The AP reports [1], and the New York Times [2] expands, on a new study by a supposedly “independent” organization that claims to have assembled [3] hundred of “false statements” by the Bush administration in the course of the Iraq war. However, the Center for Public Integrity hardly qualifies as “independent”. It gets much of its funding from George Soros, who has thrown millions of dollars behind Democratic political candidates, and explicitly campaigned to defeat George Bush in 2004:
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.The study concluded that 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 study was posted Tuesday on the Web site of the Center for Public Integrity, which worked with the Fund for Independence in Journalism.
Nowhere in these articles do either news organization bother to inform their reader of the partisan nature of the CPI. Besides Soros, it gets financing from the Streisand Foundation, the Ford Foundation, and the Los Angeles Times Foundation. The FIJ shares most of its board members with the CPI, which hardly makes it a separate entity in terms of its political direction.
That’s Captain Ed, today [4].
Ed goes on from there:
Dafydd at Big Lizards [5] does a good job of pulling apart the supposed quotes that CPI used to blow some hot air into the limp “Bush lied” meme, but even the New York Times wasn’t impressed:
There is no startling new information in the archive, because all the documents have been published previously. But the new computer tool is remarkable for its scope, and its replay of the crescendo of statements that led to the war. Muckrakers may find browsing the site reminiscent of what Richard M. Nixon used to dismissively call “wallowing in Watergate.”
In fact, there is nothing new in this site that hasn’t already been picked apart by the blogosphere, and some of it discredited.
Actually, most if nnot all of it has been discredited. Flopping Aces [6], (Who has a great new layout…) goes ahead and rehashes at some lengths, the idea that there were no lies involved, no conspiracy, and provides much in the way of vid on the point. An example:
No, my favorite part of the “report” is this:
“Bush and the top officials of his administration have so far largely avoided the harsh, sustained glare of formal scrutiny about their personal responsibility for the litany of repeated, false statements in the run-up to the war in Iraq. There has been no congressional investigation, for example, into what exactly was going on inside the Bush White House in that period. Congressional oversight has focused almost entirely on the quality of the U.S. government’s pre-war intelligence – not the judgment, public statements, or public accountability of its highest officials. “…”Short of such review, this project provides a heretofore unavailable framework for examining how the U.S. war in Iraq came to pass. Clearly, it calls into question the repeated assertions of Bush administration officials that they were the unwitting victims of bad intelligence.”
I like this part the best for three reasons.
1) it completely ignores that the Sen Intel Com has investigated this for years now. In fact, back in Nov06, on the eve of the midterm elections, Senator Harry Reid pulled a political stunt by invoking a rarely used procedure rule to order the doors of the Senate closed so that he and other Democrats could DEMAND that the report be released. They claimed the White House was blocking the so-called Phase II report to cover up their pre-war statements about Iraq intelligence. Low and behold a few days later, Democrats take control of the Senate, and almost a year and a half later…the Democrats still haven’t released their report; a report which is exactly what this allegedly independent investigation says has never been investigated
2) the allegedly independent investigation we have here is claiming that no investigation has been done into Administration statements before the war re Iraq intel, but on the very same PAGE that they make this false statement, they cite numerous other investigations which did in fact compare pre-war statements with post-war intelligence assessments
3) the “report” assumes guilt and assumes deception on the part of the Bush Administration while assuming innocents and naivety on the part of members of Congress (of particular importance as many of these people seek to be President themselves). This opposing assumption is based on party or political orientation and not on fact or the presumption of innocence, and that dichotomy extinguishes and vestigial premise of unbiased investigation.
But why on earth would Soros and his following ever bother with mere facts when the accusations, even discredited as they are, whip up said followers? And of course let’s consider that AP quite willingly posted this ‘study’ as some kind of documented fact.
As Michelle [7] says:
You would think by now that the MSM would try to spare itself some embarrassment and at least do a cursory Google search before casting the researchers as neutral, reliable, disinterested parties. But noooo. They dutifully published these transparent moonbat briefs for impeachment without disclosing the “nonprofit journalism organizations'” ties to BDS sugar daddy George Soros.
That’s what laughingly passes for ‘fairness’ at the leftist press, these days.
Aces has a lot in the way of reax around the sphere, too.
Addendum: (David L)
Look at the bright side, if George Bush lied, he is not alone. lawhawk, A Blog for All [8], lists some of George’s company:
After all, how many of these so-called lies were repeated ad nauseum by the likes of President Bill Clinton, First Lady/Senator Hillary Clinton, Sec. State Albright, National Security Advisor Sandy Berger, Sen. Jay Rockefeller, Sen. John Kerry, Sen. John Edwards [9]Business-Should-Not-Fear-Edwards Jan-08
, and all the rest of the Democrats during the 1990s? It only came after 2003 that people realized that the CIA intel about the Iraqi WMD programs was found to be incorrect.
Video:
[wp_youtube]ePb6H-j51xE[/wp_youtube]
Hat Tip: Byran: Hot Air [10].