We all know Clinton lied about Lewinsky and somebody in the CIA lied about Saddam's Uranium acquisition. My questions are does the office of president make lies more grievance, does Bush have any responsibility in having facts in his speeches and which lie is more significant?
CNN Article
Ap Article

well, i dont think it would matter much if i did what those two have so i would hope that the office of president is more maintained, and equal, in its responsibilty to self. To lie about a sexual, and moral responsibilty, or lie about something serious, in a crisis, for reasons to go to a war. You make the call

One lied to the American people about a sexual relationship with a co-worker. The other lied to the American people about the reasons for going to WAR with another country. Bush's lie is far worse. No one died because Clinton denied the existence of an adulterous relationship. Almost 150 (and rising) U.S. soldiers have died because of Bush's lies. No contest.

Um..No, but Bill Clinton's eight-year non response to Al Queda DID cost us 3,000 lives. And a bad piece of evidence does not constitute a lie. It also doesn't negate the other multitude of reasons we had to remove that genocidal, terror-sponsoring regime.-You remember, the regime Clinton appeased needlessly for a decade? Please don't act like liberals are in any position to judge, its nauseating...the barracks boming, the USS Cole attack, the embassy bombings, the 1st WTC attack, the appeasement of Al Quedas rebels in Somalia....Yeah while Clinton was too busy with Monica, Al Queda was left to operate with impunity. So please spare me the slanted, outrageously hypocritical Bush bashing.

well, i have been going around on the net to find as much as possible to combat these claims in a short period of time, and what i am finding out is our prez is an even more corrupt man then i thought

here is a sample with the link, i think people should really get to see the whole story, but the info is hard to find at best, really when our prez tries to block as much as possible


Impeach George W. Bush for:
Weakening past environmental achievements;
allowing the Justice Department to take away citizens' Constitutional rights;
ignoring the California energy crisis due to a conflict of interest;
allowing a conflict of interest in deciding the nation's energy policy;
allowing a conflict of interest in financial dealings with Iraq, Al Quada, the Unification Church and other right-wing religious institutions, oil companies, weapons manufacturers, Haliburton, and Carlyle Group;
proposing a financial conflict of interest in the separation of church and state;
threatening to use nuclear weapons;
breaking weapons treaties;
promoting a foreign policy to incite terrorism and endanger American citizens and interests worldwide;
developing weapons of mass destruction, such as high-power microwave beams, agent defeat bombs, weapons-grade incendiary devices, and sonic bullets;
and failing to act on 9-11 warnings and then lying about it.

http://surrealist.org/prayforpeace/links4.html]just one of many articles and history[/URL]

Quoting information which comes from a usually reliable source and which he believes to be true, even though it may be later proven to be false, is not a lie but an intelligence failure. I don't think I need to elaborate on that, it's clear enough and simple enough that everyone who isn't trying to milk it to further a partisan agenda ought to be able to understand. Btw, it isn't yet settled that the information was false, as one source document proved to have been forged but Britich intelligence had multiple other sources for the same conclusion, which Tony Blair still stands by. (See this related thread.)

nileriver, it's clear you don't like this president, but nearly all of that list is off-topic for the question being discussed.

WHAT other reasons?

ties to AQ? none have been proven. (Allies Find No Links Between Iraq, Al Qaeda - Wait a sec, bin Laden hates Saddam Hussein - Leaked report rejects Iraqi al-Qaeda link )
there was a AQ camp found in Iraq, but it was in the part saddam had no control of, and our allies the kurds did.
from here

chemical (or bio) weapons? they had no proof before we invaded, bush knew that ( Pentagon in 2002 Found 'No Reliable' Iraq Arms Data - Pentagon in 2002 Found `No Reliable' Iraq Arms Data )

and the documents were forgeries, the cia even warned bush against putting them in his speech. ( White House 'warned over Iraq claim' - White House ignored CIA over Iraq uranium claim-CBS - Bush Knew Iraq Info Was "Dubious" )

also, if by genocidal you mean the gassing of the kurds, I should point out halabja is right on the border of iraq and iran. they were likely what we call "collateral damage" and "we cannot say with any certainty that Iraqi chemical weapons killed the Kurds."A War Crime Or An Act of War? (Who really gassed the Kurds?)

also, if the above isn't enough: Ten Appalling Lies We Were Told About Iraq
everything bush and blair said were lies! this uranium thing is just the most sensationalist of all the lies, thus receives the most media attention. this is far worse then clinton lying about oral sex, and in my opinion worse then watergate. bush should be impeached. if he is not congress and especially the GOP loses ALL credibility in my book (not that they had much to begin with)

americans killed and injured by nixon's lies: 0
americans killed and injured by clinton's lies: 0
americans killed and injured by bush's lies: 211(as of 7/10, and rising almost daily) dead and at least 1000 scarred for life mentally and physically(again, as of 7/10, and rising almost daily).

now tell me which lies are worse!

