by Jack
Bill Moyers is well known to be left of center as a journalist, but that’s okay, sometimes he hits the mark because he sets aside his bias. This is one of those times. In a recent article about big lies and the people who told them, he leads off with his number one liar, Barrack Hussein Obama. How appropriate.
““If you like the [health care] plan you have, you can keep it.”
—President Barack Obama, June 6, 2009 (similarly stated numerous times)
Moyers writes, “The Affordable Care Act imposed new standards on health care plans, such as a minimum required set of benefits, and limits on total out-of-pocket expenses. A small percentage of existing plans did not meet these standards, and in some cases, the insurance company that had offered them decided to discontinue them. They were, in effect, “canceled.” Though these plans were not very comprehensive, a fraction of the 4-to-5 percent of Americans who had purchased them were upset when they discovered they would not be able to keep them after all. The president’s oft-repeated — and now demonstrably false — claim added fuel to the fire. The administration imposed a temporary “keep your plan” fix to the health care law, and extended it through the midterm elections.”
In the number two spot of big fat liars he accuses “W” for misleading us about Saddam stockpile of WMD’s and secret WMD labs, but is making a mistake based on bad intelligence information, that even our partners in the UK believed, the same thing as telling a deliberate lie?
We also should remember that we went to war with Iraq only after Saddam deliberately committed a number of UN peace treaty violations. Those UN sanctions were not working, except to starve the Iraqi people that we wanted to help, and Saddam was really pushing his bluff that fed the misinformation.
In honest hindsight there is still no evidence to suggest that Bush ever deliberately lied about WMD’s.
We’ve learned a big lesson from this experience and American people are looking for facts, accuracy and truth more than ever before, which has caused no end of trouble for Obama. Keep it up!
You’re right that the “if you like your plan…” statement was an egregious lie. I might rank Bush’s WMD statements higher, if only because they led to so much more needless death and destruction. But you have a good point that Bush probably wasn’t intentionally lying; he was just hopelessly incompetent.
Moyers is a big fat stupid moron. Obama was not lying!
From http://tinyurl.com/kyajm7b —
Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber said that lack of transparency was a major part of getting Obamacare passed because “the stupidity of the American voter” would have killed the law if more people knew what was in it.
Obama did not lie, he was just a stupid American moron from whom the details were hidden. Just like Moyers and Chris. Of course there were many who tried to warn stupid Americans morons like Obama, Moyers, and Chris, but the stupid American morons just rolled their eyes and sniffed, “Stupid conservatives, stupid libertarians, stupid Republicans! Stupid, stupid, stupid!”
Chris: “you have a good point that Bush probably wasn’t intentionally lying; he was just hopelessly incompetent.”
Two points:
If based on Bush’s beliefs about WMD make him “hopelessly incompetent” then so are other nations of the world, the U.N., the Bill Clinton administration, Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, Nancy Pelosi, Diane Feinstein and other high ranking officials.
Bush left with Iraq stabilized, a ME void of the turmoil we are now witnessing, and an Iran deal that will assure this dangerous, America/Israel hating regime will have nuclear weapons and lots of money to wage it’s oppressive, murderous, religious war, to name a few bits of evidence of this “hopelessly incompetent” administration.
By comparison Bush was not only competent but very good at his administrative executive duties. That you continue this childish mud slinging crap is astounding; you should by now be converted or hiding.
Tina, anyone who relied on the advice of “Curveball”–despite the major red flags–could be described as hopelessly incompetent.
The Clinton administration went after Hussein at a time when the nation actually WAS developing WMDs, so I don’t think your equivalence makes sense.
As I understand it members of Congress got their information second hand from the intelligence community, but I could be wrong. Again, if they knew the source and his history of tall tales–as the Bush administration did–they are culpable. But the buck has to stop at the White House.
The majority of the UN did not support the Iraq War.
Your list also has a conspicuous absence: Then-senator Barack Obama, who opposed the war in Iraq. Had we listened to people like him at the time, thousands of our soldiers would still be alive today.
“Bush left with Iraq stabilized,”
That is absurd.
