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8/19/2003 05:50:00 PM | Timothy Bush Lies Or, rather, look at his mendacity on display here: In an interview with the Armed Forces Radio and Television Service given on Thursday and released by the White House yesterday, Bush interrupted the questioner when asked about his announcement on May 1 of, as the journalist put it, "the end of combat operations."Ok, Bush corrects a questioner by saying something isn't true, but that thing turns out to be what Bush had said. Tell that to troops, indeed. Read the whole thing. Another confirmation that the Bushies are fundamentally dishonest. Update: In seeming Orwellian fashion, the White House has even changed its website after the Post story. The headline of the carrier speech was originally listed as 'President Bush Announces Combat Operations in Iraq Have Ended'. Actually, as I'm writing this, I have to say I would say it would be really Orwellian if they had changed the text of the speech, or the headline, to major 'Military Operations' in line with President Bush's revisionism noted in the Post article. Instead they just added a 'major' before 'combat'. In this case, this change doesn't particularly matter, as it does match what the president said then. Even if it does support the general tendency of the White House to be revisionist, it's hard for me to get all that exercized about these specifics. That's not true of what the President said above, which showed real mendacity. A blogger notes: "I don't know why the WH is so concerned over the word 'major' as it is absolutely evident that both 'major combat operations' and 'combat operations' have not ended. Bush loses either way.It depends on what the meaning of 'major' is? Actually, this is more tractable in other ways and it is less worthwhile to simply see it as 'Clintonian', because it is touches on a political issue: if the meaning of 'major' is up for dispute, it could be up for the voters to decide, in the sense that it corresponds to how they feel about the continuing number of deaths after the aircraft carrier speech. That number, I believe, is now approaching the number of troops who have died while 'major combat operations' were going on. Another Update: Hmmm... The web-updating of the white house site seems more extensive (and clumsy) than I thought it was. I might have spoke to soon, and it could have relevence after all. Judge for yourself. The State Dept. still has President Bush Announces Combat Operations in Iraq Have Ended as the title for the text of the Lincoln speech, where the white house people seem to be changing multiple references to "Combat Operations" to "Major Combat Operations." (and having a date stamp on the webpage of August 18 for a May speech) Basically, the only relevence I see is that if the President wants to explain his revisionism above through clever parsing. (ie. 'Major Combat Operations' = 'Military Operations' while simply 'Combat Operations' = what is going on today). That doesn't fly because their official website have said 'Combat Operations' are over. Eh. Whatever. Not too excited anymore. I need to study!!! perma link |
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