Eleanor Clift has made my day with her article
"Big Lies. Who told the worst political untruth of 2005? It's a shame the list of contenders is so long." She nails almost every "major" lie this administration has tried to sell to the American public this year (she would need a novel to list all of the lies during Bush's administration.)
She leads off with this nice tidbit:
In compiling this year's list, I had the highest number of entries for the category, "Biggest Lie." I chose the White House declaration that Karl Rove and Scooter Libby had nothing to do with leaking the identity of a covert CIA agent. They were the principal participants in the effort to discredit former ambassador Joe Wilson because he had raised doubts about one of the pillars of their argument for war, namely that Iraq had tried to buy yellowcake uranium to make a bomb.
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If that doesn't get you going, how about this lie:
Another favorite--heard all the time from the White House--is that "everybody saw the same intelligence we did." Members of Congress don't see the President's Daily Briefing (one of them was the glossed-over pre-9/11 document that warned "Bin Laden Determined to Strike Inside the U.S."), and they didn't see all the qualifying caveats about Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction, or the doubts about the credibility of the sources the administration was relying on.
And of course we can't forget this:
The revelation that President Bush authorized spying on American citizens without warrants is a late entry to the year's "Biggest Lies" list. Bush says he bypassed the law because of the need for speed. He may believe that, but the facts say otherwise.
The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 established a special FISA secret court designed to act expeditiously. The executive branch can tap anybody's phone and not even get a warrant until 72 hours after the fact. The FISA court isn't picky; it's only turned down five requests out of 19,000 in its quarter-century existence. Bush publicly and proudly says he will continue to break the law. The Washington Post reported that one FISA court judge has resigned in apparent protest, and the others are asking why we have a secret court when it is ignored.
Bush's explanation is riddled with lies. He says our enemies are watching and threatens The New York Times, which broke the spying story, with legal action. It takes a vivid imagination to believe that Osama bin Laden and his buddies are keeping up with the niceties of FISA courts and would otherwise have no idea their phones might be tapped. Bush says he talks to Congress all the time and that there was plenty of congressional oversight. Not true. The Gang of Eight (leaders of both parties in the House and Senate, plus the chair and ranking members of the Intelligence Committees) were forbidden to take notes or discuss what they were told with colleagues or staff. Democratic Sen. Jay Rockefeller's hand-written letter to Cheney expressed uneasiness about the program. Rockefeller couldn't have its legality evaluated by staff. He couldn't even have the letter typed because of the secrecy. That hardly qualifies as congressional oversight.
And she adds:
The cavalier attitude toward the checks and balance of a democratic society is a pattern with this administration. Bush and Cheney regard Congress and the judiciary as obstacles, not as equal branches of government.
Clift nails this administration on their outright lies, their deception, their abuse of power and their total lack of respect for our laws. The biggest liars in 2005, without doubt, reside in the Whitehouse and Republican controlled congress, and Clift outlines just SOME of the reasons why this administration deserves the biggest liar award for 2005.
Given that Bush has now gone from president to dictator, all in the name of "protecting" our nation, one would hope that every American would read Clift and see exactly what bill of goods they have been sold, a bill that is due and goods that are beyond bad.