From the Hill:
“The terror associated with Jeb Bush’s definition of “stability” in Iraq and the latest conservative whitewashing of the Iraq War’s bloody history is staggering. The U.S. Department of State records that in 2008 alone, 3,256 terrorist attacks occurred in Iraq. As far as Bush “winning” the war, 19,077 people were “killed, kidnapped, or injured as a result of terrorism” in Iraq during George W. Bush’s last year in office. Prior to 2008, the U.S. Department of State cites a total of 12,841 terrorist attacks in Iraq from 2006 to 2007, resulting in the death of 82,891 Iraqis. Apparently, Jeb Bush and others never read the State Department’s Country Reports on Terrorism 2009, which states that “Since 2005 [until 2009], Iraq continues to be the single country with the most attacks and fatalities due to terrorism.”
Will any Republican candidate for president ever explain how 3,256 terrorist attacks in Iraq during 2008, and 12,841 terrorist attacks in Iraq during the 2006 to 2007 period, could ever mean “stability,” “winning,” or a country that Obama could have “lost?”
As for Iraq’s civilian “deaths from violence” in 2008, which includes terrorism but also addresses the issue of sectarian violence, the Iraq Body Count lists a death toll of 10,271 Iraqis. In terms of Jeb Bush’s view of progress, or the impact of the surge, 26,036 Iraqis died in 2007 and 29,439 Iraqis died in 2006. Therefore, in the context of the 55,475 Iraqis who died as a result of violence in Iraq during the two years before 2008, Republicans might indeed be able to claim a morbid view of progress in George W. Bush’s last year in office.
No rational person, however, could claim that such carnage means stability had been achieved in Iraq…
…In terms of political dysfunction, the reality is that Obama inherited from George W. Bush an Iraqi government full of corruption and Sunni versus Shiite bloodshed, despite the presence of U.S. troops. According to Transparency International’s Corruptions Perception Index in 2008, Iraq almost took the crown as the most corrupt nation in the word, ranking 178 out of 180 countries. In 2008, an Amnesty International article noted that “despite the heavy presence of [U.S.] and Iraqi security forces, Iraq is one of the most dangerous countries in the world, with hundreds of Iraqi civilians killed every month.” As for the viewpoint of Rove, Bush and others who desperately yearn to keep Americans in Iraq, 322 U.S. soldiers died in 2008 and 1,834 Americans died in this war-torn country during the two years prior.
After becoming president, Obama had to confront the limits of what U.S. News & World Report called an “overstretched” U.S. military that had been in combat longer than ever in U.S. history. Therefore, Jeb Bush’s belief that keeping American troops in Iraq longer could either help America or promote “stability” (or prevent thousands of terrorist attacks) in Iraq simply doesn’t correlate with reality. Jeb Bush, like Karl Rove and others, is wrong about Iraq and its “stability” before Obama took office.”
http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/defense/243853-jeb-bush-is-wrong-iraq-was-not-stable-before-obama
Speaking of “incompetent” presidents, let’s look at Obama’s acts of incompetence.
Archuleta OPM hack disaster crystallizes Obama administration incompetence
“Katherine Archuleta resigned as head of the Office of Personnel Management yesterday, but the effects of her spectacular incompetence will harm the United States for many years to come. Her rise and fall symbolically and substantively capture the essence of the Obama administration approach to its grave responsibilities, and its failure to meet them.
Archuleta’s appointment to the position she occupied – in essence, human resources director for the largest employer in America — was a classic three-fer, in the cynical parlance of contemporary affirmative action. She is a woman! She is Hispanic! She is (or was) politically connected and reliable! You see, her prior work experience was on the Obama campaign. Twitchy, Instapundit, and Powerline, among many others, gleefully exposed her handiwork as an Obama 2012 campaign operative who posted a Tweet mocking Mitt Romney for revealing “little understanding of what’s going on the 21st century” with a YouTube video of him warning of Chinese hacking.”