I wouldn't call Bush's uranium claims a lie, but i would call it an error. The CIA said they are to blame & Tenet said he blames himself saying the info should never have gotten on his speech

Clinton's lie is much worse because he lied to the nation about his "activities" and threw family morals out the window of the oval office




Clinton didn't have to lie to kill Americans during the 1990's terrorist acts and not do a thing about it.

So now Clinton is to blame for 9-11? Did nothing to stop Al Qaeda? Is this accurate?

If this was such an obvious security oversight than why didn't this administration exaggerate its intelligence claims about the threat of Al-Qaeda and strike them as soon as they came into office.

I am not convinced that Bush lied about the Uranium. But if he did not know that the uranium claim was dubious he didn't do his job right. It is too early to call the uranium debacle a lie.

Distressingly, President Bush did make several debatable claims about the situation in Iraq that helped lead to war. I'd much rather have a president participating in ill-advised and extramarital fallatio then leading the country into an unjust war. The unjust war part is my conclusion and obviously not the Bush administrations.

So in conclusion the Clinton lie was worse because it is the only proven lie at this point.

I see this as three questions:

1) Does a lie from the office of the presidency carry more weight than, say, a lie from the CIA?

2) Does the President have a responsibility regarding the content of speeches?

3) Is a lie about an affair more or less critical than a lie to justify invasion of Iraq?

On the first question, yes, the President has the bully pulpit. If that power is abused, it not only impacts all the citizens of the US but also of the world.

Second question, yes--within reason. On this particular point, was it reasonable that Bush knew the Africa connection was less than reliable info? Or maybe the speech writers? Why was it cast into
British terms? I think there's enough circumstantial evidence that a spin was being put on a piece of dubious evidence. However, by using the British reference, critical thinkers should have suspected the information in the first place. There were plenty of doubters about the reasons for this war.

So is Bush guilty of spinning information? Oh, yes. We need to watch this guy.

The third question has to be taken in context of the second question. I don't think spinning the African uranium idea really made a difference one way or the other on justifying the war, so this particular bit of evidence hasn't caused any harm. On the other hand, I have not noticed any particular change in US domestic issues that can be tied to Clinton's lie. I think we have a draw here.

BTW, the spinning on Clinton's responsibility for 9/11 completely ignores the Congress' role in all those cited actions. Clinton was not operating foreign affairs in a vacuum. The role Congress played in hamstringing his efforts is well-documented.

So are Republicans willing to throw stones in their glass house? I don't see that happening.

Hmmm.... Well Clinton lied under oath about things he did not just in office, but the Oval Office and this is only one of his lies. At best all you can say is that Bush recieved bad intel on ONE aspect of a MULTITUDE of reasons to go to war. And if all the reasons to go to war were lies than Clinton is just as guilty as Bush is because he used the same reasons to bomb Iraq in 1998...see my links on the "If Clinton Was Justified" Thread under the foreign policy debate area. This comparrison is the worst of it's kind because GWB didn't lie according to Tenet who as other people are pointing out, takes blame for his people's actions.

Yes and no. The speech writer writes it, the president revises it, says the speech, and all the news networks spend the next 2 days analyzing the speech with so-called professionals

The President revises the speech to fit his info, which, in the Uranium case, he gets from the CIA, which he should trust because they are the intelligence gatherers.




More. Clinton was telling this lie under oath to a grand jury BUT Bush was relying on the CIA to have accurate intelligence (ha ha), so i wouldn't really think Bush lied




What about when Clinton had 3 chances to nab Osama Bin Laden?

An error? That's an interesting way to look at it. The claims were false from the get-go, sounds like a lie to me.



