn clear. If he'd been all puffed up with anger and then found out about the Prague lie, that's understandable until it's disproven. He made up his mind. He was Judge Roy Bean looking for a tree. At every turn, regardless of evidence, he wanted to do it. He just wanted to do it. It's endlessly obvious.

That's not truly motive, but it obviously shows the pattern. Somehow every action led to that, just as every decision Harris made during the recount favored the Republicans. Why do serial killers want to kill? They want to. Does it matter if they're impotent, abused, insane or whatever? They want to. It's their thing.

You don't need motive, even though many can be posited, all you need to do is show the consistent pattern. By simply pointing out numerous reasons why, you've passed the test for motive. Call it zealous misguided misinterpretation of danger. Whatever.

[ChillEB]

16. I think all this SOTU flap is going exactly NOWHERE...

Unless the American people are made to understand the REASONS for the lie. With Monicagate, it was obvious: He lied to stay out of trouble. Now, with Iraq, the general populace does NOT understand WHY * would want to lie and go to war. WE do, but most people, sadly, do not.

It's time for the Dems to bring up a healthy dose of Halliburton and the Carlyle Group if they want to get any real political mileage over this commotion. Further, they MUST establish that this aspect was NOT the only lie. Which is VERY EASY to do: The whole damn speech was a bald-faced lie. The Al-qaeda links. The Aluminum Tubes. The Terrorist Training Camp in N. Iraq.

C'mon Dems. The pump is primed. The truth is out there. If you can explain to the American public WHY * would lie to go to war, and show them that this was NOT a one-off, but rather part of a continuing PATTERN of deception in the ENTIRE lead-up to the war, you will have * shitting his proverbial pants.

Do you have the friggin CAJONES to step up and DO IT? Or are you going to let the base down YET AGAIN?

[JackSwift]

7. "I have a very strong opinion on that question"

the talking head dem should say: "And I'm here to put the facts in front of my constitutents, all of whom are smart enough to come to the same conclusion I am: Bush went line by line, word by word through his speech, deliberately choose to keep in information which he had been assured several times was untrue and presented it to the American people as an excuse to wage an expensive bloody war. In Iraq today, a country that has not attacked us, Americans are being attacked, wounded and killed every day, thousands of Iraqi citizens have died, there is no water, sewage, electricity or police. Halliburton company, which has the Vice President on the payroll, has managed to get oil production and profits going. If this kind of cynical and grossly dishonest warmongering isn't a war crime, then what is? It's time to present the evidence to international judges and let them decide. It's time to stop the spinning."

"Furthermore Tweety" (or whomever is interviewing our talking head) "The issue isn't whether I use the word "lie", it's about the warmongering start of a war for oil on the basis of propaganda from our White House deliberately misleading the people of the US into believing that Iraq had something to do with 9/11 as a cover up into why the administration let it's guard down against terrorism in the months leading up to 9/11. It is about why the Administration still insists that there are WMD in Iraq when our troops are being shot at, wounded, killed, starved and isolated. Why are our troops still there? Why are our sons and daughters there not eating enough? If the mission is accomplilshed, why are there dozens of firefights a day? Why can they only get one piece of mail from home a month? Why are they being shot at? Where are the liberated Iraqis lining the streets cheering their liberators?

[ithinkmyliverhurts]

8. Motives, motives, motives

it'll get you a cup of coffee and bag of shit, if, IF, you're lucky. If your accustaions are based on mtoives, you better come hard, HARD, in order to idict someone high in office. All of these people, democrat and republican, have each other's back when it comes to proving motives. Hell, they'd all being doing time if we let circumstantial evidence rule the day. I love the drip, drip, drip of chimpy's honesty eroding everyday. It makes our message that much easier. Don't fool yourself, please: the questions being posed are not to get to the "truth." They are there to kick chimpy in the skull; to make him lose 9 points in the polls, which, when announced, makes him lose another 5 points immediately (we are such a nation of imitators).

[LearnedHand]

15. Excellent reply! n/t

[BuckeFushe]

10. Here's the lie, fumble no more

"The larger point is, and the fundamental question is, did Saddam Hussein have a weapons program? And the answer is, absolutely. And we gave him a chance to allow the inspectors in, and he wouldn't let them in. And, therefore, after a reasonable request, we decided to remove him from power, along with other nations, so as to make sure he was not a threat to the United States and our friends and allies in the region."

George W. Bush, pResident of the United States in his closing remarks during his "press op" with Kofi Annan.

[are_we_united_yet]

11. Conservative Republicans....

are worthless. And they claim the Dems are being political. F#cking nerve.

[FubarFly]

12. Did he lie? Has he ever told the truth?

Can you name one of his pre-war about Iraq's WMDS which have come true?
And don't give me any BS about killer trailers and nuclear parts buried under a rosebush crap. Bush claimed he had hard evidence. He said it as FACT. His "darned good" intelligence has been worthless crap. And this is coming after 9/11. And you're not concerned? What the hell is wrong with you? Why do Republicans hate America so much? Why are you protecting this incompetent man?


(Never let a repugnant frame a question)

[ConsAreLiars]

13. w13rd0 got it right

(in Post #3) The LIAR meme is reinforced every time some snotball ideologue screams this challenge. Ultimately, it comes down to the truth of the matter, and this "faith" based reverance for the Grand and Holy DumbF* and its minions is based on the belief that * actually has a conscience. (Hah!) Apart from how well individual Dems handle these attacks, these encounters still amplify the message.

(edit typo)