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2015/07/archuleta_opm_hack_disaster_crystallizes_obama_administration_incompetence.html#ixzz3fcZGFfDK
You Can’t Keep Up With Obama’s Incompetence, Corruption, and Hyperactivity:
“I awoke to the news that Obama has fallen way behind on his promise to train moderate Syrians to fight ISIS. After budgeting some $500 million to instruct and equip 3,000 anti-ISIS troops by year’s end, Obama, in fact, has unleashed 60 such combatants. That’s 2 percent down, 98 percent to go. But, hey, what’s the rush? Even before the advent of ISIS, Obama originally touted this effort as a bulwark against the brutality of Bashar Assad, the dictator of Damascus. “We are particularly interested in making sure that we are mobilizing the moderate forces inside of Syria,” Obama declared at a presidential debate on October 22, 2012. Thirty-two months later, Obama’s moderate Syrian force boasts a whopping five dozen members.”
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/421004/barack-obama-isis-lois-lerner-incompetence-corruption
Obama in a Word: ‘Good,’ ‘Incompetent’:
“The national survey by the Pew Research Center, conducted Jan. 7-11 among 1,504 adults, finds that the words good (35 mentions) and incompetent (33 mentions) are used most frequently to describe Obama. Those words also were used most often in June 2013, the last time this question was asked. This report shows the actual number of respondents mentioning each word; they are not percentages.”
http://www.people-press.org/2015/01/20/obama-in-a-word-good-incompetent/
Hillary called Obama ‘incompetent and feckless’ in boozy rant:
““When her friends asked Hillary to tell them what she thought — really thought — about the president she had served for four draining years, she lit into Obama with a passion that surprised them all,” Klein wrote.
Clinton ranted, “The thing with Obama is that he can’t be bothered, and there is no hand on the tiller half the time. That’s the story of the Obama presidency. No hand on the f–king tiller,” according to the book, which was excerpted exclusively in Sunday’s Post.
“Obama has turned into a joke,” she went on, according to Klein.
“The IRS targeting the Tea Party, the Justice Department’s seizure of AP phone records and [Fox reporter] James Rosen’s e-mails — all these scandals. Obama’s allowed his hatred for his enemies to screw him the way Nixon did,” she raged, the book says, adding that she called the president “incompetent and feckless.”
http://nypost.com/2014/06/27/hillary-called-obama-a-joke-at-lunch-with-pals-book/
Hey, this is fun I could keep going for hours, but I think you get the idea that based on just the number of areas leadership Obama has been exposed as being the most incompetent president in US history.
Forgot a major example of Obama’s incompetence. We all remember him telling Romney during a debate, “The 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back because the Cold War’s been over for 20 years.”
Russian threat weighs on US general’s mind:
“General Joseph Dunford, the nominee for chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told lawmakers that Russia poses the greatest threat to US national security. “In Russia, we have a nuclear power. We have one that not only has the capability to violate the sovereignty of our allies and to do things that are inconsistent with our national interests but they are in the process of doing so,” he said at his confirmation hearing in the Senate on Thursday.”If you want to talk about a nation that could pose an existential threat to the United States, I’d have to point to Russia. And if you look at their behaviour, it’s nothing short of alarming,” the general said.
http://news.asiaone.com/news/world/russian-threat-weighs-us-generals-mind#sthash.rWSsBHll.dpuf
Obama’s pick for Joint Chiefs Chairman sides with Romney on Russia:
http://www.usatoday.com/videos/news/2015/07/09/29919269/
Re #3 Tina : “If based on Bush’s beliefs about WMD make him “hopelessly incompetent” then so are other nations of the world, the U.N., the Bill Clinton administration, Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, Nancy Pelosi, Diane Feinstein and other high ranking officials.”
And despite what the English major “understands”, Congress had just as good and up to date information as Bush had. The false narrative that Congress had information less complete is a canard abused by the Democrat Party for political gain and to give themselves political cover amongst their constituents.
I not believe Bush was incompetent but neither was he a very good POTUS with regard to the execution of the Iraq war. Had “the surge” come in near the beginning Iraq may well have been stabilized by the end of his presidency.
Unfortunately Bush’s term ended before a sound stabilization and a truly incompetent “community organizer” with absolutely no executive credentials nor experience took over.