I will say, however, its refreshing to see that there is at least one stand up guy in this administration.



Uh-huh. And everyone knows there is nothing more important for the President of the United States than family morals. Not war, not the economy, but family morals/values. Okay, the morals of whose family? Yours? Family values/morals is a meaningless term. Any candidate that says he is in favor of family values is a candidate I will not vote for. Clinton's lie is so inferior Bush's lie that Nixon himself would be proud of ol' Dubya.

Maybe the CIA approved Clinton's affair...
The last time I checked Bush is supposed to be the President. It's his job to give the state of the Union address. If you choose to have material that might not be factual it's your responsibility. Not the CIA's or your advisors. If someone in the CIA lied to Bush he should be fired. What bothers me is the attitude that we can mislead the public and say anything we want. If Bush has created an administration like that he shouldn't be reelected.

Clinton was well aware he was lying and did it in a repeated and planned manner.

Bush was lying but he may not be aware he was. He does have a appearance of being a simpleton and a fool at times. Bush can be mislead by poor, false information as he does not function on the basis of weighing information as much as he operates on a belief system. He believed Sadam needed to be attacked and jumped on any evidence he received without bothering to check for validity. His belief system was all the proof he needed.

To those who say that Tenet is showing a strong sense of honor by accepting the responsibility for the errors of those under him, we should remember that Tenet, in turn, is subordinate to the President. While Bush may have not known he was relaying false information, it is his honorable responsibility to say "the buck stops here."

How much more respect would he gain by coming forth to the American people and apologizing for the faulty data? I'd say quite a lot. Letting Tenet take the fall is, to me at least, a sign of weakness - a sign that he is willing to abdicate responsibility when doing so will cushion him from any ill-turning of the wheel of public opinion.

As for comparing the Clinton and Bush "truth fiascos," I don't think they really compare. Clinton lied about a personal matter, and Bush may not have known he was lying at all. If Bush DID know that a large bulk of the "evidence" which was used to justify our invasion of Iraq was false, he is far more culpable than Clinton ever was, and he should be in jail, not merely impeached.

Agreed. The man who portrayed himself as a "hands-on" kind of leader
on the USS Abraham Lincoln needs to own up to the fact that this whole response to 9/11 (ostensibly) was all his idea, and take his "licks" if indicated.

Just like, when the news of his DUI arrest leaked, he took it like a man and admitted it? True.

I dont believe this, when our so called elected leader lies to the ameican people for a matter or war, manipulates the fears of americans during a cisis for some kind of twisted interest, we just can let it be without any problems. Yes lets just scapegoat responsibilyt the the head director of the cia, i am sure this information just went through the minds of all these people in a second, after all its just a matter or war and the attempt to gain nukes, nothing to double check or look into their. Please dont degrade the name of clinton in this attempt to shrug off shame in the name of being a partiot, that is just sad.

Wow, there’s a lot of babble to take on..Well, let’s start with the first part. I answer Westnile’s list with one of substance.
Re-elect President Bush for:
Giving massive grants to hybrid car research, which will eventually eliminate the main source of pollution (car emissions =70%). Instead of frivolously bankrupting companies and jacking up taxes with the unreasonable liberal policies, his actually HELPS both sides.

Not letting Democrats CONTINUE to undermine vital national security needs with their pity parties for terror suspects and rants about the tragedy of airline inconveniences.
(And with the rape job Democrats are doing on the 1964 civil rights amendment as well as equal opportunity laws, please spare me your grossly mistaken lectures on constitutional rights.)

Letting the Democrats run every office in California without interference, so we could see how easy it is to wreck such an enormously wealthy state. And please stop telling people Bush should have disregarded his conflict of interest and rescued California from the incompetence of Democrats, while bashing him for hiring former colleagues to rebuild Iraq. You are contradicting yourself and the bashing is getting pretty weak.

Not dignifying loser conspiracy theories with anything more than a pat on the head and a good chuckle. You know, the losers that are so desperate to distract people from Clinton’s incompetent handling of Al Queda, that they would claim to have surfed the net and found cartoonishly unrealistic connections between Bush and Bin Laden? (Funny how such amazing revelations never made it into the news, Oh wait, is that a conspiracy too? Bush controls the media now too, I take it?) By the way, letting people VOLUTNTARILY supplement their children’s education with aid from faith-based charities is not a violation of church and state.(Besides, the constitution contains nothing about “church and state. That was just something Thomas Jefferson had written about.) Still, your buddy, Clinton’s campaign contributions, favors, and deals with the Chinese are far worse than any of this, bordering on treasonous in fact.

