Home » Archives » January 2006 » From the "How do you know President Bush is lying? His lips are moving..." department:
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01/28/2006: From the "How do you know President Bush is lying? His lips are moving..." department:
From Josh Marshall yesterday:
Sometimes the symbols of reality obscure reality. Whether there are one or five or a hundred pictures of President Bush and Jack Abramoff is really beside the point. What is the point is this line from President Bush from yesterday's press conference: "You know, I, frankly, don't even remember having my picture taken with the guy. I don't know him."But that's what we get from 5 years of the mainstream media's enabling of Bush's lying habit. If they'd called him out early and often (like, maybe, during the 2000 campaign), he'd have learned that he can't get away with that kind of crap. Or even better, he'd never have "won" the election to begin with.
Even discounting for the inherent squishiness of the language, that's just a lie.
Doesn't know him? Please. Like most successful politicians President Bush has a knack for remembering names and faces. On top of that, well ... let's set aside the fact that Abramoff was apparently a frequent attendee at White House staff planning meetings, seeded the administration with a bunch of his former employees, and so forth.
Let's just focus on a few key facts.
For the first three years of Bush's presidency Abramoff was arguably the most wired Republican lobbyist in Washington.
Bush doesn't know him?
Abramoff was a long time associate of one of the president's top political advisors, Grover Norquist and his chief political guru Karl Rove.
Bush never made his acquaintance?
Every Republican power player in Washington knew Jack Abramoff. Many of them knew him very, very well. But President Bush never knew him? Their paths never crossed?
That is simply ridiculous.
What's more, everyone asking the questions knows it's ridiculous. The problem is that absent a 2+2=5 type statement they don't feel comfortable calling the president out as a liar.
Len on 01.28.06 @ 04:16 PM CST
