False pretenses for Iraq war?
President Bush, joined by senior members of his administration, at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, Thursday, Aug. 11, 2005. (PHOTO CREDIT: AP)
FROM CNN's Jack Cafferty:
President Bush and top administration officials publicly made 935 false statements about the risk posed by Iraq in the two years following 9/11 according to a study done by two nonprofit journalism groups.
The study found President Bush led the pack with 260 lies, but he wasn't alone. Other officials listed include: Vice President Dick Cheney, former Secretary of State Colin Powell, then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, among others.
The study points to at least 532 times where officials said that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction or was trying to get them or had links to al Qaeda.
They say the statements “were part of an orchestrated campaign that effectively galvanized public opinion and, in the process, led the nation to war under decidedly false pretenses."
The White House called the study "flawed", and repeated the administration's position that the world community saw Saddam Hussein as a threat. President Bush said that at the time he and other officials made the statements, the U.S. intelligence community and other nations thought Iraq had WMD.
But it didn't. And yet we're still there and almost 4,000 of our troops are dead because of it.
Here’s my question to you: What do you make of a study that shows President Bush and his top aides made 935 false statements about the threat from Iraq in the two years after 9/11?
Interested to know which ones made it on air?
Slow moving jumpstart for economy?
[cnn-photo-caption image=http://i.l.cnn.net/cnn/2008/images/01/23/art.economy1.ap.jpg caption=" President Bush, meets with Congressional leaders to discuss the economy, Tuesday."]
FROM CNN's Jack Cafferty:
President Bush and congressional leaders are promising urgent action when it comes to a stimulus package to jump-start the economy.
But the truth is it may be too little, too late, and their definition of "urgent" may be quite different from that of the American people.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says senators are going to sit on their hands and do nothing until the House does something. Reid says when the House passes a bill and sends it to the Senate, they'll address it "as quickly" as they can. Yesterday, Reid said their goal is to get a bill to President Bush by February 15th. That's in three and a half weeks. In the last three weeks, the stock market has lost more than a thousand points.
What we're getting is more government by photo op from our so-called "leadership." Sit at a table, get your picture taken, then go out and mumble some platitudes about bipartisanship afterwards.
President Bush finally admitted the economy is in trouble a week ago - so the time between that and actually seeing some help for the economy could be at least a month.
In the meantime, people suffer, the markets dive, and our politicians talk. Where's the urgency? It's like they're all reading "My Pet Goat" while the country falls into recession and the value of people's investments, retirement plans and houses goes down the toilet. It's worth remembering when we vote later this year.
Here’s my question to you: Why can’t the president and Congress move more quickly on an economic stimulus package?
Interested to know which ones made it on air?
The Obama-Clinton feud?
[cnn-photo-caption image= http://i.l.cnn.net/cnn/2008/images/01/23/art.feud.gi.jpg caption=" Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton and Senator Barack Obama exchange words during the Democratic Presidential Primary Debate at the Palace Theater in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina."]
FROM CNN's Jack Cafferty:
It's getting nasty between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, and Bill Clinton seems to be enjoying it.
The former president had this to say: "I kind of like seeing Barack and Hillary fight. They're flesh-and-blood people and they have their differences – let' em at it."
But not everyone thinks it's becoming. Several top Democrats are concerned that the gutter politics will end up harming the party's image ahead of the general election.
Senator John Kerry, an Obama backer, wrote in an e-mail to supporters saying: "The truth matters, but how you fight the lies matters even more." Kerry doesn't mention Clinton by name, but says they're fighting back against anonymous e-mails questioning Obama's Christian faith.
Former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, another Obama backer, says attacks coming from the Clintons are similar to what he's seen from Republicans and called comments about Obama from former President Clinton "distortions”. Daschle says such bickering ultimately destroys the party and that it will have a "huge lasting effect down the road... if it doesn't stop soon."
On the other hand, Democratic strategist Donna Brazile thinks this "generational fight" will make the party stronger in the end.
Meanwhile, an editorial in today's Wall Street Journal suggests that Obama "seems to be awakening slowly to what everyone else already knows about the Clintons, which is that they will say and do whatever they 'gotta' say or do to win." unquote.
Here’s my question to you: Is the Obama-Clinton feud helpful or hurtful to the democratic process?
Interested to know which ones made it on air?
@jackcafferty on Twitter
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