Threatening to use nukes? Um..no. You really don’t look up or try to be accurate about anything do you? He wouldn’t “RULE THEM OUT” if we were attacked with WMD, because if he did, and then needed to use them, slanted people like you would crucify him. And his statement was a common sense disclaimer, not an abuse of power, oh biased one.

Breaking NO weapons treaties. And I think most people know that.

Not giving us another decade of spineless, Clinton-style appeasement toward Iraq’s genocidal, terror-sponsoring regime. Not continuing to let Al Queda operate with impunity, like Clinton did. Not turning down any offers from the Sudanese to extradite notorious terror leaders like Bin Laden. Yes, I know showing some courage and common sense against terror after 9/11 isn’t popular among Democrats or with the Muslim extremists, but caving in to them like Democrats do only emboldens them, and clearly doesn’t work. Do you actually mean to tell me you would rather us not uproot terror because it makes unpopular? There’s a winner. That’s the kind of brilliant reasoning that caused 9/11, and the unemployment of the Democrats.

Developing better technology is not an impeachable offense. This point demonstrates why liberals don’t belong in any position of national security. It’s unfair to others for us to strengthen our military? What planet do you live on?!?!?

Doing so much damage control from the results of liberal policy, while the left dares blame anyone but themselves. The so-called, “warnings” were speculations and hypothesizing about the vague possibility of an attack, and the CIA gets hundreds of such “warnings” from their operatives every day. Of course, you know this, but clearly don’t mind falsely presenting it as some dereliction of duty. Your transparent partisan bigotry discredits you. Again, you haven’t researched this part of your slanted smear campaign any better than the others. I would consider doing your alleged, “research” somewhere else, where actual facts are exchanged.

Westnile, your last response was as sad as the erroneous list you posted. Don't you think people watch the news enough to see through your warped, biased version of events?

And Clinton degraded his own name by being such a criminally negligent leader with Al Queda. You can try to blow up this bad piece of evidence about uranium into a vast right wing conspiracy all you want, but the fact is that Clinton did nothing about constant attacks for eight years...denying that just ensures that nobody will take you seriously.

Also, I know you sound like you don't ever watch the news, but even the LIBERAL MEDIA recounted the votes, and Gore still lost, by an even bigger margin. If your gripe is about the electoral college, start a petition to change the law, otherwise, please stop whining about Gore's failure to steal the election.

Go Am, I was not aware of this, can you back that up? I thought he side-stepped it because it could not be proven and record was not available.

Aquapub,
Id love to read your (several) posts, there may be something of value in there, but with so many inflammitory comments its just a total turn off and I couldnt be bothered since I dont have my waders on at this moment, nor do I have time to waste. A shame, as Im sure you have something interesting to say.

Unabomber,

Saddam openly sent money to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers. There's your link to terror. Also, there has just been an arrest of an alleged Al Queda leader in Iraq. (And I doubt that the reason Abbu Abbas was caught hanging out there was that Iraq was tough on terror.)

A decade of UN resolutions authorized us to use force.

Genocide on the Kurds.

The mobile biolabs we accused him of having and found, that could only be used for anthrax, small pox.

He was using the oil for food program to starve a nation.

The rape rooms.

The illegal oil deal he had going on with Syria.

The illegal unmanned planes we recovered.

Saddam tried to assassinate Bush senior.

We had pictures and witnesses of the hiding of WMD bfore inspections.

The illegal long-range scuds we found.

The same reasons (and clearly more) that it was right to go into Bosnia, which no one complained about. (and without UN support)

Because we are the kid with the biggest stick in the room, and we painfully learned not to look the other way more than 50 years ago.

If you need more reasons than this to explain why the uranium mistake didn't negate our purpose there, I can't help you. You sound though, like you would've fit in well with the isolationist anti-Semites that delayed are entry into WWII.