We all know what happened next with that clown in charge.
In any case, that is how I see it.
Peggy is always such a great fountain of information.
Contrast this to Chris, who is always great fountain of raw sewage.
Pie at #7: “Had “the surge” come in near the beginning Iraq may well have been stabilized by the end of his presidency.”
As I understand it the surge was not an available option at the start but was fashioned after being in the country and learning about what did and did not work. If this is so, Bush’s embrace of the plan represents competency. One could argue that he delayed changing direction but who knows the reasons for delay? It could be no alternate plan looked feasible until he was presented with the surge…we’ll probably never know, although, Bush may have addressed this issue in his memoir.
Thanks Peggy, the Obama record of incompetence is indeed staggering! I particularly enjoyed reading Hillary’s take on it.
I also was reminded recently that the Clinton’s started what’s been called the “birther movement.”:
Newsbusters:
Telegraph:
…and in comments:
Politics! It’s a crazy place to play, isn’t it?
Chris telling the public something you know to be false is a lie; telling the public something everyone believes to be true is not a lie. Your inability to discern the difference is amazing.
Of course it could be that you just enjoy carrying water for the Saul Alinsky left.
Re #9 Tina : Some clarifications.
I should have written : Had “the surge” come in near the beginning Iraq may well have been BETTER stabilized by the end of his presidency.”
The Commander-in-chief is just that. What he says goes. “The surge” as it is called could have happened at any time on his instruction. But, at the time his advisers (I believe) thought that limited forces could handle the job. In fact, as I recall, this was the leading theory at the time. In my opinion there was in place this concept that they could extend themselves with limited forces and achieve a stabilized victory.
This is my single biggest gripe. When you go to war, you go to war, you do not pussy foot around. I thought the over extension of the drive to Baghdad foolish, but this will be argued for decades. It should have at least been part of the plan to “surge” at the earliest possible moment.
Iraq had a modicum of stability at the end of Bush’s presidency and to say otherwise is a canard of the left that serves political purposes, not reality. (Hence Pissy’s false narrative.)
I believe that if “the surge” happened earlier then Bush would have had more time to lobby for a more stable government. He had the influence, and the balls, and the people to do so. Instead, the “community organizer” twit took over. Obama was more interested in transforming America into a third world hell hole than he was using diplomatic influence in insuring a stable Iraq.
In any case, Bush was not incompetent as some rubes claim. Being an armchair quarterback on the left is easy.
“This is my single biggest gripe. When you go to war, you go to war, you do not pussy foot around. I thought the over extension of the drive to Baghdad foolish, but this will be argued for decades. It should have at least been part of the plan to “surge” at the earliest possible moment.” Pie
EXACTLY!
Re #11 Tina : No. Not amazing, it is to be expected from juvenile minds that are not very bright.
By loose analogy I refer you to the parent whose 4 year old kid who screams, “You promised! You lied to me!”
Dag nabit, another bad edit posted rendering another ungrammatical sentence.
Tina the Saul Alinsky left playbook is not going to work. GOP tried to bring it back but no one is buying it.
Read My Lips G.W. Bush ignored Intel there were no WMD”S. Several officials have stepped out with the Truth.
Follow the Media and you become sheeple.
Tyler Drumheller, the former highest-ranking CIA officer in Europe, told “60 Minutes” that the administration “chose to ignore” good intelligence,
http://edition.cnn.com/2006/US/04/23/cia.iraq/
Two former CIA officers say the president squelched top-secret intelligence, and a briefing by George Tenet, months before invading Iraq.
http://www.salon.com/2007/09/06/bush_wmd/
There are many actual intel people who speak out now that is a fact GW knew there were no WMD’s.
The FBI and Planted propaganda in the media. That war was a crime against the Americans who died in that war. It was a planned attack to which they created an excuse.
Privatize the Iraqi Oil Fields which were divided up before the first shot was fired. The plan backfired. What did Americans get? A Huge Deficit from tax cuts for the 1% and 2 wars not on the books. That is what a conservative in the white house gets us.
