Blog sprinkles

Don't mess with Saint Ronnie!

When you need a costume quick!

Friday's Hope blogging.

Glen Beck is sure rampages are a logical outcome of liberals being in charge.

Ten times worse than purity balls.

Jim Cramer acted like all other main stream media employees, willingly letting themselves be used for propaganda and manipulation.

Ari on 9/11 happening on Bush's watch: How dare you?

Jupiter's shrinking red spot.

Best car commercial ever.

Parenting your spouse.

Preparing for the end of the economy: plant a garden!

The joys of air travel and luggage juggling.

An awards list that makes you snort with laughter.

Only 935?

Ohhhh, this is just counting the lies about Iraq, not about all the other stuff.

WASHINGTON - A study by two nonprofit journalism organizations found that President Bush and top administration officials issued hundreds of false statements about the national security threat from Iraq in the two years following the 2001 terrorist attacks.

[snip]

The study counted 935 false statements in the two-year period. It found that in speeches, briefings, interviews and other venues, Bush and administration officials stated unequivocally on at least 532 occasions that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction or was trying to produce or obtain them or had links to al-Qaida or both.

"It is now beyond dispute that Iraq did not possess any weapons of mass destruction or have meaningful ties to al-Qaida," according to Charles Lewis and Mark Reading-Smith of the Fund for Independence in Journalism staff members, writing an overview of the study. "In short, the Bush administration led the nation to war on the basis of erroneous information that it methodically propagated and that culminated in military action against Iraq on March 19, 2003."

Named in the study along with Bush were top officials of the administration during the period studied: Vice President Dick Cheney, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Colin Powell, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and White House press secretaries Ari Fleischer and Scott McClellan.

Bush led with 259 false statements, 231 about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and 28 about Iraq's links to al-Qaida, the study found. That was second only to Powell's 244 false statements about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and 10 about Iraq and al-Qaida.

The center said the study was based on a database created with public statements over the two years beginning on Sept. 11, 2001, and information from more than 25 government reports, books, articles, speeches and interviews.

The question we should really be asking is .... just exactly when did this administration ever tell the truth?
crossposted at SteveAudio

Uh oh. The Saudis are gonna be pissed, Georgie...

How're you gonna explain this to your bestest Sunni pals?:

Baghdad's new Kurdish-Shiite coalition may end efforts at national reconciliation with the Sunnis. But a government pursuing common interests is Iraq's only hope. Even stability brought about by a Shiite-dominated regime would be better than the chaos that currently reigns.
[snip]
The members of the new coalition include, for the time being, the two Kurdish parties, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), as well as two Shiite groups, the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council and Maliki's Daawa Party. These are exactly the four parties that have favored transforming Iraq into a federalist state since the drafting of the constitution in 2005. These "federalists" are the only forces in Iraqi politics that can be expected to make any headway when it comes to stabilizing the country. This does nothing to change the observation that they are less interested in a functioning federal system than autonomy motivated by the desire for political power.

So, how are you going to handle this exclusion of the Sunnis, Bush?

Let's see.... Point fingers of blame at al-Maliki and his Shiite government... check:

BAGHDAD, Aug. 22 -- Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki on Wednesday strongly rebuked American politicians for threatening to withdraw support from his government, suggesting while on a trip to Syria that he could "find friends elsewhere" if he was abandoned by the United States.

Facing widespread and growing American criticism that he has not pushed his government faster toward political reconciliation or engineered the passage of important legislation, Maliki defended his elected government as reflecting the will of the Iraqi people rather than the urgencies of presidential politics in the United States. He said the calls for his removal were "discourteous."

Spend millions telling people the war was a good idea.... check:

A new group formed to pressure members of Congress to continue supporting U.S. military efforts in Iraq launched a $15 million ad campaign Wednesday that mostly targets members of both parties who have voted or spoken out against continued operations in that country.

Freedom's Watch, which counts former White House spokesman Ari Fleischer among its supporters, is targeting several Republicans who are deemed vulnerable in 2008, including Reps. Heather Wilson (N.M.), Jon Porter (Nev.) and Jim Gerlach (Pa.).

The group says it is “dedicated to fighting to protect the ideals and issues that keep America strong and prosperous” and wants to refocus the Iraq debate on the threat to U.S. security.

Tell people no matter what, you are planning to keep troops there until you are out of office and can't be blamed anymore:

President George Bush sought to buy more time for his Iraq "surge" strategy yesterday by making a risky comparison for the first time with the bloodshed and chaos that followed the US pullout from Vietnam.

Making it clear he will resist congressional pressure next month for an early withdrawal, he signalled that US troops, whom he hailed as the "greatest force for human liberation the world has ever known", will be in Iraq as long as he is president. He also said the consequences of leaving "without getting the job done would be devastating", and "the enemy would follow us home".

Just an aside, but does Georgie really think terrorists don't have ... like... world maps? Does he truly think terrorists can't find their way over here without sneaking onto troop transports? And does he really think terrorists are unable to delegate, so that some terrorists can be following us over here while others still blow stuff up over there? And even if this crop of terrorists is stuck in the quagmire over there and cannot figure out where the United States is, we've cleverly made a new generational crop of terrorists who will never forget we've ruined their lives.

Not everybody is as dumb as you, George.