This thread has strayed from the topic several times. If you wish to discuss Bill Clinton and al-Qaeda, start a new thread. If you wish to discuss the merits of George Bush, start a new thread. If you wish to discuss the impeachment of George Bush, you might find this thread of interest. If you wish to discuss George Bush's history of lying, go here. If you wish to discuss Bill Clinton's history of lying, start a new thread. If you wish to discuss other reasons for invading Iraq, go here.

This thread is looking at three specific questions, as re-stated by authormusician:

1) Does a lie from the office of the presidency carry more weight than, say, a lie from the CIA?

2) Does the President have a responsibility regarding the content of speeches?

3) Is a lie about an affair more or less critical than a lie to justify invasion of Iraq?

:::::::::::::::::::::::::

Welcome to the forum, aquapub. Please take a few minutes to look over the Rules and Guidelines. For example, we require posts to be constructive, and on-topic. Personal attacks and inflammatory comments are prohibited. We recommend that back up your arguments and cite your sources.

While not yet explicit in the rules, we request that you avoid blanket statemests (which can usually be considered inflammatory in any event) and that you do not submit two or more consecutive posts. If you wish to add to a posting, you can use the "Edit" button at the top of that post to make additions or corrections. The "Edit" button remains active for twelve hours after your initial posting. We certainly frown on submitting the same post twice.

I'm hoping that, once you've familiarized yourself with the Rules and Guidelines, your future contributions will be more in keeping with our standards here. Thanks - and, again, welcome to America's Debate.

Sorry, reading west niles' belligerant accusations and frivolous slams gave me the impression this was a free-for-all. But point taken. I will tone it down. One question though. As to the obvious insinuation within the question about Clinton vs. Bush in the honesty court, it seems to intentionally provoke the clarification that Clinton undeniably caused 9/11. Is it against the rules to deviate from the topic when the question inherently guides you to do it?

As you must admit yourself, the question of your "clarification" regarding Clinton is itself highly debateable. You are being disingenuous if you are expecting all participants here to accept your opinion without question. Even if your insinuation were self-evident, I don't quite see how the "clarification" that Clinton had anything to do with the September 11 attack is inherent in a discussion regarding a lie about an affair vs. a lie about an invasion of a country unrelated to that attack.

If you feel that the culpability of Clinton in the September 11 attack is a debate worth pursuing, start a new thread to discuss it. This is not the place.


It would be within the guidelines to bring additional material into a debate if it goes to supporting your position on the topic of the thread in question - and is not likely to send the thread off on a tangent or derail it altogether. In this case, I think that Clinton's relationship to the September 11 attack is a bit of a stretch for a discussion of two very specific "lies": one relating to Monica Lewinski, the other to alleged CIA "intelligence" and Iraq. You might want to re-examine what is commonly meant by "inherent".

EDITED TO ADD:

I should add that, if you feel another participant is making "belligerant accusations" or "frivolous slams", you can use the Report this post link at the bottom of each message. This will bring the post in question to the attention of the staff - and you can include a note explaining why you feel that the contribution is in violation of the rules or is ignoring the guidelines.

Don't worry - it takes everyone a few days to get used to the "house style" here - some of us are still working on our restraint after months of particiation. But, unlike most political discussion boards, we do try to avoid the "free-for-all".

You are not, I might also add, the only participant here who is stretching the questions set by this thread. Back to the topic anyone?

aquapub, his name is nileriver. You do not know him personally, you only know his arguments. Debate those arguments. Our members do not like to debate someone who might call them names and belittle them. Be civil, please.

Forgive me for derailing this thread. Please return to debating:

thats cool, if you like to live in a communist country with an un elected leader that is nothing more then a paper pushing puppet for war makeing self interest folks that is cool. And hey, who could blame the bush family in all off its doings, you seem like such a fan, you probally know about those folks in afrika and the diamond mines, or about his getting into the national guard so i dont have to go to vietnam(patriot) or getting into yale with a c average(only person in history), clinton gave the world peace and america honest growth, all of that is gone do to the great satan in the white house, but hey, his reign of terror can only last so long. In some time americans will have thier right to vote back, and we can try again to do things right. i can say i feel shame to be an american because of his position in the world, one he did not win on top of it, i could only wish gore was our president as he should be now, i dont think any of this would have ever happened.

nileriver - your post in no way addresses any of the debate questions.

Let's all try this again. Please debate:

sorry, yes the original debate topic.