Here is Cenk Uygur mashup of Bush Lies
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqAsplabsS0
So while Obama is not my gavorite dude, I will not pretend the Right has done this country better.
These trade deals removing the sovernighty of our cuntry will fall on the shoulders of both the Democrcrat and republican Parties.
There are a few Democrats fighting for our sovernighty. Only they deserve to be in office. All others need to go including All GOP candidates, Hilliary, Jeb, ect ect.
Turn off the TV and read the darn bills. laziness will be t blame when it’s too late. Fascism is our system.
Tina at #11, I’m not sure why you wrote that; I already said pretty clearly that I think Bush was probably not intentionally lying.
Chris…Bush was NOT lying! He had no intention to lie; he did have evidence, including 17 UN resolutions worth of concern about WMD and the intentions of Saddam Hussein.
You were a baby when Clinton was President. He lacked the stomach to stand up to Saddam and simply kicked the mess down the road for the next president to address.
I will say Bush made a few mistakes but it is ridiculous to call his leadership incompetent.
Since Bush left office evidence has been revealed that Saddam did have WMD.
Human Events: “…
the real earth-shaking moment was the Islamic State’s capture of Saddam’s chemical weapons factory at Muthanna… where the Iraqi government recently confirmed long-standing CIA suspicions that a few thousand shells full of deadly sarin gas are stored.
PJ Media:
.
Curveball was not the only source for information on WMD.
Pie is right that Congress had the same intel as the President. There’s a special committee that is allowed to see the classified information so they can report to Congress. Prior to the war this committee, including members Pelosi and Feinstein, felt the information compelling enough to back the Iraq war. In fact Democrats, seeing the surge in Patriotism and support for Bush rise, were falling all over themselves to appear hawkish. Now there’s a lie!
Must watch mouth-piece Lanny Davis hang up during interview when questions about Hillary didn’t go his way.
SHOCK: Watch What Hillary Ally Does When Confronted With One of Her Lies:
http://allenbwest.com/2015/07/shock-watch-what-hillary-ally-does-when-confronted-with-one-of-her-lies/
Tina, the weapons found in Syria and Iraq were manufactured prior to 1991, and did not in any way justify the rationale for war. This has been explained many, many times:
“In an interview with The Intercept, Charles Duelfer, head of the CIA’s definitive post-war investigation of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction programs, explained that “Saddam didn’t know he had it … This is stuff Iraqi leaders did not know was left lying around. It was not a militarily significant capability that they were, as a matter of national policy, hiding…
The complicated truth, then, is that part of the U.S. case for war was that the Iraqi government was hiding old, pre-1991 chemical weapons; such old chemical weapons were found in Iraq; but the U.S. case for war was still totally false because Saddam’s regime was not hiding those weapons.”
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/04/10/twelve-years-later-u-s-media-still-cant-get-iraqi-wmd-story-right/
LOL Peggy! The Clinton circus is packed with clowns! Keep ’em coming. This is going to be long parade of media softball suck ups punctuated by the occasional hardball question.
Sigh, Chris is in reruns. Yawn.
Tina writes, “There’s a special committee that is allowed to see the classified information so they can report to Congress. Prior to the war this committee, including members Pelosi and Feinstein, felt the information compelling enough to back the Iraq war. In fact Democrats, seeing the surge in Patriotism and support for Bush rise, were falling all over themselves to appear hawkish.”
Yep, Chris tried to float that old “Congress had incomplete information” lie again.
You would think Chris would try something new, like, “Bush is a bigoted white supremacist racist.” Oh wait, that is old with just a different twist.
I tire. The tiresome Chris makes me more tired.
Obama is a big fat liar.
What I wrote was this: “As I understand it members of Congress got their information second hand from the intelligence community, but I could be wrong. Again, if they knew the source and his history of tall tales–as the Bush administration did–they are culpable. But the buck has to stop at the White House.”
I’ll take Tina’s word that Congress saw the same info Bush did, and because of that they share a lot of–but not equal–responsibility for the war. Ultimately the most responsibility falls on “the decider.”