From the president yes, i would say it has more of an effect then say the CIA.

If the president does not have to care about his/her own speeches that are being giving, then he/she might as well be a robot. OR we can give him a speech saying canada is hiding hitler, and selling guns to nuns in afrika, i dont think that he/she would give that speech, so i do believe that the president thinks about the speech somewhat, dont you.

Yes, a lie to attack a nation, go to a war, is more heavy then lying about an affair, why, because no one has to follow suit on the affair, it only hurt him(family) and got the inturn rich. The war i am afraid is something that is a tad bit stronger.

If a Presidential candidate and his handlers make a point of using personal integrity and morals as part of their appeal for votes, it's reasonable and expected for the populace to say "own up to it" when it becomes clear that evidence has been falsified.

George W. Bush ran ostensibly against the moral record of President Clinton. Now we are going to see just how honorable George Walker Bush is by how he handles accusations of starting a war under false pretenses.

Bush is responsible. Now he can role-model all these sterling qualities that supposedly set him apart from his opponents in the elections.

(Edited out "stand and deliver" since that phrase has a different meaning in Britain--thanks, Platypus! )

Let's try to balance which lie is worse.

Lying about receiving oral sex from a intern. Lives Lost= zero.

Lying about the reasons for the United States attacking a nation that has not attacked it first. Lives Lost=211 (and rising).

This is the definition of a "no-brainer."

Examine the words closely. No lie was told. Not only was it a British intel report being mentioned, but the Brits still stand by the reported attempts having been made by Iraq to acquire the material.

Please get your facts in order before you start tossing around such accusations.

I move that this thread be closed based on the fact that it has nothing to
with reality as Passion, the CIA and British government have adequitely
shown.

Tom Daschle and his fellow Dems were calling on Bush to,"reveal all the evidence." A piece of British intel about uranium turned up wrong. Most of what Bush cited was nearly verbatim to Clinton's allegations in 1998. If the evidence was doctored, the vast majority of it happened under Clinton, and with all the genocide, warmongering, WMD, atrocities against women, the decade of UN resolutions authorizing force, and Saddam's constant, open sponsoring of Palestinian suicide bombers-which connects him to terrorism in case nobody noticed- I think this one piece of bad evidence is far from invalidating the case for liberating Iraq. We know Clinton lied, conjecture, speculation and conspiracy theories are all there is on Bush.

Passion51:

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=16274

This link might be of interest to you, in light of your recent comments about getting the facts straight--here's an excerpt :

Tenet is just the fall guy for this particular debacle. That's why he's not being asked to leave his post. His admission was S.O.P.

George Walker Bush is responsible for what he said. It is his hand-picked cabinet who gave the green light and contributed to that speech. They obviously wanted to invade Iraq, and some "stretching of the truth" was involved in persuading the American people. It's ironic you're telling me to "get the facts straight" when the Commander-in-Chief obviously didn't before speaking before millions of people.

And it IS a bigger lie than the telltale stain and Clinton's embarrassment at being caught in adultery.

The document that was provided before the U.N. claiming that Iraq was purchasing uranium out of Africa was proven to be forged. It wasn't just bad intelligence, it was facts being fabricated. This was evident weeks, if not a month, before we invaded Iraq. The Bush Administration chose to ignore this finding and assumed that such a triviality would go unnoticed. A few months after the war in Iraq Bush continued to confide in the allegation that Iraq was purchasing uranium out of Africa. What part of forged document did he not understand? Did he assume that a non-genuine piece of paper was still legitimate [which is stupid] or did he flat out lie?

Currently the Bush Administration is trying to justify its error by blaming faulty British intelligence. Before the war, Britain disclosed all they knew about Iraq was what they knew from the media. In other words, in loose terms, their intelligence is non-authentic.

[BEGIN SARCASAM] Either way, Bush made a fuzzy calculated decision that the national average attention span is two weeks and for those of us unfortunate to pay attention beyond December 12, 2000 are forever condemned to "get over it." I suppose I had gotten over Clinton's sex scandal with minimal gripe. Bush's negligence for evaluating the truth is not as bad as LBJ. Perhaps I will get over this anxiety induced Liberal disease and acquire the good old conservative rational thought, which in proper consequence, rationalizes everything in favor for the master party. [END SARCASAM]

Bush lied, Also.

Paladin,

Your last post confirmed that someone told someone that they told someone something. You call that a fact? Its well documented gossip. There still remains to be any evidence that Bush lied.

Also, Bush's ALLEGED lie didn't cost any more lives than Clinton's because we had a multitude of other reasons (As cited mostly by Bill Clinton in 1998) to liberate Iraq.

Try this one: http://www.politicalstrategy.org/2003_01_2...log_archive.htm

So come up with your own resources to refute the link I posted, aquapub, if it is in fact false. The presence of WMDs was the main reason for invading Iraq, until no WMDs were found. How embarrassing for the self-proclaimed savior of the "free world."

Violation of UN Resolution #1441 was the official, stated reason that was given for the U.S. invasion of Iraq. No weapons of mass destruction have been found to date. The sixteen words on Bush's State of the Union address have been refuted.

As far as proving that Bush lied to us, that's what the Congressional Investigation is about. I know that if I were President and about to commit thousands of lives and tens of billions of dollars, I would want to be absolutely sure of the facts. But this sounded a whole lot like, pick any reason, any evidence no matter how old or specious, just give me a reason to do this. This weekend Bush replied to pointed questions about this issue with "Subject closed." Sounds like Clinton re: his intern problem.

If you are going to go on a thread just to criticize and accuse, you don't need me to play the game. I have other things to do.

If you are actually interested in educating us Liberals, Greens and/or Democrats and some disillusioned Republicans and Libertarians, come up with some links of your own and have at it. Talk is cheap. Show us the links. Enlighten us.

And remember, "there still remains to be any evidence" (to borrow your phrase) of WMDs, nuclear or conventional.

Come up with a link to prove there's no proof? Um..That would be a neat trick if such a site on nothingness existed. The burden of proof is on the accuser here, seems to me. YOU generate something (beyond gossip), its your claim.

WMD haven't been found, correct, but we have pictures of him burying them. We also have the unmanned planes, the mobile biolabs, and the illegal, long-range scuds. Do you really think Clinton was making stuff up when he said the same things? And he wasn't throwing Kool-Aid on the Kurds..That's called mustard gas.

Show us the weapons. Show us the uranium. Aw, heck, show us Saddam.
Show us the happy, happy Iraqis so glad they're liberated that an average of one soldier is dying per day while occupying Iraq.

Show us anything to pull George W. Bush's and his appointees' butts out of the fire.

The onus of proof is on the Chief Warmonger, as it should be.

Paladin,

So your challenging whether or not Saddam exists now too? He, like the weapons and the nuclear facilitation HAVE LAREADY EXISTED THERE. That is FACT. Where's the big mystery? When they find more evidence, will it ever be enough? You seem determined to cling to the absence of weapons WE SAW HIM USE, hence, ones that we know were there. I don't get the obstinence on such a non-issue.

I don't think Saddam is a non-issue. His remains were never found. It is alleged that he is still making tapes to the Iraqi people to resist the allies.

I think the Weapons of Mass Destruction that were allegedly 45 minutes away from being deployed is a HUGE issue.

Did you really think I was saying that Saddam never existed?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_ea...ast/3046390.stm

What I was saying is, where is he? We just can't find him!

This is George's show, not mine. Maybe he s-t-r-e-t-c-h-e-d the truth a little bit. I think he stretched it a lot. Hope the Congress can make some headway in its investigation.

Can you remember a time when so much was expended and so little was found? And to think that for the first time the US launched a pre-emptive war on a little country and still cannot account for its leader or those infamous weapons?

(Then there's Osama...we seem to be good at misplacing these guys. )

Im going to go way out on a limb and say neither. Clinton didnt lie when he said he didnt have sex with Monica. By legal definition oral sex is not sex in the literal sense so since he did not copulate in the precreative sense he didnt lie, even though it was the same morality. By the same token Bush did not lie, he said something he should have known was not true, he is not a liar he is stupid. The British had supplied with a perfectly trustworthy forged document that supported his agenda to pursue rouge nations that support terrorism. Its not really a lie if you believe the element of truth contained in the statement, even if it is not true and you should realize it. See what I mean? You guys are confused about this because you are trying to understand a lie in terms of whether or not the statement is true. Thats beside the point of political statements.