I’m not comfortable with anyone who supported the war in 2003 becoming president. If Hilary gets the nomination, I’ll vote third party like I did in 2012.
Question for Chris.
Who or what, if not the intelligence community, should any president rely on for information?
I think libs use the wee-gee board, but maybe they’ve come up with something better… lol
Chris: “Ultimately the most responsibility falls on “the decider.”
I hope you will apply the same standard to Obama with Kerry’s Iran nuclear deal.
That’ll be the day! lol
Tina, of course the president should rely on the intelligence community. But it is also important that the president get a full picture of the intelligence and its completeness, or lack thereof, before taking an action as serious as starting a war.
The CIA was well aware of the doubts expressed by the German BND about Curveball’s authenticity, but ignored them and punished critics. The CIA never even personally interviewed Curveball. Much of the blame lies with George Tenet for all of this, but again, Bush labeled himself “the Decider,” and it was up to him to discover this information before launching a war.
I think the Bush administration was determined to score a “win” for America at this time, and that’s what caused them to ignore doubts about the war. America was a traumatized nation at this time. We needed a victory, and Iraq was presented to us as an easy win. Cheney and others said we’d be out of there in a matter of weeks. And this worked because the American people desperately wanted to believe it too. (I know I did–I just found a poem I wrote for a seventh grade class project in 2003 in which I vigorously defend the war and crow about America’s unambiguous victory in Iraq and liberation of its citizens. I might have to share it with you–it’s a window into the young Republican version of myself that I’m sure you’ll find delightful.)
Bush also should have listened more to the UN weapons inspectors, who requested more time and did not support the U.S.’s rationale for war.
Self-delusion is a powerful thing and I think that was ultimately the biggest motivator in the disastrous decision to go to war.
Peggy: “I hope you will apply the same standard to Obama with Kerry’s Iran nuclear deal.”
I think the concerns about this deal are overblown (pardon the pun), but if it results in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people as the Iraq War did, then yeah, I’ll apply the same exact standard.
Chris: ” But it is also important that the president get a full picture of the intelligence and its completeness, or lack thereof, before taking an action as serious as starting a war.”
What makes you think Bush didn’t do just that?
Just because you don’t like the choice he made, or him, doesn’t mean he didn’t get fully informed or carefully consider before going to war.
(I have to admit I am seriously fighting back the desire to call you a very bad name.)
“…if it results in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people as the Iraq War did, then yeah, I’ll apply the same exact standard.”
Obama has already presided over “overseas contingency operations” that have led to skyrocketing deaths, be-headings, mass murders, crucifixions, refugees, the destruction of borders and the rise of ISIS.
Obama’s rules of engagement and his choices in the war have resulted in chaos and our enemies being closer to having nuclear capability. He did this without meeting often with military/intel advisors. Reports were enough for him.
Why not apply the same standard?
Here’s something the left media doesn’t report: <a href="September 11, 2013, CNS News:
When Bush was president that same media harped on the number of casualties and provided a constant barrage of criticism to demean and discredit him regarding the war.
You don’t even notice.
Oh my god Tina you are so right. I had forgotten I’d heard more of our soldiers were killed under Obama’s leadership than Bush’s.
The double standards could not be more evident than when during Bush’s term the news EVERY night would list with a picture if possible those who had died that day.
Yet, the screen went silent when Obama’s death toll climbed EVERY day exceeding those killed under Bush.
Amazing the cover up assistance the media will stoop to to help this administration deceive us to stay in power.
Kerry got us a deal with Iran this morning. It will be interesting to hear what the other countries in the region feel about it and if it will result in a nuclear arms race.
Chris’ standard may be met again with another hundreds of thousands being killed because of Obama’s incompetence.
Tina: “What makes you think Bush didn’t do just that?”
Because he didn’t. Because we went to war over WMDs that were not there. Because we were warned about Curveball, and we went to war anyway. I explained all of that already. How are those not enough reasons? How are you still asking this question?
“(I have to admit I am seriously fighting back the desire to call you a very bad name.)”
You are directing your anger in the wrong direction. I am not the one who started a war for nothing. Don’t shoot the messenger.