"And as we wind on down the road,
the shadow has stolen our soul,
and if you listen very hard,
the truth will come to you a lie,
and I dont want it when its hard, oh yeah
to be a rock and not to roll...
and shes buying the stairway to heaven."
(Led Zepplin, Stairway to Heaven)

9/11 necessitated a preemptive strategy..Unless we should exclusively play defense..I'm not much in support waiting around for another attack.

As far as I'm concerned, we DID get what we went there for-Saddam's toppling, but I acknowledge that "manual, forced the removal" of his WMD can't be accomplished till we find them. And with how many months he had to hide/destroy them (which we have pictures of them doing) I think its unreasonable to be so outraged that we haven't found them yet.

And no, I didn't think you meant that, I was just emphasizing that no one really cares (beyond morbid curiosity) whether Saddam is dead or just out of power.

Joseph C. Wilson came forward in an op-ed piece he wrote and on Meet the Press to reveal that he was sent to Niger regarding Iraq's alleged attempt to acquire uranium:

http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20030...=scheer20030708


Wilson says that this was known before Bush's State of the Union address.

There is still no proof, other than the propaganda, that Saddam has any connection with OBL. Besides why would he? OBL hates Saddam, for the very reason why you hate Saddam. Thus the very reason why OBL was exiled from Saudi Arabia because he wanted to go to war with Iraq about 13 years ago. 9/11 was extremely circumstantial to poor airport security and regulation, using the tragedy to justify global conquest is in no way a remedy of making ends meet. Rather, it is a prolonged demand for retribution with reckless disregard for who should be held accountable. When will your outrage end?

On what conditions for this consequence? For what he did over 10 years ago? I agree that Saddam is not a pleasant man, no better than Stalin. Yet it still should be the burden of proof upon Bush to show that Saddam possess a clear and present danger to us, much less the world. Bush rallied support for this war by claiming that Saddam was in possession of chemical and biological WMD. Despite the well organized U.N. weapons inspectors that had investigated Iraq for several months before the invasion Bush showed hardly a pinch of compassion for the cooperation Saddam did provide. Such as opening the no-fly-zone and deconstructing his long range missiles. A peaceful resolution was in process which is something that Bush had little patience for and absolutely no tolerance for. I suggest Bush holds onto those pictures of WMD, cause a picture is the only WMD he has. Pictures can be deceiving. After all, there is the picture of Rumsfeld shaking hands with Saddam.

In fighting the war between right and wrong how much can the hero afford to be wrong? I can see Ari Flischer picked a good time to get out.

9/11 was because of giving Israel weapons to defend herself and for supposivly invading Mecca.



He also rallied with the point of humanitarian reasons. Just look at all those mass graves that have been found after Saddam's topple.




Actually, in 1998, Saddam violated UN Resolutions by not cooperating inspectors. Clinton & the UN should have taken him out then and there.



When Al-Queda is destroyed

Okay, we're starting to stray here a bit - again. This thread is not about justifying George W Bush's alleged lie, it is about whether that alleged lie is worse than Bill Clinton's alleged lie. Let's try to stay on topic - we do have other threads for the matters arising here. Please post to those threads.

:::::::::::::::::::::::::

For those of you using the death toll as an argument for Bush's lie being worse than Clinton's, I should remind you that, in addition to the American deaths you're reporting, over 6000 Iraqi civilians have also been slaughtered in this criminal war.

The original question was:

(It was not AM's interpretation of the question, which more than one staffer quoted as the original question).

The President's quote from the State of the Union is:

This statement is completely TRUE. Nothing in it is false. The British government stands behind the statement to this day. They claim that other evidence exists that they are unable to supply the US government (or anyone else).

The reasoning behind this revolves around how the international intelligence community operates:
If Country A comes up with a piece of intelligence and supplies it to Country B, Country B cannot disclose the source of said information without the approval of the original country (in this case, Country A).
More pressure on Tony Blair over Iraq

(emphasis mine)

Now, let's compare Bush's TRUE statement to Clinton's lie.

Well, one is a lie and one is not. The lie is worse.

The answer to the first two parts:
a.) Does the office of President make a lie more significant : Yes, obviously it does.
b.) Is Bush responsible for the factual content of his speeches : Yes, he is. In this particular speech, he cited the source of each of his assertions. If the conclusions are in doubt, each listener was free to go to the source.